The season’s first ship, Diamond Princess, with a capacity of 2670 passengers, docked at Port Chalmers early this morning.
Ninety-four cruise ships are expected throughout the season - down from 118 last year.
Port Otago commercial manager Craig Usher said the port was ready for the season, regardless of vessel numbers.
"Our preparation’s the same whether it’s 10 ships or 100 ships.
"We get better and better every year."
While there were ongoing roadworks along State Highway 88 between Dunedin and Port Chalmers to repair slips following flooding at the start of this month, Mr Usher was hopeful there would be minimal disruption.
"From a traffic perspective, we don’t really know until [today], but most of the slips have been cleaned up", he said.
"Trucking companies did a whole lot of collections on Saturday as well, just to ease the volume of collections this week and we’re releasing as much out on rail as possible", Mr Usher said.
The port was also prepared for protesters, following a series of anti-cruise ship demonstrations during last season.
"We expect protesters ... the challenge we had last year was they put themselves in harm’s way", Mr Usher said.
The port had installed new fencing around its land and had trained staff in dealing with protesters.
"Our main priority is to keep our people and our passengers safe and to keep protesters out of harm’s way."
Larnach Castle director Norcombe Barker said staff were treating the current season like any other.
"The number of cruise ships is down but I’m not sure the number of people is down as much.
"We’re not treating it any different."
Ahead of the season, the castle had focused on hiring and training staff and co-ordinating logistics with cruise ships.
It was "quite a bit of work for us", Mr Barker said.
Dunedin climate activist Bruce Mahalski confirmed there would be protests during the cruise ship season but declined to give any further details.
Last season’s protests had spread the message about the negative impact of cruise ships, he said.
"A lot more people around the country now know because of what we’ve been doing."
"The environmental impact [of cruise ships] is out of all proportion to their value to society - we see them as luxury emission."
Passengers from Diamond Princess were greeted by protesters as they arrived in Wellington at the weekend, telling them of the environmental impact from cruise ships.
Early this month, the Otago Regional Council announced 358 additional bus trips on the Port Chalmers route would run on 44 days during the season.
Last year, the route was plagued with long lines as people waited for buses to and from Port Chalmers, leaving secondary school students, morning commuters and locals stranded waiting for a bus.
