The 2036/37 Theoretical Cruise Timetable

A companion to Cruisey's Theoretical 2036/37 Cruise Calendar analysis, which sets out the model this timetable is built from.

What this is

Most cruise "targets" are a single number with nothing underneath. This is the opposite: 4,000 individual modelled cruise calls, dated across a full year — 1 July 2036 to 30 June 2037 — port by port, ship by ship, day by day. It exists to make the 4,000 ambition tangible, and to stress-test it. A number you can walk through call by call is a plan; a number you can't is a slogan.

It pairs with our capacity analysis, which found that 4,000 does not fit New Zealand's current berths — it caps around 3,351 today, and reaches about 3,935 only if every consented berth is built and the season is flattened. So read this timetable as the built-out target scenario: what a successful 2036 looks like after the infrastructure programme is delivered, not what today's ports could absorb.

The year in one screen

Of the 4,000, 733 carry an Antarctic-programme tag and 65 a world-cruise tag — the growth this strategy expects in the deep south and on global itineraries.

Where the ships come from — the honesty table

This is the part that matters most, because it is what separates a scenario from a fabrication. Every one of the 4,000 calls is assigned to a named vessel, and every vessel is tagged by what it actually is:

The port network across the year

How the 4,000 calls distribute across the 2036 destination network. "Passenger-port capacity" is the modelled passenger throughput at that port across the year — a planning approximation for traffic and economic modelling, not a count of actual people.

Note the shape this produces: the four main gateways take about a third of calls, and two-thirds land across the regional and boutique network — the dispersal the whole 2036 strategy is built to achieve.

A sample week: winter, July 2036

Winter calls are deliberately confined to four northern ports — Auckland, Bay of Islands, Whangārei/Northport and Tauranga. This is the focused ~5% winter programme, not a national year-round operation. A sample of the opening days:

A sample day: peak, 2 February 2037

A single peak day shows the full network live at once — gateways, regional ports, Fiordland scenic cruising and an Antarctic-programme call in the south, all on one date:

That is nine ports live on one summer day. Multiply across the peak and the 2,600-call peak season becomes physically legible — which is exactly where our capacity analysis found the strain, at single-berth ports in the four peak months.

The full dataset

The highlights above are drawn from the complete dataset: all 4,000 dated calls, the planning summary, the full vessel register with capacity sources, and the method and disclaimer sheet. We publish in full for the same reason we publish everything — a scenario you can pull apart is worth more than a headline you have to take on trust.

Open the full interactive timetable → to browse all 4,000 calls live on this site: filter by port, month, cruise line, call type and vessel basis, sort any column, and export the complete dataset — or any filtered view — to CSV with a single click.

Method, and the limits of this timetable

From the workbook's own disclaimer sheet, reproduced here so the caveats travel with the data.

• Status. A theoretical Cruisey case study. No row is an actual booking, published itinerary, port allocation or cruise-line commitment.
• Port visit. One vessel at one New Zealand port or approved cruise destination on one calendar day. Fiordland scenic entries are identified separately.
• Vessels. Current ships, publicly announced ships and orders, and explicitly fictional Cruisey concept vessels are mixed. Check the vessel basis before quoting any ship as real.
• Times. Arrival and departure times are synthetic. They resemble cruise operations but have not been checked against tides, berths, pilotage, daylight, channel limits or voyage-speed feasibility.
• Port feasibility. Inclusion is strategic, not technical approval. Every call would require future harbourmaster, port, infrastructure, biosecurity, border, weather and community validation.
• Capacity. Passenger and crew figures are planning approximations for traffic and economic modelling, not forecasts of actual persons aboard.
• Use. Suitable for scenario planning, advocacy, capacity testing and illustrating the 4,000-plus ambition. Not suitable for passenger travel planning or operational movement control.