The Carnival Sunrise arrived in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, today, marking the line’s first time back to Jamaica in 17 months, according to a press release.
The arrival also represents the reopening of cruising in Jamaica as it is the first cruise ship to call on a Jamaican port since the cruise industry paused operations in March 2020.
Carnival Sunrise’s leadership team joined local officials for a ceremonial plaque exchange to commemorate their return. Ocho Rios is among the featured ports on the ship’s five-day Caribbean cruise that departed PortMiami on August 14. “We are delighted to be the first cruise ship to return to Jamaica and to offer guests an opportunity to experience all of the country’s beauty,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. “On behalf of Carnival, I would like to personally thank the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Health and Wellness, and our partners for working with us to bring safe cruising back to Jamaica.”
“I am very pleased to announce that Jamaica has finally seen the return of cruise today with the arrival of Carnival Sunrise. We welcome this resumption as we know that thousands of Jamaicans depend on the cruise shipping industry, and it will have a positive impact on our economy overall,” added Tourism Minister Hon. Edmund Bartlett.
CRUISES have been hard hit by the outbreak of Coronavirus and yesterday MSC Meraviglia was rejected from two Caribbean ports amid fears that a crew member on board the MSC Cruises ship was sick.
Cruise ship MSC Meraviglia was turned away from two ports in the Caribbean on Tuesday. The rejection came amid fears of the spread of coronavirus. The MSC Meraviglia was denied permission to dock in Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Georgetown, Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.
Authorities were concerned the sickness was a result of coronavirus.
However, the cruise line claims his illness is down to common seasonal flu and insist no cases of coronavirus have been reported on any MSC ships.
MSC is “extremely disappointed” with the double rejection.
The ship is now sailing onward to Cozumel, Mexico, the next scheduled port of call.
The Jamaican Ministry of Health released a statement yesterday.
It stated: “A cruise line with over 4,500 passengers and over 1,600 crew members was today (Tuesday, February 25, 2020) denied access to the port of call in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.
“The vessel arrived at approximately 8:30 a.m. and upon inspection by the Port Health Officials, it was discovered that a crew member was placed in isolation on board.
“The crew member had a cough, fever and associated muscle pains with a travel history to a country of interest relating to the COVID-19.”
Dwayne Seymour, health minister of the Cayman Islands, also released a statement.
He said: “In an abundance of caution, in order to provide protection to the health and safety of the residents of the Cayman Islands, the government has denied permission for the cruise ship to call on Grand Cayman as previously scheduled.”
MSC have said that the sick crew member and all passengers onboard the Meraviglia had passed a health screening before boarding the ship at the weekend.
The cruise ship departed Miami on Sunday and was scheduled to complete a 15-day cruise of Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Mexico, Bahamas, Belize and Honduras, returning to Miami on March 8, according to an itinerary.
MSC said in a statement sent to Express.co.uk today: “MSC Cruises is extremely disappointed that Jamaican authorities yesterday delayed a decision for many hours to give our ship the necessary clearance to disembark guests, despite us having provided detailed medical records to the local health and national authorities ahead of its arrival as per normal protocol.
“Similarly, the decision taken overnight by the Grand Cayman authorities to refuse disembarkation at Georgetown was made without even reviewing the ship’s medical records, which show one single case of common seasonal flu (type A influenza) affecting one crew member with a travel history clearly showing no passages through territories either affected by COVID-19 (Coronavirus) or subject to any international health restrictions. In both instances, the ship was effectively turned away simply based on fears.
“MSC Meraviglia is currently at sea on her way to Cozumel, Mexico, her next scheduled port of call.
Last year, Dubrovnik received 742,000 passengers on 538 ships.FORT LAUDERDALE — Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald said a new agreement in Dubrovnik, Croatia, illustrates how fears about crowding in favourite tourist areas can be managed by the cruise industry.
Speaking as part of a CEO panel at the Seatrade Cruise Global convention here, Donald took the occasion to disclose that major cruise lines have agreed to coordinate their schedules this summer in Dubrovnik.
That could mean some ships arrive later or depart earlier to keep their time in port from coinciding, or it could mean moving some ships to arrive during the week rather than on weekends.
The walled Old City of Dubrovnik was named a Unesco World Heritage site in 1979, but Donald said its mayor requested a meeting with cruise officials because it had been threatened with delisting by Unesco.
Donald and other cruise officials met several times with mayor Mato Frankovic, most recently in January when an agreement was apparently reached.
“In the end, our guests don’t want to go to a place that’s overcrowded,” Donald said. “If the sites that everybody wants to see are being abused, our guests won’t go. It’s in our self-interest, but it’s also in the interest of the places we go.”
Last year, Dubrovnik received 742,000 passengers on 538 ships. The city recorded about 3.4 million overnight stays, with many visitors drawn by Dubrovnik’s status as a filming location for the HBO series “Game of Thrones.”
Donald said cruise lines need to “listen with empathy for the issue of what some would call over tourism, not necessarily driven by cruise companies but by the fact that we’re a very visible symbol for it; our ships are large, and so forth. We have to listen with empathy to the ports that are out there and make sure we work with them to get the proper infrastructure.”
Dubrovnik’s over tourism concerns are shared by several other destinations in the Mediterranean, including Barcelona, Venice and the Greek island of Santorini.
Travel journalist Peter Greenberg, who moderated the CEO panel, said the World Travel and Tourism Council in a recent study listed “destination degradation” as one of three critical issues facing the travel industry.
Others on the panel took issue with the label “over tourism.”
“I think it’s a misnomer,” said Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. chairman Richard Fain. “What we’re really talking about is sustainable tourism.”
Fain cited Royal Caribbean’s development of Falmouth in Jamaica to offer an alternative to Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, as another successful response to crowding concerns.
After Falmouth opened in 2011, the number of cruise visitors actually rose, but they were more spread out.
“There were more people but less density,” Fain said.
“The opportunity, really, is to work together in these communities,” Fain said. “We work with them, and we find solutions that are to both of our benefits. And those we work with are very happy. You see that over and over again. Those who just want to make headlines, that’s a different story.”
The Celebrity Reflection in Dubrovnik.
Greenberg said that two cities where over tourism has been a hot-potato issue — Venice and Barcelona — are in the backyard of MSC Cruises, which has its headquarters in Geneva and its operations in Naples, Italy.
MSC executive chairman Pierfrancesco Vago said some perspective was in order.
“When you’re talking about Venice’s 30 million visitors a year, the cruise industry is 1 million of that,” Vago said.
He added that unlike the general tourism population, which ebbs and flows individually, cruise tourists come in groups that can be managed.
“We can actually coordinate,” Vago said. “We can actually ensure that there will never be an overflow, and we can control embarkation and disembarkation.”
A 2015 Unesco report recommended that the number of cruise passengers at Dubrovnik should not exceed 8,000 a day, arguing that when more than 8,000 visitors are inside the walls of the old city “tourist blight” becomes inevitable.
Research from the Port of Dubrovnik found that in 2016, arrivals exceeded 8,000 on 18 out of 243 total cruise days and that arrivals exceeded 10,000 on four days that year.
MSC has been looking for new destinations in the Adriatic to supplement hot spots like Dubrovnik. Last year, for example, MSC began calling at the port of Sarande, in southern Albania.
“Nobody knew that in Sarande, there were 10 different Unesco sites,” MSC CEO Gianni Onorato said in a recent interview. “This is the opportunity the cruise industry can give because there are options. That’s the only way to solve this problem.”
Wetravel2u's Weblog 