VICTORIA Police's bomb response unit declared Station Pier safe on Friday afternoon after the Spirit of Tasmania and the MS Noordam were evacuated when sniffer dogs responded to a suspicious scent.

Operators say their focus is to resume pier operations and make sure all cruise passengers return to their ships. "It's really about getting the passengers on board the vessel," Port of Melbourne Corporation chief executive Nick Easy told AAP. "It was a precautionary measure that was taken and this is the best possible outcome," During the bomb scare, truck drivers who did not want to be named said the suspicious package was in a load of groceries being delivered to the MS Noordam. The groceries were unloaded on a pallet on the docks, and a sniffer dog became alerted by a small box on one of the pallets. A second dog was brought in to check and it raised an alert for the same box. The load of groceries would have been packed several days ago, the drivers said. "We're just a few of the drivers that drop off the boxes and take the empty ones back," a driver told AAP. "The dogs sniffed it out and that was it ... the siren went off and we evacuated." Passengers said the evacuation went smoothly, but some were concerned about their safety. American Marc Wichman had disembarked MS Noordam with his great-nephew Nick before the pier was evacuated. "We have been told that there is a bomb threat on the ship that we're on," Mr Wichman told AAP. Dorothy Stein, from Scotland, told AAP: "I think it is a little bit of a worry in view of what has happened in Paris." The Spirit of Tasmania and the MS Noordam were due to depart at 5.30pm before the evacuation was ordered.