Sapphire Princess, one of the world's largest and most luxurious cruise liners, will have to berth at the Kwai Chung container terminal when it arrives for a visit in April next year. The makeshift arrangement has been put in place after the water off Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong's only berthing facility for passenger liners, was found to be not deep enough to accommodate the 113,000-tonne vessel. The tourism industry says the embarrassing reception Hong Kong is giving to the Sapphire Princess shows the city badly needs new berthing facilities, otherwise it will miss out on visits by a new generation of super cruise liners. Richard Willis, managing director of P&O Travel, the agent for the Sapphire Princess in Hong Kong, said the Tourism Commission had helped arrange for the luxury cruise ship to berth at Terminal 5, operated by Modern Terminals. The only other option would be to anchor the vessel out at sea, he said. The Sapphire Princess, due to be launched in May as a sister ship to the Diamond Princess, can carry 2,670 passengers and 1,200 crew. It will stop over in Hong Kong on April 2 next year for one day en route to other Southeast Asian destinations. Legislator Howard Young, who represents the tourism industry, said although it set a good precedent for other cruise ships to visit Hong Kong, berthing the vessel at the container terminal was not ideal. He said while it was the destination, not the port, that most attracted cruise companies, in the long run Hong Kong needed a new terminal. 'It might be a one-off arrangement to allow a huge cruise ship to berth at the container terminal for one day this time. But there are other huge cruise liners that travel between Hong Kong and other destinations more frequently. They need a bigger terminal. Their passengers bring a lot of money to Hong Kong.' In March, the captain of the world's largest cruise liner, the Queen Mary 2, said one reason it would not come to Hong Kong on its maiden voyage was that Ocean Terminal was not deep enough. A plan to build a new cruise terminal at Kai Tak in southeast Kowloon has been put on hold after the Court of Final Appeal ruled this month that the government should stop reclamation in Victoria Harbour.
