Hong Kong’s former airport has been sitting idle in Kowloon Bay since 1998. The government of the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China have spent $1 Billion on converting the end of the runway into a passenger ship terminal.
The Mariner of the Seas is expected to be the first ship to call the terminal today.
The market for cruises is booming in Asia; just not Hong Kong. They already have a perfectly able passenger terminal (see my About/Contact/More Info section for a photo of me on top of the terminal). And outside of Star Cruises, there really aren’t that may callers throughout the season. There are 19 ships scheduled to call the new terminal in the next 12 months. Hardly a sizable volume.
photo via New York times from Lam Yik Fei for the International Herald Tribune