cruise ships
This report (at the link) is about Carnival pulling out of Antigua, and Nassau resenting cruise-lines' antics, and the bitter dispute here in Cayman about whether to build a $300 million four-berth dock. Our argument is over the economic sense or non-sense of paying such an enormous sum - borrowed from the lines themselves, who will withhold all the present anchorage fees for the next 25 years. Skullduggery is suspected by many members of our public - skullduggery in the form of bribes. What's going on in the rest of the region?
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/0...port-concerns/ |
Re: cruise ships
We have a single jetty/pier so 2 boats can dock, though there have been several days when up to 4 boats have been in the bay. There is of course a big mall for the tourists in the terminal because as we all know no cruise lemming can go far without buying a fake rolex, tee shirt [i am a tourist, take my money] or jewellery [which i really do find confusing] - grand turk - 10k inhabitants, 15 jewellery shops � ����. The jetty was locally funded with an insurance co being a part owner but seems to be a minor thing for the millions it cost so yes its probably not entirely kosher as a project. The fees for passengers are pitiful, i wouldnt mind forgoing them if thats how its funded, its of the order of 1-2 dollars if they get their butts off the boat. There are well published stats about income, i think here the spend is about 25-35 us each passenger. I have heard the reasonable stat - a visit from a cruise ship is worth the same as 1 hotel room for the year. If you look at tripadvisor fo grenada you can link to the xls file of the arrivals, and see how many passengers boats etc, its all there. This season its 520k tourists and 220 arrivals. There is money in it for locals running all sorts of businesses. However consider how brittle tourism can be, a plane crash or zika or hurricane can damage itfor years. In addition the smaller cruise ships, think le ponant, silversea, the pricey ones, have several docking points at marinas and the main port. |
Re: cruise ships
Hang on 300 milliion us? Is this a jetty from your island to miami? I think ours was 10? |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by uk_grenada
(Post 12657738)
Hang on 300 milliion us? Is this a jetty from your island to miami? I think ours was 10?
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Re: cruise ships
We have the same question in Greenock. Many cruise ships coming in but very little benefit to the town.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by scot47
(Post 12658280)
We have the same question in Greenock. Many cruise ships coming in but very little benefit to the town.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by scot47
(Post 12658280)
We have the same question in Greenock. Many cruise ships coming in but very little benefit to the town.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by BEVS
(Post 12693473)
Same questions are raised for New Zealand. Dunedin for instance. Cruise ships dock but really there is little to no benefit to the city or the surrounding area unless the cruise ship shore trips take them to a specific spot . I am thinking of my beloved albatross colony in particular with this. Most seem to do these whistle stop tour things with perhaps a short stop thrown in. We don't get them where I live although sometime they do come in. Again , the people on them just pass quickly through really .
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Jerseygirl
(Post 12693478)
I put my hand up to doing this.
From the passenger end of things , why would they spend extra money ashore if they have bought and paid for all inclusive & it is easy to book excursions through the cruise line. I think the point here is do the ports of call & the surrounding businesses and communities actually really benefit in any way. |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by BEVS
(Post 12695031)
Nothing wrong with cruising if that is what a person enjoys. Many people love to go on cruises. Our pals do.
From the passenger end of things , why would they spend extra money ashore if they have bought and paid for all inclusive & it is easy to book excursions through the cruise line. I think the point here is do the ports of call & the surrounding businesses and communities actually really benefit in any way. |
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In Greenock the main beneficiaries are the taxis who pick people up and drive them off to more salubrious parts of Bonnie Scotland. Brigadoon awaits, and the imaginary destinations described in "Outllander" or JK Rowling
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Re: cruise ships
We went on a cruise round the Med in 2013. Visited some lovely places but the most we ever did was buy a beer or two and a piece of tat. When you have an 'eat your own weight and more' service on the boat, you really aren't up to eating in restaurants at your destination. I certainly DIDN'T buy a Tag Heuer or similar! And to be honest, watching the tourists in George Town when several boats are in has put me off ever going on a cruise again. Snobbery I know. Herder around like sheep. No thanks.
