Cruise veteran Stuart Barnes backs Port Kembla as third cruise terminal as new advisory panel forms

Stuart Barnes, a veteran of the cruise ship industry, believes Port Kembla would be the ideal location for NSW’s third cruise ship terminal, as considerations begin for the next port.

The Destination Wollongong projects manager welcomed the formation by the State Government of a panel of cruise and tourism industry experts, which is tasked with identifying a new terminal to help NSW maintain and grow its market share of Australia’s multi-billion dollar cruise industry.

With Sydney Harbour nearing capacity and NSW’s 2023-24 season up 60.4 per cent from the previous financial year, Port Kembla is being supported by many as a possible permanent terminal where passengers could begin and end their cruises.

Stuart said while it was still early in the process, many on the Cruising Industry Advisory Panel already had a strong understanding of Port Kembla’s potential.

That included members from Royal Caribbean, with four of its ships previously visiting the port, and Australian Cruise Association and the international Cruise Liners Industry Association, which Destination Wollongong had remained engaged with.

“We can only hope that they look at Port Kembla in a favourable light,” he said.

Stuart’s history with cruise ships is long, having first come to Australia working on the P&O cruise ship Sea Princess, along with working on the visiting P&O ships Canberra and Oriana.

“I got sent to Sydney, so my first sight of the Opera House was waking up looking out of my porthole, and there was the Opera House,” he said.

“I spent a couple of years on board, and met a beautiful redheaded Australian dancer.”

He said they got engaged aboard the ship, but when it was set to return to the Mediterranean, he was expected to continue with it, while Annie remained in Australia.

“So I got off the ship, which was a bit of a Love Boat, I guess. Annie and I celebrated our 42nd wedding anniversary this year,” he said.

“The bizarre nature of the story is that we have two children, a boy and a girl, and both were dancers.”

He said both children secured jobs with Carnival Cruise Line as dancers – their son flying to Miami to board a ship a month after his HSC and spending 13 years working for Carnival.

“He’s just come home with his wife and baby to take the job as director of entertainment for P&O cruises, which was the cruise line that I started working on,” he said.

“Life goes full circle.”

Their daughter danced for 10 years with Carnival, met her wife in Miami, and now teaches dance there.

Both children gave Stuart and Annie grandsons earlier this year.

By 2016, having finished working for Wollongong Entertainment Centre and with cruise ships beginning to arrive in the region, he was asked by Destination Wollongong to help.

“We looked after seven ships on a visit day,” he said.

“Ports entertain cruise ships in two ways. One is for day visits, where they come in in the morning and have a look around and go on tours and then get back on the ship and off they go to the next port.

“That’s what we’ve done so far.”

He said passengers were looked after around the city by ambassadors, consisting of a group of about 150 volunteers.

“We had seven successful visits, each of them earning about $800,000 a day in economic benefit for the city,” he said.

“And we got ourselves a nickname of the friendly port, mainly due to our ambassadors.”

However, COVID put an end to it all.

Stuart said in the background, Destination Wollongong had been supporting consideration of Port Kembla as a turnaround port instead, where cruises would begin and end.

He said while it would be a different type of holiday experience for passengers compared to day visitors, he had uncovered cruise data revealing 60 per cent of guests at the turnaround port came in the day before or stayed the night after their cruise.

“Destination Wollongong would encourage them to come in two or three days before and spend a bit of relaxing time before they got on their ship,” he said.

“What that needs, of course, is more hotel rooms.”

He said that was part of their recommendations for Wollongong City Council’s Tourism Accommodation Review Strategy.

He said while council had approved hotel development applications, developers and investors were now looking at whether it was viable to start construction.

“We are at the cusp with major events and conferencing, where we’ve got to prove we can fill those hotel rooms,” he said.

“Being a turnaround port, if we were to be at Port Kembla, it would affect that consideration enormously.”

He said the beauty of Port Kembla was it had the space and was at the end of a train line.

“What Sydney has proven is that over 70 per cent of the passengers are joining their cruise by train,” he said.

“The same thing can happen at Port Kembla.

“It’s a huge change from when I was working at Circular Quay back in the late 70s where everybody got dropped off by car.”

He said establishing that railway link was among the key needs, along with having good areas for luggage collection, facilities to embark easily and space for supplies.

“The biggest ships are bringing up to 5000 passengers and also saying goodbye to 5000 passengers, all within about five hours,” he said.

“A ship earns nothing when it’s in port, so the cruise lines want them in and getting them supplied efficiently with food, drink, replacement equipment and fuel.”

He said other locations mentioned included Eden, Newcastle, Yamba and other considerations within Sydney.

“It would put Wollongong on the map from a tourism and cruise perspective,” he said.

“I think as a marketing activity, it’s worth its weight in gold.”