Several cruise ships have diverted away from Grand Cayman due to Hurricane Melissa, leaving several thousand visitors unable to set foot on island.
All three cruise ship arrivals scheduled for Friday, 24 Oct. cancelled their visits as the then-tropical storm rapidly intensified.
One of them was the 2,902-capacity Celebrity Silhouette which diverted to Costa Maya in Mexico instead of calling into Grand Cayman as scheduled. One of the ship’s passengers said on social media, “I’m on Silhouette now and we were changed from Grand Cayman to Costa Maya because of Melissa. It was a big disappointment that everyone tried to be positive about.”
However, the positivity was short-lived as the post went to say that “Costa Maya was a big disappointment. The water was brown, the port seemed to exist only for predatory vendors, all excursions seemed to be about an hour drive away and most people used it as a sea day after going ashore for 30 minutes.”
Two other cruise ships, Margaritaville at Sea Islander and MSC Seascape, were also supposed to visit the Cayman Islands on that Friday. The 2,650-capacity Margaritaville at Sea Islander was scheduled to call at Jamaica and Grand Cayman but instead it rerouted to Belize City and Roatán, Honduras.
MSC Seascape, which has a passenger capacity of 5,877, also cancelled its planned call at Grand Cayman, meaning there were no cruise ship arrivals for that day. A passenger onboard posted on social media that the ship was travelling to Cozumel off the coast of Mexico, rather than Grand Cayman and Jamaica.
Ships diverted
Regal Princess, which is nearing the end of its 31-day repositioning voyage from the UK to Galveston, Texas, was scheduled to stop at Grand Cayman on Sunday, 26 Oct. but the stop was cancelled due to Hurricane Melissa. The 3,560-capacity ship instead headed north of Cuba for an extra sea day. The 3,140-capacity Caribbean Princess also cancelled its stop at the Cayman Islands on the same day meaning that there was just one incoming ship that day, a cargo vessel.
While Hurricane Melissa is expected to continue travelling northwards away from the Cayman Islands, more cancellations are expected. Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Liberty was scheduled to call at Montego Bay on Wednesday, 29 Oct. and Grand Cayman on Thursday, 30 Oct. but instead the ship will be calling at Mahogany Bay, Honduras and Belize.
Brevon Elliott, deputy port director of operations at the Port Authority of the Cayman Islands is currently in Belgium inspecting the new crane for the cargo port which is set to arrive on island by the end of the year but was able to confirm that there had been several cancellations due to Hurricane Melissa.
“It has had an impact on some of the cruise ship arrivals but it has not affected cargo operations,” he said.