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We have a problem here with the river cruise boats - packs roaming the city, either on foot, on bikes or in coaches - spending next to nothing.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Jamesy5008
(Post 12695298)
We went on a cruise round the Med in 2013. Visited some lovely places but the most we ever did was buy a beer or two and a piece of tat. When you have an 'eat your own weight and more' service on the boat, you really aren't up to eating in restaurants at your destination. I certainly DIDN'T buy a Tag Heuer or similar! And to be honest, watching the tourists in George Town when several boats are in has put me off ever going on a cruise again. Snobbery I know. Herder around like sheep. No thanks.
We have never bought jewellery either. Always worried that it may be fake. I do buy the odd gift/clothes etc, depending what the shops are like. |
Re: cruise ships
Having had the opportunity to view first-hand, cruise ship traffic in three different locations (Bermuda, St Lucia and here in Dorset (ten visits scheduled here for July)) I would say a lot depends upon how an individual destination is set-up to accommodate cruise ships.
In Bermuda we have a pretty-much ideal cruise-ship destination, the way it is 'worked' in that passengers typically spend three nights there on cruises ex NY and New Jersey, so passengers and crew have plenty of time to spend money locally and crew typically spend more time there than anywhere else, so use banks, shops, phones and bought accessories, hairdressers and Bermuda has Harbour Nights geared to attracting passenger spend on food, drink, what have you. As well as all this, the cruise lines and therefore pax spend substantial port fees, which Bermuda can command because Bermuda is an exclusive-sell destination ex the NY and Boston areas. In the Caribbean, unless an island singles itself out as being somewhat unique, there is not that much to entice a cruise line apart from convenient logistics and possibly provisioning, though of course cruise passenger feedback will have some bearing. This means that big operators like Carnival will pick port fees down to the bone or they simply won't come. So it is up to islands to gear up, with purpose-built cruise passenger 'terminals' a la Philipsburg, St Kitts, St Lucia, Antigua..... to draw passenger expenditure and hopefully taxi drivers make something over and above what the local agents and their bus operators make on pre-booked tours. Other than that, there is just the odd ice cream, roti, drink and t-shirt perhaps. HOWEVER, typically, island tourism departments play the numbers game and try to convince the locals that they are doing a good job by enticing vast numbers (based on individual cruise-ship full capacity) when in fact many stay on-board and therefore spend ZERO locally apart from those port fees. A big issue is whether the ease of cruise tourism detracts from stay-over visitors, but then even the latter can be marginal, aside from employment, when all-inclusive Sandals-type holidays keep guests IN their compound for the most part and typically negotiate near ZERO taxes on profits and ship these out to the owners. What is more, such hotel groups pretty much buy-in everything DIRECT so local wholesalers struggle to get in on the action. So in such circumstances islands are pretty much left only with low wages and airport departure taxes. I recall a debate on the merits of sinking money into improved infrastructure coming up in San Juan PR some years back when it was established that overall it made no economic sense there to be sinking money into a new cruise ship terminal to take the larger ships. However, they still built it. 100% focus on tourism in any fashion is not a happy arrangement for most island economies, particularly when slow season can be long. Here in Weymouth/Portland, where cruise tourism is on the up and up now with the attraction of provincial English destinations such as Bath, Stonehenge, Salisbury & Jurassic Coast being easily accessible, the bus/tour operators are clearly doing well but the local merchants haven't worked out how to capture cruise passenger spend (crew load up at Tesco Metro on essentials). It's ironic that George III and large entourage traveled all the way from Windsor by coach to get here and turned it into a trendy seaside vacation spot (actually the Romans vacationed here first) which then lasted centuries and much of the attraction is still here, and yet the locals can't YET sell it to separate cruise ship passengers from their money. Fortunately, Portland had to do next to nothing to enable its port to accommodate these ships, even the large ones, like Crown Princess. |
