The geometry of Kai Tak's old runway determined everything about the cruise terminal. The strip angles out into Kowloon Bay at a precise bearing, and the terminal built upon it follows that logic to its logical conclusion — two berths capable of handling vessels up to 360 meters long, pointing outward toward open water. Foster + Partners, the British firm that won the international design competition, leaned into the runway's linearity rather than fighting it. The result is a building of clean, sweeping lines: a vast undulating roof hovering over a 70-meter interior that can be converted from a passenger processing hall into a concert venue or exhibition space. The Hong Kong government and construction consortium Dragages Hong Kong signed the design-and-build contract in May 2010, and the first berth opened in mid-2013. The Mariner of the Seas was the first cruise ship to dock, on 12 June 2013.

By the mid-2000s, Hong Kong's existing cruise facility at Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui was straining at the seams. Berth utilization had climbed from 71% in 2003 to 76% — and between 2001 and 2005, eleven cruise vessels had been forced to anchor mid-stream or tie up at container terminals because Ocean Terminal simply could not accommodate them. The government's Secretary for Economic Development at the time, Stephen Ip, identified the shortfall clearly: Hong Kong needed additional berths by 2009, and more beyond 2015 to capture the growth of the regional cruise market. The Kai Tak site offered something no other location could: deep water, clear maneuvering room, and an approach that frames the harbor panorama. The development cost, excluding commercial facilities, ran to approximately HK$2.4 billion.

The deliberate flexibility of Foster + Partners' design reflects a practical reality: cruise ships are not in port all year round. Rather than building a facility that sits empty between sailings, the architects created an interior that serves multiple purposes. The 70-meter central hall supports performances, exhibitions, and trade events, with restaurants and shops active year-round. The sustainable design incorporates energy-saving systems and renewable power generation, along with recycled rainwater used for cooling — a forward-looking choice for a building on the water. Roughly 80% of calls at the terminal have been 'homeporting' calls, meaning ships are based here for a season rather than simply stopping. The first major homeport season was the Voyager of the Seas, resident at Kai Tak from June to October 2015.

Since its 2013 opening, the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal has welcomed ships from across the spectrum of global cruise lines: Cunard and Royal Caribbean, Costa and Silversea, the American Semester at Sea program and the venerable Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines. The range reflects Hong Kong's position at the intersection of Asia's booming cruise market and the international circuits of the world's great ocean liners. The terminal can handle up to 8,400 passengers at peak design load — and 1,200 crew — simultaneously embarking and disembarking. Where pilots once flinched at rooftops rising to meet them, passengers now find the harbor spreading open on three sides, the hills of Kowloon behind them and the towers of Central ahead.

Above the terminal, accessible by public escalator, is a rooftop park — a long green promenade that looks back down the full length of what was the runway. Stand there on a clear day and you can trace the original alignment, now buried under new roads and development, pointing back toward the hills the old pilots used as their reference. The park has become one of Kowloon's best viewpoints, a quiet strip of grass and steps above a building that hums with arriving and departing ships. It is a place where the memory of one kind of arrival — white-knuckled, low and fast — gives way to a completely different kind: slow, enormous, gliding in from open sea with the entire harbor laid out as a welcome.