I agree with MEC Alan Winde and Councillor Grant Pascoe that the decision by Home Affairs to disallow the disembarking of cruise liners under 200 metres at the V&A Waterfront is unacceptable, especially since it appears to have been a decision based on narrow bureaucratic interests and taken after many years of precedence.
The Queen Mary 2 is the largest cruise liner ever to enter Cape Town, and at 345 metres she is way too long to fit into the Waterfront anyway. But having been invited aboard the last time she was in Cape Town, berthed on the Eastern Mole, I have seen the conditions under which passengers (many of whom are very old) are expected to embark and disembark, picking their way over railway lines and stepping across potholes and around bollards. It is a disgrace that one of the world’s most beautiful ports expects some of the world’s wealthiest travellers to accept these conditions.
Read the full statement at Accelerate Cape Town
Listen to the Cape Talk podcast here
Previous articles:
1. Cruise facilities in Cape Town: Experiences of a traveller
2. Cruise Terminal: How does Cape Town rate as a Homeport?
3. Casino boost for Cape Town Cruise Terminal?
Image courtesy of flxy at flickr.com