London landing stage well on the way in Tilbury

The London Cruise Terminal at Tilbury has been able to rebuild the landing stage at the same time as operating Marco Polo from the port. The 348m long floating stage will have a minimum draught of 10m at low tide with new fenders being installed alongside.

The benefit of the rebuild is that the it will be possible to use forklift trucks again so that the baggage can be handled by truck or conveyance. The safe working load will be about 7.5t per m2 according to Richard Exley, marine & cruise manager Port of Tilbury.

December is shaping up to be the busiest month with Black Watch and Marco Polo calling at the same time for three days. In this scenario the old baggage hall and the 1,300m2 railway station will be used.

In 2015 Crystal Cruises is visiting with one of the calls also being three days. The idea being to have a day of tourism, a turnaround day and a day of tourism for embarking passengers. The hope is to use the Thames Clipper as a shuttle/tender for the 50 minute boat ride into London for 200 passengers at a time at a cost of £25 (E32) a head roundtrip.

Exley explained this saves four hours’ steaming into the city for the ship’s captain. The luggage can then be dropped directly to the hotels via lorry or even using a separate boat although this has yet to be tried.