“A lot of circumstances are constantly evolving … This is one of these scenarios where circumstances conspire against you.”
Premier Panton
(CMR) There will be no cruise ship visits to the Cayman Islands in 2021. Holland America’s MS Nieuw Statendam cruise ship was scheduled to visit Grand Cayman on December 28, 2021.
Premier Panton announced exclusively on CMR’s Premier Access show Wednesday evening that the visit will not happen again due to the current COVID-19 situation. The response was to a viewer question who wondered if the cruise ship would be arriving in the Cayman Islands in less than a week. Essentially explaining that the risk no longer outweighed the anticipated benefits that would be gained from allow the islands first cruise post pandemic ship to return to our shores.
CMR understands that there were multiple factors including the fact that government wanted to introduce some additional precautionary measures that the cruise line was unable to fulfill. The emergence of the Omicron variant was also a contributing factor in the cancellation raising the risk profile of allowing a cruise ship to come into the Cayman Islands.
“We would be sending mixed messages if we allowed it to come,” said Premier Panton. “A lot has changed.”
Some 1,600 passengers were expected to be on board under stringent requirements which included operating the voyage at half capacity. It would have been the first to call on the Cayman Islands since the borders were closed in early 2020.
The cruise industry has been particularly on edge since slowly trying to re-open to allowing cruise operations. On Saturday a Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked at Port Miami with some 48 people who tested positive for COVID-19. The Symphony of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship, departed on December 11 and carried some 6,091 passengers and crew with a 95% vaccination rate. The vast majority who tested positive were vaccinated and were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. All were placed in quarantine.
The total number of cases only amounted to .78% of the on board population. The route included St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Royal Caribbean's private island, CocoCay. The strict COVID-19 protocols included all passengers on board were required to be fully vaccinated and test negative before departure. Crew members must also be fully vaccinated and test weekly.
There is no indication yet if any of the cases were from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
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