Big, bloated, floating buffet tables that dump thousands of passengers into our ports for a few hours and then drift off without so much as a hangi or a scoop of chips? Yeah, we’re talking about cruise ships—and good news, eN-Zed: fewer of them are coming.
The Bay of Islands, a place of stunning natural beauty and rich cultural history, is bracing for a “sobering” drop in cruise ship visits. Just 47 ships are scheduled for the 2025/2026 season, nearly half of the 92 we saw at the peak. And if you listen closely, you might just hear a big fat sigh of relief from the locals and the environment alike.
Let’s be honest: cruise ships are just big fat greedy pigs. They guzzle fuel, clog the ports, flood the footpaths with passengers who spend their tourism dollars on board the ship, not in the eN-Zed economy. These tourists don’t stay in a local B&B and they don’t buy bacon and egg pies from the BP. They probably don’t even pop into the dairy for a two-scoop boysenberry ice cram and therefore they can’t really say they even visited eN-Zed, right?
They’re off again before you’ve even finished your flat white and 2 slices of lolly cake.
Biofouling? More like bio-boring.
One of the reasons cruise ship numbers are down is tougher rules on biofouling; foreign marine hitchhikers like algae and barnacles that cruise ships can carry from port to port. Good on us for protecting our pauas and crayfish. If a few ships don’t want to clean their bottoms properly before pulling into Paihia, that’s their skanky problem. I’ll take a clean harbour over a crowded wharf and a skanky bottom any day.
So who should be coming?
We love visitors, but let’s make tourism a good thing and not a bad one. Look at Venice and Barcelona to see what I mean. Give us the couple from Germany renting a camper van for 6 weeks, buying a couple of steak and onion pies in Invercargill and cheese rolls in Balclutha. Give us the Aussie family road-tripping through the West Coast, staying in locally owned motels and spending their evenings at the RSA. Give us the free-spirited bungee-jumping, fish & chip chasing backpackers, the curious souls who stay a while and really connect with us and our place.
These are the tourists who:
- Support small, local businesses (mmm, fish & chips at the beach)
- Respect the land and leave it better than they found it
- Stick around long enough to understand that “sweet as” doesn’t need a second part
Bottom line?
Let the cruise industry call it a “downturn.” We call it a step in the right direction – up.
So here’s to fewer cruise ships and better tourism. Here’s to cleaner oceans, clearer streets, and a bit more peace and quiet in Paihia. And who said pies? (Do you remember the old days when there were mouth-burningly hot apple pies? Pfft, who needs fancy beef Wellingtons when you can have a seafood chowder pie?
eN-Zed 