Officials in both St. Thomas and St. Maarten have given timetables for their cruise ports to reopen much sooner than expected after damage caused by Hurricane Irma.
Gene Sloan at USA Today is reporting that cruise ships may possibly return to St. Thomas and St. Croix as early as October 15, 2017. Local business leaders in St. Thomas have stated that The Havensight area as well as Main Street are ready for cruise ships to return. The cruise pier itself was not damaged by the hurricanes.
The Daily Herald in St. Maarten reported that the first cruise ship to return to the island is expected to be on November 11, 2017. While the island reported widespread damage following Hurricane Irma, port officials said that 62% of water based tours and 80% of land based tours are currently operational.
Tourism and Economic Affairs Minister Mellisa Arrindell-Doncher said that cruise ship visits are extremely important to the economy in St. Maarten and the island will lend whatever support they can to get the port operational sooner than later.
Islands in the Caribbean has recovering from back to back hurricanes over the past few weeks.
Key West reopened to cruise ships earlier this week with Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise Line having ships visit the port.
Other cruise ports that remained closed to cruise ships are Grand Turk, Tortola, and San Juan.
That would be wonderful, to be able to visit my favorite caribean islands
I think the more important point is why would anyone want to go to St. Maarten or St. Thomas when the infrastructure throughout the rest of the islands is still a disaster. The locals need a lot of help to rebuild their homes. Maybe bringing tourists back quickly will help some of the businesses but it seems like it is unsafe to visit those areas for a while.
Do the cruise companies help with the rebuilding of these islands? It seem it would be the right thing to do.