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One only has to look at places like st thomas, san juan, or the absolute pits, grand turk. The ships bring tat, nastiness and ugly minds to what might otherwise be nice places to visit. The income from the boats is not worth enough to justify this physical and cultural destruction, which puts off higher paying customers of hotels. The maxim - a visit from a cruise ship is worth to the island the equivalent of 1 5* hotel room for the year puts it in perspective. Which do you prefer, which is environmentally superior, which results in more jobs/real benefit to the island. I would not welcome any ghetto megavessel. I would encourage the small valuable cargo ships [the luxe end of that industry] charging them no docking fees, but keep the big boats away with high charges. interesting grand turk facts, 10k inhabitants, 15 jewellery shops, one massive deserted wreck of a murican air base, famous for being 30 miles from where john glenn landed? one of the largest pools in the caribbean [at jimmy buffets vomitorium] |
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This is a recent article by a well respected former President of the Cayman Chamber of Commerce - well respected compared with our ruling politicians and their backers of the proposed $250-500-million port, anyway...Is there bribery afoot? There are many voices answering "yes" to that question, I'm sorry to say.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/0...erendum-facts/ |
Re: cruise ships
According to this report from Nassau, Bahamas, there is the same degree of dissatisfaction being expressed there as here, at the prospect of a new cruise-ships facility. Probably, bribery is a factor there, too. What a shame for our fellow West Indians. My wife and I spent three and a half very happy years in Nassau when we were young and newly married, and we have warm memories of the place.
https://www.caymancompass.com/2019/0...other-protest/ (I know the Bahamas are not in the Caribbean, technically, but we can stretch a point, I think.) |
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Indeed, there does seem to be an anti cruise ship movement- people against the high social/environmental cost and limited income of having them visit... |
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Re: cruise ships
I'd forgotten about this thread! But with the Virus being responsible for the absence of all cruise ships here in Cayman - and I presume the rest of the Caribbean - the whole discussion is moot. Any ideas when the cruise industry will be back?
Cayman's population is going to plummet during the next few months. (It's not just the cruises who aren't coming, it's tourists in general. Our Islands are self-immolating (or do I mean self-isolating? One of them. As if there's any difference, these days...), and there are no flights in or out, except for the very occasional mercy flight. What a shambles it all is! |
Re: cruise ships
Numbers I have heard recently are that over 12 thousand left on the last weekend the airport was open and 4 thousand came back. If there are more 'mercy flights' as seem planned then I can see another few thousand leaving. The tourist industry is over this year. Higher end restaurants like Copper Falls are closing for good. Resident dollars are what is going to keep some places afloat for the foreseeable future. US tourists, with their inherent fear of whatever their gov tells them is bad, aren't coming back for a year anyway. They are 75% of the islands tourist income. BIG changes ahead for the islands.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Jamesy5008
(Post 12837496)
Numbers I have heard recently are that over 12 thousand left on the last weekend the airport was open and 4 thousand came back. If there are more 'mercy flights' as seem planned then I can see another few thousand leaving. The tourist industry is over this year. Higher end restaurants like Copper Falls are closing for good. Resident dollars are what is going to keep some places afloat for the foreseeable future. US tourists, with their inherent fear of whatever their gov tells them is bad, aren't coming back for a year anyway. They are 75% of the islands tourist income. BIG changes ahead for the islands.
I was scheduled to go to Bermuda at May 30th on Royal Caribbean. My mate is going if the ship is going but I will not. It is certainly not because the US government tells me it is bad to do so. It is myself telling me it is not safe to do so. Knowing that the islands have very limited medical resources and that by the end of May, even if the curve is flattened, I truly believe it would be unwise to venture to any of the islands as a tourist. |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Rete
(Post 12837569)
I was scheduled to go to Bermuda at May 30th on Royal Caribbean. My mate is going if the ship is going but I will not. It is certainly not because the US government tells me it is bad to do so. It is myself telling me it is not safe to do so. Knowing that the islands have very limited medical resources and that by the end of May, even if the curve is flattened, I truly believe it would be unwise to venture to any of the islands as a tourist.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Rete
(Post 12837569)
I was scheduled to go to Bermuda at May 30th on Royal Caribbean. My mate is going if the ship is going but I will not. It is certainly not because the US government tells me it is bad to do so. It is myself telling me it is not safe to do so. Knowing that the islands have very limited medical resources and that by the end of May, even if the curve is flattened, I truly believe it would be unwise to venture to any of the islands as a tourist.
