The biggest ship to visit New Zealand waters will cruise into a spending squall when it docks in Auckland tomorrow.
Protest group Stop Stealing our Harbour has seized upon differences between Statistics New Zealand and the New Zealand Cruise Association on how much ship visitors spend when coming to the country's biggest city.
The group is fighting Auckland Council plans to install "mooring dolphins" off Queens Wharf, which would allow big cruise ships like Ovation of the Seas to berth rather than anchor in the harbour with passengers and crew forced to take tenders to shore.
The 347m long Ovation of the Seas, which visited New Zealand last summer, is back in Kiwi waters and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow. The $10 million mooring dolphin structures would be 80m-85m, linked to the end of the wharf by a gangway, and are scheduled to be in place by the 2019/20 cruise season.
Stop Stealing Our Harbour's Michael Goldwater earlier this month questioned the methodology behind estimates of the economic contribution that cruise ships bring to the city.