Pacific Dawn has become the largest cruise ship to sail under Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge. The P&O Cruises’ 47.6 metre high Pacific Dawn passed under the West Gate Bridge which has a clearance of 50.1 metres before berthing at Victoria Dock, next to Melbourne’s Docklands today morning. The 2000 guests onboard Pacific Dawn can enjoy great access to the city during their two day stay for the Melbourne Cup.

Currently, four cruise ships are in Melbourne for the cup and P&Os 70,825-tonne Pacific Dawn is one of them. P&O Cruises’ Pacific Pearl, Pacific Jewel are docked at Station Pier along with Carnival Spirit, from P&O’s sister cruise line Carnival Cruise Line.

The 8000 guests aboard these four cruise ships represent almost 8 per cent of total attendees at the Melbourne Cup. In a release shared with Cruise Passenger, its said that the four ship visit will bring more than $7 million into the economy in passenger and crew expenditure along with port fees, with the ships spending 12 days in Melbourne.