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Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Jamesy5008
(Post 12837496)
Numbers I have heard recently are that over 12 thousand left on the last weekend the airport was open and 4 thousand came back. If there are more 'mercy flights' as seem planned then I can see another few thousand leaving. The tourist industry is over this year. Higher end restaurants like Copper Falls are closing for good. Resident dollars are what is going to keep some places afloat for the foreseeable future. US tourists, with their inherent fear of whatever their gov tells them is bad, aren't coming back for a year anyway. They are 75% of the islands tourist income. BIG changes ahead for the islands.
You're absolutely right that our economy is set to take a hell of a whack - first, from the absence of tourists and business visitors, and second, from the unemployment of the Work Permit expats who serviced those visitors. And, as businesses close down, one by one, Caymanians too become unemployed - beginning with the least skilled. Rents will go unpaid, and the landlords' mortgages, and the banks' depositors. As one of the depositors, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope that my bank doesn't bounce my cheques! Unhappy times are just around the corner... |
Re: cruise ships
I think coronavirus may end the recent craze for cruiseships. It might end mass air-travel too.
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Not quite i think, cruising will become less popular, and may well go into decline, flying will be more expensive and for sure there will be provider and route rationalisation, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, but its a fools / eco warriors paradise to think its going away.
Trends in holidays are being hotly debated, i think holidaying in your country will be a brief trend, but not for long. More interesting - as the concept of a covid immmune visa emerges, it will change travellers and destinations in favour, preferring the US and Europe who by then will have assured real herd immunity. |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by uk_grenada
(Post 12837634)
Not quite i think, cruising will become less popular, and may well go into decline, flying will be more expensive and for sure there will be provider and route rationalisation, which isnt necessarily a bad thing, but its a fools / eco warriors paradise to think its going away.
Trends in holidays are being hotly debated, i think holidaying in your country will be a brief trend, but not for long. More interesting - as the concept of a covid immmune visa emerges, it will change travellers and destinations in favour, preferring the US and Europe who by then will have assured real herd immunity. |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Gordon Barlow
(Post 12837598)
Yes, those are the figures being quoted, Jamesy, and they're probably accurate. The 12,000 would have been mainly visitors, and the 4,000 all Caymanians. The people really in a bind at the moment, in Cayman especially, are the hourly-paid expats here on Work Permits. They would have been sending all their spare money home to their families (in Jamaica, Philippines, India, Central America), and unless they were in their final (seventh) year of the Permits would not have had enough money to fly home. And those from India and the Philippines aren't allowed to transit the USA at any time, usually.
You're absolutely right that our economy is set to take a hell of a whack - first, from the absence of tourists and business visitors, and second, from the unemployment of the Work Permit expats who serviced those visitors. And, as businesses close down, one by one, Caymanians too become unemployed - beginning with the least skilled. Rents will go unpaid, and the landlords' mortgages, and the banks' depositors. As one of the depositors, all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope that my bank doesn't bounce my cheques! Unhappy times are just around the corner... |
Re: cruise ships
Originally Posted by Mallory
(Post 12837660)
We were on a cruise that stopped in the Cayman Islands two years ago. We took an overpriced taxi to the beach. We had an overpriced lunch. We walked a long way up seven mile beach, and took a swim. We crossed the road and took the bus back to the port. You are welcome! (Beach is beautiful).
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Re: cruise ships
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/artic...rus/index.html
Interesting development and it'll be interesting to see how Caribbean islands view this as well. |
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