Popular Caribbean port delivers major blow to cruise industry
Carnival Cruise Line is already reducing visits to this beloved cruise port.
After a pivotal local vote, a top Caribbean cruise destination is at risk of soon being bypassed by most cruise ships for islands with better port facilities.
Local voters shot down a proposed plan to build cruise berthing infrastructure via a referendum held at the same time as the island territory’s general election on April 30.
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During a Caribbean tourism industry conference held in the destination in September, cruise executives from Carnival Cruise Line and MSC Cruises warned that ships may stop calling on the port altogether if a berthing pier is not built.
Because the port doesn’t have berthing infrastructure, cruise ships visiting the port currently anchor offshore and shuttle passengers to the island via tender boats, which is problematic for a couple of reasons.
First, poor weather conditions make tendering unsafe. This means tender ports have more weather-related cancellations than ports that are able to accommodate cruise ships at their docks.
But the bigger issue for the cruise industry is that tendering is an operational nightmare for today’s megaships that can carry more than 5,000 passengers. When a large cruise ship visits a tender port, passengers often have to wait in long lines for tenders to and from the ship, resulting in less port time and less satisfied cruisers.
But if cruise lines want to continue taking passengers to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands, they’ll have to continue relying on the tendering process.
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Grand Cayman likely to remain a tender port, risks losing cruise tourism
Through the cruise berthing referendum, Cayman Islands voters sent a clear message to the cruise industry and government officials that they won’t support the development of a cruise berthing facility in the Cayman Islands. About two-thirds of voters rejected the plan, according to Cayman Compass.
As a non-binding referendum, the results will inform government discussions on cruise berthing infrastructure, which have been ongoing for years.
A government-backed plan to build a new cruise port facility was abandoned in 2020 due to opposition from activist groups. Debates were rekindled in recent months as the government initiated the referendum effort to gauge public interest in the cruise industry.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line responds to cruise port travel warnings
If Cayman Islands government leaders respect the views of the people as expected, the country risks pushing the cruise industry further away.
Carnival Cruise Line is already making less calls to Grand Cayman, as its vice president of port operations, David Candib, pointed out during the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Tourism Industry Conference held in Grand Cayman in September.
Carnival Cruise Line reducing calls to Grand Cayman
“Since the introduction of the larger ships for the Carnival fleet we have seen a reduction in calls to Grand Cayman, so ships that were tendering here, for example from Galveston, have been replaced and aren’t calling on Grand Cayman,” Candib said, as reported by Cayman Compass.
As Carnival expands its fleet, new ships won’t call on tender ports like Grand Cayman at all.
“We are building larger ships, and we have made an operational decision that those ships won’t call on destinations that are tender ports. With 6,500 up to 8,000 guests and then another 1,500-2,000 thousand crew, it’s just not something that we as a company or an industry are doing with those types of ships,” Candib told conference attendees.
Related: Royal Caribbean stops visiting popular port
Candib said that Carnival is working with Caribbean governments in places like The Bahamas, Jamaica, Mexico, and Honduras, to expand its capacity in other destinations with berthing facilities.
“We’re doing that because we need the certainty,” he explained. “We want to continue to call on Grand Cayman, our guests love visiting Grand Cayman, but over time certainly, the ability of all our ships to be able to call here is likely to end.”
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