Hamilton’s shops will have to start opening on Sundays or the Ministry of Transport will divert cruise passengers elsewhere for on-shore fun, according to Minister Terry Lister.His warning came as he announced that a state-of-the-art new cruise ship, Norwegian Breakaway, will visit Bermuda for the 2013 season. The vessel, which is currently under construction in Germany, has a capacity of 4,000 passengers and will dock in Dockyard.It will replace Norwegian Star, which has a capacity of 2,348 passengers. The Breakaway will make 22 calls from New York during the 2013 season.During a press conference announcing the new ship, Mr Lister was pressed on the fact that cruise passengers arriving in Bermuda on Sundays and holidays travel to Hamilton, then find it is a ghost town.He replied that he plans to have end-of-season meetings with 14 different groups to discuss how to improve things for next season, and that is one of the topics on the agenda.“The things that I see, that bother me, are that on Sundays we send the ferry to Dockyard and in 22 minutes it moves 250 people into the City of Hamilton and it’s locked down,” said the Minister.“We do that all Sunday, and I don’t know why we do it. So we are going to work on that in the off-season and we are either going to get an agreement from the businesses that they will be open during this window, or they’ll say ‘no, we’re not going to do it’ and I will move the tourists to St George’s or move them somewhere else.“Maybe we’ll take them and organise beach experiences for them, take them up Ports Island or somewhere like that. I’m just naming that off the top of my head but those are the types of things that we’ll have to consider because to just keep doing things that make no sense is foolishness.”The announcement of the Norwegian Breakway’s visits to Bermuda came at the same time as a similar announcement in New York City by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She will depart from New York on Sundays and spend three full days in Bermuda as well as three full days at sea. The schedule for the visits runs from May 12, 2013 to October 6, 2013. Tickets will go on sale at travel agents on Monday and online on Friday.Norwegian Dawn, which holds 2,224 passengers, will continue her visits from Boston until 2018.Mr Lister said: “The Norwegian Breakaway will be Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest ship and it is a credit to Bermuda that Norwegian Cruise Line wishes to deploy the ship here for her inaugural season.“Bermuda’s cruise product is estimated to generate over $80 million to Bermuda’s economy in 2011 and approximately the same amount for 2012, including Government fees, cruise visitor and crew purchases while on the Island and shore excursions such as taxi and bus tours, water sport excursions and other excursions popular with cruise visitors.“For 2013, the Norwegian Breakaway alone will generate an additional $8 million more to Bermuda’s economy, as compared to the ship it replaces, the Norwegian Star. In total, the Breakaway will generate $21 million to our economy.”Critics have stated that cruise passengers spend less than air passengers, and Mr Lister was also quizzed over that issue yesterday. He observed that 60 percent of Bermuda’s visitors arrive by cruise ship, and they “spread money around” through taxi fares, visiting attractions and eating out.“What tends to happen is we compare apples and oranges and that just doesn’t make sense. If you take away the amount of money that the land passenger pays for his hotel on a daily basis and compare the actual spending, the numbers are about the same, and you can check that with the Government Department of Statistics,” he said.Mr Lister also addressed the issue of damage sustained to the Heritage Wharf pier in Dockyard, where the Norwegian Breakaway will dock during her visits. The pier cost taxpayers almost $60 million compared to the $39 million contract price, but sustained damage in the Category 1 Hurricane Igor a year ago.Government released a report last month summarising the damage and stressing that it would not disrupt ship schedules. However, it came under fire for failing to disclose the cost of the damage or who will pay for it.Asked for an update yesterday, Mr Lister said: “It’s all under warranty as I understand, so the insurance will pick up the cost. The actual amount is unknown at this point and we won’t really know that until we get the final estimates. The good news for us is that the damage is such that it can be repaired in the off season and there’s very little risk to the ship and to the passengers during the season.“As you know, we will be running right through until about mid-November and then from November to April we will get a few occasional callers but the off-season will be sufficiently long to allow us to do whatever work we need to do there.”Asked if taxpayers could be assured that no public money would be spent repairing the pier, he replied: “That is my thought. Now I may be wrong, but that is what I believe will be the case.”