A return visit to the Scott’s Memorial chooks was top of the bucket list for two Noordam cruise ship passengers yesterday.
Chris Turner and Ann Wood, of Manchester, were among nearly 8000 cruise ship passengers to set foot in Dunedin during visits by four cruise ships at the weekend.
It was the pair’s fourth cruise to Dunedin, and while they both "loved" the city, yesterday they were content to stay in Port Chalmers and feed the "hens" which they met during a cruise last January, Ms Wood said.
"We wonder if they will all still be there — it has just been Christmas after all," she said, laughing.
While they did not recognise any of the chooks, the "perfect climate", which drew them away from the "horrible" English winter, was still there, she said.
Thousands of other passengers filled the city’s streets and shops on Saturday and yesterday.
Dunedin i-SITE visitor centre manager Louise van de Vlierd said she did not know if there had been two "double days" (when two cruise ships dock on the same day) in a row before.
On Saturday, Dawn Princess arrived in Dunedin at 7.20am with 1950 passengers, and the Maasdam arrived about an hour later with 1258 passengers.
Yesterday, Golden Princess arrived at 7.15am with 2624 passengers, and the Noordam came at 7.30am with 1918 visitors.
"It has been a fantastic cruise weekend," she said.
"The ships were full and certainly most passengers were getting off the ship and filling up the city’s tours."
Unseasonably cold weather did not deter passengers going on wildlife tours, but Larnach Castle proved particularly popular, she said.
January was a month of "double days".
On Wednesday, Europa 2 and Crystal Symphony will dock.
January 18 and 20 will also be double days, and the giant Ovation of the Seas will visit in between. Dunedin bus tour operator BookaTour’s Bex Hill said the effects of double-day visits were not being felt by all transport operators.
"Saturday was pitiful for us. I think we had seven and 14 people on different buses."
She believed more passengers might be on budgets this season.
On Saturday, Maasdam passenger Julie Alexander, of Central Victoria, waited outside Best Cafe while her husband Gavin joined 20 people inside buying fish and chips.
The Australian couple were making the most of the final stop on dry land before their 13-night trip, which started in Auckland, ended in Hobart.
"We thought we better have some fush ’n’ chups here," she said, mocking the Kiwi accent.
The Dunedin stop was the first time on the trip they had docked at the same time as another cruise ship. Dunedin was busy but it had been much busier on another trip with a stop in Santorini, Greece, where "we had five cruise ships in at a time and it was bedlam".
Dawn Princess passengers Wayne and Sonia Gibson, of Sydney, said they had planned to travel on the Taieri Gorge Railway on Saturday but cheaper tickets for independent travellers had sold out weeks ago so they missed out. The couple were unwilling to pay twice the price to book the train trip from the cruise ship.
The couple were impressed at the efficiency of the staff at the i-SITE visitor centre at Port Otago and decided to do a walking tour of central Dunedin instead.
"We wanted to do the tour to get a feel for the city," Mr Gibson said.
"It’s beautiful," Mrs Gibson said.
