Ship to shore

BIG CRUISERS:When you think of cruises, Caribbean palm trees and Mediterranean ports may spring to mind. But Dublin? As cruise ships coming to Ireland get bigger; and the revenue they generate more promising, what do the passengers think of their Irish stopover? DEIRDRE MCQUILLANspends a day in Dublin port

THE SANDWICHES WERE on the Irish sea last night, arrived on the ferry at 5.30am and were loaded into stores by 6.30 this morning. We are at the mouth of our economy, a major gateway – people forget the scale of what is happening at Dublin Port,” says chief financial officer Michael Sheary. The increasing number of visiting cruise liners, a phenomenon highlighting the port’s other role of facilitating tourism, adds to the trade activity.

We meet in the Port Centre’s fifth-floor office, with panoramic views of Dublin bay, for a preliminary briefing on port trade. Below us a container yard is about a quarter full of new cars. I comment on its emptiness. “At the height of the boom there’d be 150,000 vehicles unloading per annum, now it’s more like 50,000. But even with the slowdown we are still running at over 90 per cent of the peak 2007 volumes,” he says. Trade growth at conservative estimates is expected to double in volume by 2040.

The figures speak for themselves, the buzz words in the business being RoRo and LoLo. Up to seven kilometres of RoRo trucks (roll on, roll off) are discharged in the early hours of every morning off the ferries and represent more than 50 per cent of the port’s annual €67 million business. At present the cruise business, worth €700,000 annually, represents only a fraction of that.

You get a feel for how busy the port is, listening to discussions about Irish peat going to The Netherlands and Scandinavia, tons of zinc arriving by rail from Navan’s Tara Mines (the largest zinc mine in Europe) and exports of Coca-Cola concentrate coming on a direct rail service from Ballina to Dublin Port four or five times a week. Meanwhile LoLo (load on, load off), container shipments come and go from further afield.

Towering over passenger ferries and the docklands buildings are the glamorous high-rise cruise ships arriving in Dublin from all over the world. Immense vessels, some nine storeys high, stacked with swimming pools, shops, casinos and cinemas, are becoming a more frequent sight in the bay.

It’s part of a worldwide trend. Cruise-ship tourism is the fastest-growing sector in global tourism and the number of vessels visiting Dublin has grown from 27 liners in 1994 to 86 in 2010. Many come from afar; a Japanese cruise ship docked in Dublin recently on a world trip, its 800 guests paying on average $35,000 for the 109-day voyage.

“Cruising is travel’s big secret,” says Andrew Campbell-Edie of Royal Caribbean, a US company that owns some of the world’s biggest liners. “They have become more affordable and people like the fact that there is a different port every day.”

These maritime tower blocks that make their stately entrance into Dublin bay with hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people on board generate significant business for the capital. Cruise visitor numbers to Dublin this summer will top 160,000 with a value to the economy of €25 million and it’s a business that Dublin Port is keen to build.

“Ships are getting larger and bigger,” says Brenda Daly of Dublin Port. “We need a long quayside space and scarcity is not so much about land as quayside berthage.”

The big-money earners are “turnaround” cruises, where voyages start and end at the same terminal, involving lucrative bed nights, baggage and passenger handling, along with food and fuel supplies. At present most of the liners coming to Dublin are “port of call” visits, sailing at night and arriving at a different port each day.

The first turnaround at Dublin Port, according to Tom Maher, a Dublin cruise broker, was the educational Augustinian Cruise in 1972, a Russian vessel with dormitories, cabins and classrooms on board.

It’s a far cry from the Seven Seas Voyager which docked at Ocean Pier in Dublin last week – a luxury 12 deck six-star cruise ship on its maiden Celtic Charms voyage, which took its 700 well-heeled guests (paying on average €4,000 per person) on a 10-day round trip from Southampton to Rosyth, Inverness, Kirkwall in Scotland and on to to Belfast, Holyhead, Dublin, Cork and Jersey. The 42,000-tonne vessel, built in Italy in 2003, boasts “ocean view” suites, swimming pools, Cordon Bleu restaurants, a Canyon Ranch spa, putting greens, butler service, a theatre, libraries and shops.

“Some of these ships are like floating towns,” says Irish Times travel writer Joan Scales, who is quick to point out that not all are so expensive. “With the popularity of cruising growing, prices have come down and you can get a western Mediterranean cruise with Royal Caribbean, for example, for around €1,000 for flight and food.”

Outside the ship, buses and taxis shuttle guests (mostly from the US, but also from the UK, Australia, China, Russia and Mexico), to and from the city. Choices on their Dublin shore excursion programme include tours of the city and the Guinness Storehouse, visits to Glendalough and Powerscourt, and a baking lesson in Ashford.

Brian and Marilyn Baxter from Melbourne, Australia love St Patrick’s Cathedral. Ruth and Mickey Sinnott from Los Angeles adore Trinity College and think Dublin looks “fabulous” with all its hanging baskets.

Others, such as George and Pat Farley from Henderson, Nevada, who came hiking here 10 years ago, think the proximity of the port to the city centre is a great advantage. Helayne Brand from Florida, heading off to buy some Belleek china, was expecting to see a “much older looking city” and doesn’t mind the weather. “I’m happy that it’s cool here,” she says.

Cruise veteran and self-confessed architectural buff Bobbi Pinkert from Chicago, on her first visit to Dublin, is struck by the “wonderful” blend of old and new buildings. “You have beautiful bridges and the people are lovely,” she says.

So what attracts her to cruising? “You only have to unpack once. You get to see the highlights of a city and come back to your room, with lots to do on board, so it is an easy life. What’s important is the itinerary and knowing a really good ship. Dublin is the biggest city on this trip so you go from very big ports like Belfast to tiny ones like Holyhead and if I were driving or flying I couldn’t do that.”

An additional 17 cruise ships will visit Dublin in September and a further 65 are already scheduled for 2012. With so much activity on all fronts, the port is feeling the pressure to expand. It is currently engaged with a 30-year master plan, which is due to be published in November, part of which will include proposals for the cruise-line industry and plans for closer integration with the city.

Dublin Port may be the mouth of the economy, as Michael Sheary argues, but how can it handle larger trade volumes efficiently, competitively and sustainably? Those are, one might say, the quay questions it has to face as Dublin becomes a more popular cruise destination.