TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Cruise ships not coming until December

While I can't find the story online yet, the full Daily Herald says that the cruise ships are not going to come back until some date in December now. Disappointing news for downtown merchants, taxi drivers, etc..

Royal Caribbean will restart calls in December. Carnival will restart calls in January. Norwegian continues to pull St. Maarten off at least through March.

Here is a reference to what Daily Herald referred to:

http://smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin...for-cruise.html

HUMM we are supposed to arrive on the 19 of November royal Caribbean adventure of the seas ..i will let you know if we get any update
lina

Had you been told by Royal Caribbean that you definitely were stopping in SXM?

This Royal Caribbean press release appears to say that its first ship to SXM will be Grandeur on December 17, 2017, but Adventure still is showing on RC website as going to SXM on November 19. Probably get clarification no later than this afternoon.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases...-300542903.html

just got this now !!!! We have a few updates regarding your clients’ Adventure of the Seas, November 18th sailing. Due to the recent storms’ impact on the Caribbean, we had to make some modifications to their itinerary. We will now be visiting Martinique, instead of St. Maarten, and also made changes to the order in which we will be visiting some ports of call.
For your convenience, all changes are outlined below:
Day Date Port Name Arrival Time Departure Time
Sat 11/18/2017 San Juan, Puerto Rico 6:00 AM 8:30 PM
Sun 11/19/2017 Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis 9:00 AM 6:00 PM
Mon 11/20/2017 St. Johns, Antigua 8:00 AM 5:00 PM
Tue 11/21/2017 Martinique 8:00 AM 5:00 PM
Wed 11/22/2017 Castries, St. Lucia 9:00 AM 6:00 PM
Thu 11/23/2017 Bridgetown, Barbados 8:00 AM 5:00 PM
Fri 11/24/2017 Cruising
Sat 11/25/2017 San Juan, Puerto Rico 6:00 AM 8:30 PM
We are sorry for the impact that this storm has had on your clients' vacation, and appreciate your patience as we work through this. We are looking forward to welcoming your clients onboard. We know that they will have a great time!

RC is making the right decision - but what a pain for you and other passengers on that sailing who now have to redo excursions. And, I feel very sorry for the island which is desperate for the revenue from the cruise ships returning.

WE ARE GOING TO MARTINIQUE INSTEAD,,,never been there.

Martinique stinks. Unless you speak French, they will treat you very poorly there.

Carol, my experience with Martinique was very different. The people were great, we joked that they seemed to hate the EU French. Loved having Americans in the villages. But we are not on a cruise ship.

That's it. They DESPISE cruise ship pax in Martinique.

The people in Martinique have gotten better since you were there off a ship years ago. They want your money - even if they do not want to admit it.

It helps if you can use some basic french phrases and if you have some euros, and do not assume that everyone will take dollars, as is true on most islands.

If you think that the average Parisian waiter is a jolly friendly fellow - you will do great on Martinique. That's a joke - sort of.

OK, that's good to hear, I suppose, but if I were personally going on a cruise that stopped in Martinique, I would still stay on the ship..

Carol! Bad girl. Food is good in Martinique and sailing around the island is fun.
Ciao!

lets see when we get there...I'm going with my friend who is a travel agent...she's been all over, but not to Martinique..I will report when I'M there...sure wish we were going to SXM to see our island first hand. We were planning on going to Dany's beach and bring gifts to my friends on the island...guess I'll bring them in June if we can go. sad

Just got an email from Royal Caribbean, December 15th SXM stop on our cruise has been changed to Antigua. The email states they will return to SXM beginning December 17th, expect for Oasis class ships as the special gangways needed by that class will not be repaired till after the new year.

We received email from Sandy Beaches Cruise 24/Holland America that our stop in Philipsburg the first week of January has been changed to Basseterre, St. Kitts on Jan 10. Being regular visitors to St. Martin, we were looking forward to a January visit, but now we'll be able to explore St. Kitts, which we've never visited.

San Juan? Seems odd they are sailing from there with all the devastation.

We are getting a ton of cancellations for excursions that were booked for Nov and December because of lack of confidence with the Sint Maarten government by the cruise ship lines to get the island rebuilt and cleaned up. Bummer for passengers and the economy.

Sorry to hear this, Bob.