Grand Cayman - Bad weather hits cruise visitors

Ally · 03-27-2008, 04:40 AM

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As the peak cruise season draws to a close, two of the potentially busiest days in March at Grand Cayman’s premier tourist attraction have been disrupted by bad weather.

On Tuesday, 18 March, winds were so strong they forced the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) to invoke the Port Authority Law 1999 to close the Sand Bar and force the cancellation of Stingray City trips.

Then weather, which blew in during the afternoon on Easter Monday, again forced the closure of the Sand Bar on Tuesday, 25 March, this time along with the diversion of visiting cruise ships from George Town to Spotts.

On the day of the first weather-related problems, a potential 14,000 visitors were on board the five vessels scheduled to dock.

This Tuesday, the six cruise ships scheduled in port, Norwegian Majesty, Carnival Legend, Costa Mediterranea, Disney Magic, Century and Grand Princess, had a total passenger capacity of just over 13,500.

Although a large number of visitors were able to come ashore at Spotts on 25 March, their visits were considerably curtailed. According to the Port Authority schedule, four of the vessels were due to stay until 5:00 pm; the other two would normally have left at 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm respectively.

However, when Cayman Net News visited Spotts shortly after midday, only three cruise ships were at anchor and they were clearly in the process of re-boarding.

The impact of bad weather on cruise arrivals in Grand Cayman has attracted some comments on the influential Cruisecritic.com website. In addition to postings relating to general concerns about weather disrupting future travel plans, one contributor criticised poor organisation on board one of the cruise ships in port on 18 March. Despite this, visitors appear to remain enthusiastic about visiting Grand Cayman and generally accept the need to close Stingray City on safety grounds during bad weather.

However, despite this support, the disruption could represent a further factor in the overall ongoing decline in cruise business and comes hard on the heels of news that the Princess cruise line is moving two vessels away from the Caribbean. Ironically, Grand Princess, which will cease to visit Grand Cayman after 8 April, was one of the vessels caught by the weather on both days.

Although, at the time of going to press, the Department of Tourism (DoT) had still not released arrival figures for February 2008, a projection based on the Port Authority website figures, which in many cases are guideline data not actual arrivals, suggests that just over 182,000 cruise shippers could have landed from the 72 vessels listed as docking off George Town during the month.

Allowing for the fact that, based on a previously published January estimate, this figure is likely to be on the optimistic side, it represents another drop in arrivals – this time by around 21,000 or just over 10 percent.

If correct, this figure again shows a fall in what were, until March 2007, steadily increasing arrival figures and could produce the lowest February arrival figure since 2003.

Projections for March, again using the uncorrected Port Authority figures, show the maximum number of cruise ship visitors arriving in Cayman waters to be just under 216,000. How many of them will actually step ashore is unknown and, according to DoT, no data is compiled that might indicate how many cruise shippers choose to stay on board during visits.

Again, allowing for the fact that this figure is probably optimistic and, whatever the final figure, should represent a comparatively small percentage drop over 2007, this is the lowest March arrival figure since 2003. It also represents a massive fall off in arrivals over 2005 and 2006 when over a quarter of a million (250,000) arrived during the month of March.

The drop in the first month of 2008, this time from official DoT figures, was just over 13 percent based on January 2007.

With the last month of what is normally the busiest part of the cruise year drawing to a close, this hardly comes as good news to people who rely on cruise business for a living.

Quite what impact this may have on cruise-dependent watersports businesses is unclear but one manager, who asked not to be named, said that the first three months of the year tended to be critical. “It is very difficult to make up shortfalls from the winter season during the following months. We are talking about a period from mid-April, when cruise arrivals fall from a maximum of six or seven a day to just six or seven a week and stay that way for the next six months,” they explained.

Bad weather hits cruise visitors