Just up the road from Sydney, Newcastle has the capabilities to host two ships at the same time, and expects 10 transit calls this coming season.

The port has done turnarounds for P&O Australia in the past, but with the line selling a ship, Royal Caribbean has become the port’s biggest customer.     

The Celebrity Solstice is also scheduled to call in 2014, and the port has been working on a mobile app for cruise passengers.

“Newcastle’s cruise stakeholders are developing a cruise industry specific mobile web application for Newcastle … it is essentially a cruise arrival guide available in electronic form on the smart phone,” explained David Brown, Newcastle Port Corporation. “It will list a variety of activities and things to do for cruise passengers during their visit to Newcastle.

Much further north, in Brisbane, combined traffic at two berthing locations is expected to reach some 73 ships, for a total of 146,000 passengers, according to port officials.

In Queensland, Australian developer Bob Ell is planning to build a new $200+ million cruise terminal in Gold Coast, Australia, also known as Surfer’s Paradise, according to local reports. The new facility would include three berths, a number of hotels, casino, water park, surf club and yacht marina.

The local surfing community is less than happy about the proposed project and has spoken out in local media.

See the full Asian/Australian market report in Cruise Industry News’ special Asia issue for the Cruise Shipping Asia-Pacific conference in Singapore Sept. 17 to 18.