Are Cruise Ship Visits to Grand Cayman at Risk?

As cruise ships become larger, the number of ports they can visit gets smaller. Not only do ports have to have a deep enough draft or no bridge barring their entry, they need to have docking facilities for this big ships. Tendering some 7,000 passengers back and forth just isn’t feasible. Ports that don’t fit these requirements might find themselves losing cruise ship visits as more and more larger ships are built.

This is the fate the Cayman Islands risk if they don’t invest in berthing facilities, The Cayman Compass reports.

According to the report, Richard Sasso, chairman of MSC Cruises North America told attendees at the CTO’s annual State of the Tourism Industry Conference, being held on Grand Cayman this week, that a berthing pier is essential.

“… some of the larger ships will not call here because they can’t tender that many people. It’s not something that’s going away,” he said.

He added that without a berthing pier, cruise lines – like MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival Cruise Line, all of which have or are building ships that can’t tender – will no longer include Grand Cayman in its itineraries.

Carnival Cruise Line already has ships that are skipping Grand Cayman, the line’s vice president of port operations, David Candib, said.

“We are building larger ships, and we have made an operational decision that those ships won’t call on destinations that are tender ports,” he said.

He added that since Carnival started building larger ships, it’s seen a reduction in calls to Grand Cayman in its itineraries. He anticipates such port visits will get fewer and fewer in number without a dock.

As reported by The Cayman Compass, the previously approved project to build docking facilities was shelved after a court battle.