The Anthem of the Seas is moved into the Port of Napier, tugs Kaweka on bow and Te Mata on stern, ahead of a big day in Napier on Friday. Photo / Peter Rutter
The Anthem of the Seas is moved into the Port of Napier, tugs Kaweka on bow and Te Mata on stern, ahead of a big day in Napier on Friday. Photo / Peter Rutter
The Napier CBD had one of its busiest days of the summer when about 4900 Anthem of the Seas passengers hit town on Friday.
Arriving from Picton, the Royal Caribbean liner - sister-ship to Ovation of the Seas - berthed at 8.30am, and sailed for Tauranga at 4.30pm.
Passengers wereferried into town from the port by a fleet of 28 buses, filling the town centre for about four hours.
There was no street entertainment, but on a day where Hawke’s Bay had among the warmest temperatures in New Zealand (over 25C), it proved to be big business for retailers and the hospitality trade.
It came in contrast to Anthem’s last scheduled visit, cancelled on December 6 when a large swell at sea made it unsafe to berth at the port, resulting in a call for locals to support businesses facing significant losses with food stocked to cope with demand that did not eventuate.
Crowds in Emerson St, Napier, as visitors throng the city centre after the arrival of the Anthem of the Seas, with almost 5000 passengers. Photo / Doug Laing
By late morning on Friday, every shop in Emerson St, and much of Hastings, Market and Dalton Sts, was trading, with up to 30 people in some shops at a time, and more in cafes and at tables in the street.
Joe Taylor, managing at the Clive Square Pub (aka the Provincial Hotel), said it was the busiest day since the bar reopened at the western end of the golden mile five weeks ago.
But he also hadn’t seen such brisk cruise ship trade in more than 20 years of business in and around the Emerson St precinct, he said.
Also in the Clive Square-Dalton St quarter, the more distant part of the cruise-goers city walk in Napier, Jo Mullooly, at the counter of Handmade in the Bay, said it was “busier than I’ve seen in a longtime.”
At one stage there could have been 30 people in the shop, which, run by proprietor Maree Copper, trades on behalf of more than 100 Hawke’s Bay craftspeople.
Veteran menswear retailer Denis Jeffery said customers were in the shop throughout the day.
“They’ve come from everywhere,” he said. “Small business owners running their own shops will be happy.”
The Art Deco Trust, which moved house between seasons from one end of the shopping centre to the other, from the corner of Tennyson and Herschell streets to Memorial Square, said all the trust’s bus tours and art deco walks were booked out.
Art Deco walks were booked out as passengers from the Anthem of the Seas thronged the Napier CBD on Friday. Photo / Doug Laing.
“It was just a sea of people,” said trust general manager Jeremy Smith, also commenting on the numbers that had spread further than the immediate city precinct.
Five liners are due at the port in the next week, including two on Tuesday - the Seabourn Quest, which takes up to 450 passengers, and the Norwegian Spirit (1996 passengers).
Anthem of the Seas, a regular visitor, returns, en route from Wellington to Auckland, on February 22, one of three liners berthing at Napier during the four days of the Art Deco Festival (February 19-22).
It will make its last stop of the season on March 27, arriving from Tauranga and heading for Wellington.
The buses and the last of the passengers heading back to the Anthem of the Seas after a few hours in a busy Napier CBD. Photo / Doug Laing.
They are among 60 cruise ship stops that were scheduled for Napier this season, significantly less than the record 89 in 2023-2024.
Further decline is expected next season, with just 52 stops expected, according to Napier Port’s schedule.
They will include Ovation of the Seas, a regular over the last nine years but missing from the list this season, while voyaging in the Indonesia and Singapore region.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, with more than 40 years in the region, working for the newspaper and its predecessor, Napier’s Daily Telegraph, reporting local, regional and national news.
