Greater Victoria Harbour Authority

Cruise Tourism Partnership

Comment Complaint Compliment Suggestion

User ID	GVHA_UID13	Date	Sep 9, 2009	Action	None taken
On Friday, June 26, 2009 the "Golden Princess" was scheduled for a port stop in Victoria. Although the ship arrived, the ship was not docked, and none of the passengers had the opportunity to visit this much anticipated port. According to Princess Cruise, the port call was cancelled "due to strong winds present in the area that prevented the ship from safely entering the harbor". It appeared to have been a beautiful day, and in checking the weather history for that date, was clear, 65F, with maximum winds of 15 mph. Also, we believe that the harbor pilot was seen boarding the ship prior to the cancelling of the port call. We were wondering if your harbour master could confirm the weather conditions and the reason given for the ship not docking. We believe that there were several other cruise ships in port at this time.

Response from	Greg McAllister, King Bros	Date	Oct 1, 2009
the Golden Princess did not dock in Victoria on June 26th, due to high winds in the Port. This decision was made jointly by the Captain of the vessel in consultation with the local BC Coast Pilot who boarded the ship prior to attempting to dock. This decision is not taken lightly by anyone, but the safety of the passengers, crew and ship are of first priority to all involved. Winds on this particular evening were in excess of 20 knots and based on my memory, being on the dock, the winds increased significantly just prior to the Golden Princess making her way into the port area. One other ship was in port that day and it had docked earlier before the winds had increased to their unsatisfactory levels. I can understand that missing Victoria was disappointing, but under the circumstances, it was the safest approach to take on that particular day. I hope that this provides some additional information to you on this matter.