Star Princess first up for Sydney
SYDNEY – Sydney will welcome the first megaliner of the cruise season tomorrow when Princess Cruises’ giant Star Princess enters Sydney Harbour.
Carrying 3700 passengers and crew, the 109,000-tonne Star Princess will berth at Circular Quay’s Overseas Passenger Terminal at 7am, concluding a 30-night Trans-Pacific voyage from San Francisco.
The spectacular megaliner – which features a glass-walled nightclub suspended over its back decks – will spend the day in Sydney before departing around 9pm for New Zealand as she embarks on another 30-night journey via the South Pacific and French Polynesia to Los Angeles.
The ship’s call is expected to inject more than $1 million into Sydney’s economy through passenger and crew spending, port fees and ship stores.
Star Princess – which last visited Sydney in 2004 – will hold the title of largest cruise ship to enter Sydney Harbour this season until her sister ship, the 116,000-tonne megaliner Diamond Princess, supercedes her when she arrives in Sydney on January 4, 2010.
Too big to fit under the Harbour Bridge, the 18-storey, 290-metre ship is equivalent to 96 Manly ferries and is more than twice the size of the legendary Titanic.
Ian Jarrett
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