BLUE BALLS: A hail of balloons falls on traffic on Customhouse Quay.

A stunt in central Wellington this morning has been labelled idiotic and dangerous.

Two thousand five hundred air-filled balloons were released at 11.45am today from the InterContinental Hotel in Wellington and floated down in to traffic on Customhouse Quay.

The stunt was to celebrate the arrival of Radiance of the Seas, the first cruise ship to visit Wellington this season, but also to promote a new service called CruiseBubble.

CruiseBubble managing director Deborah DeNard said the service aimed to bypass cruise companies by using social media to advertise businesses directly to cruise passengers.

Cruise companies traditionally ignored local businesses, though she did want to eventually work with the companies.

CruiseBubble got permission to release the balloons from Wellington City Council, Police, and Airways New Zealand, she said.

Some had given the stunt a less-than-welcome reception.

''Some idiotic organisation had just released hundreds of blue balloons into traffic on Customhouse Quay,'' Simon McArthur wrote in Twitter.

Another tweeter, Dovil, wrote: ''Oh good, right above the ocean to give them maximum ability to wreck havoc on any marine life.''

And Steve Wells wrote on Twitter: ''So dangerous. Thousands of the things.''