TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Cruise ships at anchor instead of port

For several days now cruise ships have anchored off Simpson Bay. No travel to shore. I assume it is a Covid issue. Jewel of The Seas has been there 3 days now. Herald says some ships in port, others at anchor. No fun for passengers. When ship[ returns to US, does everyone need a negative covid test? Could be a real mess.

No port charges at anchor.

Bluesfan--as has been reported here numerous times, those ships that are at anchor out there do not have passengers on them. There are many ships that have never returned to passenger service since the pandemic.

Been like that for 2 years!

Yup...they just hang out and occasionally go for a ride or dock for a day probably for supplies....as was mentioned this is not a new event

According to today's Daily Herald, all 4 ships due in today will be at anchor and not docked. Don't know that I've ever seen that.

The seas are rough. Perhaps a reason?

Northwest swells today. Over here at Dawn Beach it is very calm.

I know I’m seriously dating myself but there used to be a time, before the cruise port was created, when most if not all the passenger ships arriving at SXM anchored in Great Bay. We used to take our girls into Philipsburg for breakfast at Pinocchio’s and we’d sometimes get to see them anchor and tender the shore-goers into the main (and only?) dock of the time. Those were the days, My Friends…….. 😊😊

For sure, I remember tendering into P'burg many times, right by the Greenhouse. At the time, I think maybe San Juan and St. Thomas and Cozumel had piers, and that was it! Of course, the ships were much smaller then, not such an ordeal to tender in, with 1200 pax, versus 5000!!

We're south southwest and the sea is really churning.

Some of my fondest memories are of sitting on Sam's balcony having lunch and watching the cruise passengers lugging their duty-free liquor back to the dock at the end of the harbor and thinking how good it was to actually be staying on the island.

Yes, I remember one day sitting at the Greenhouse in Pburg after a long hard day shopping, watching the pax boarding the tenders. We have been on the last tender back to the ship, on numerous occasions!! On this occasion, we were staying on island and we were sitting at the bar. The bartender told it us it was last tender, and we said "we think we'll just stay!".

Yes. Our first cruises to St Maarten were always tendered in to Philipsburg. That was back in the late 80's and 90's

Just an update, was in town earlier and there were 3 big ships, all docked at the pier.

These are ships scheduled for port calls. Jewel of the Seas finally left this morning.

Last November we were buzzing the "westside" of the island on our Rhino's and a huge cruise ship was anchored of the coast of Marigot, the others were short distance to Beachside villa's for a week or so!

Whoops. Jewel did not leave this morning. Strange that it is moored at the edge of the yacht anchorage area and in the lane followed by port bound cruise ships. There was an idle cruise ship moored some distance out almost to Saba when I got here.

Yes. They are just hanging out there as they have been doing during the pandemic.