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Celebrity says St. Maarten not ready...


JustAGirl79
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Just received notification from Celebrity that our scheduled January 15th port stop in St. Maarten has been cancelled. They say the cruise port has been re-built, but they don't believe the island will be ready to accept Celebrity cruise passengers yet.

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What Ship? What did they change your ports to? It doesn't look like it's changed on their web site yet.

 

We are on Oasis later in the month and no e-mail about a change yet.

 

Celebrity Summit. We're going to St. Kitts instead of St. Maarten. I'm disappointed but understand if the island isn't ready. Now I'm trying to get money back from a excursion I booked privately.

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What a shame, The island will be accepting ships from most of the main lines aaround that time anyway. The island needs the tourist calls more than anything right now, so they can get the money to rebuild their island, as tourism is the island's main source of income.

 

Tourism WILL be the island main source of income WHEN it is rebuilt with the billions promised by the Netherland and France. Not by the taxi fare and the bucket of beer. Well, thats my understanding from reading French magazine and web from Marigot.

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Tourism WILL be the island main source of income WHEN it is rebuilt with the billions promised by the Netherland and France. Not by the taxi fare and the bucket of beer. Well, thats my understanding from reading French magazine and web from Marigot.

 

I meant that tourism is the island's biggest economic contributor, not counting this hurricane. They are going to use the billions promised from France to the Netherlands in order to rebuild their infrastructure and businesses, which speeds up the time it will take the island to get tourists back. It's great that those countries are providing aide, but from what I've read, the people on the island are trying to recover their jobs and get money coming in in order to feed themselves and their families, and that will come when their biggest economic contributor comes back. Obviously a couple cruise ships will not change the island's condition as fast as government aide will, but government aide is a different type of resource than money from your biggest economic contributor. SXM needs the latter now that they've been promised aide money from France and NDL

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Just received notification from Celebrity that our scheduled January 15th port stop in St. Maarten has been cancelled. They say the cruise port has been re-built, but they don't believe the island will be ready to accept Celebrity cruise passengers yet.

 

Thanks for posting this.

We are still scheduled for a St. Maarten port stop in January on Princess.

I would not be shocked if it's cancelled.

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Celebrity Summit. We're going to St. Kitts instead of St. Maarten. I'm disappointed but understand if the island isn't ready. Now I'm trying to get money back from a excursion I booked privately.

We also have a down-payment on a private tour and are trying to contact the tour company to cancel. They can keep our deposit money but want them to know we decided to cancel. We sail on Harmony January 27, 2018 and will have our young granddaughters with us. Anyone know if phone/email is up yet on the island?

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Here is a faily recent video of St Maarten. They have work to do. Looks better than I would have thought given earlier videos. Are they ready for tourists? I think it depends upon the tourist. Some want to help and are more willing to accept the risk, others may want to help but want to still have that tourist experience. So it is difficult for the cruise lines to guess what most customers want. I think that waiting a month or so is probably prudent. I wish a cruise line would experiment with a habitat cruise. Send a ship for one week to one location.... set it up to be a cruise for those who want to work for a week... strip out the fancy meals and most of the entertainment and reduce the cost for passengers... need to cover labor and food.... and work with habitat for humanity so that the passengers have an assignment for the week... perhaps licensed electricians etc get a break... like military and 55+. I wonder if people would actually pay to work for a week. It would be an interesting experiment. Just a thought.
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Here is a faily recent video of St Maarten. They have work to do. Looks better than I would have thought given earlier videos. Are they ready for tourists? I think it depends upon the tourist. Some want to help and are more willing to accept the risk, others may want to help but want to still have that tourist experience. So it is difficult for the cruise lines to guess what most customers want. I think that waiting a month or so is probably prudent. I wish a cruise line would experiment with a habitat cruise. Send a ship for one week to one location.... set it up to be a cruise for those who want to work for a week... strip out the fancy meals and most of the entertainment and reduce the cost for passengers... need to cover labor and food.... and work with habitat for humanity so that the passengers have an assignment for the week... perhaps licensed electricians etc get a break... like military and 55+. I wonder if people would actually pay to work for a week. It would be an interesting experiment. Just a thought.

If I was retired maybe but I go on vacation to relax from stressful work and explore the island. Jmho.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Forums mobile app

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We also have a down-payment on a private tour and are trying to contact the tour company to cancel. They can keep our deposit money but want them to know we decided to cancel. We sail on Harmony January 27, 2018 and will have our young granddaughters with us. Anyone know if phone/email is up yet on the island?

 

 

We are sailing on the IOS-RCCL in December with the word that we "will" be stopping in St Maarten.

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Just downloaded our documents for our HAL cruise on the Koningsdam. It still shows us stopping at St. Marrten on Jan 6 and the HAL website is showing 11 different tours available including beaches on the Dutch and French side and the Americas cup sailing. I guess we will see in about 38 days.

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The ships are coming back slowly. Nothing to read in to this IMO. One would think that much thought and discussion went in to who's goin and when. Common sense to me. They need one or two ships a day not one on one day and 4 3 days later. I think that it's in the islands and cruiselines best interest if they get off to a good start back.

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We are sailing on the Grandeur of the Seas next Saturday, scheduled to be the first RCL ship back to the port (on the 17th). We haven't heard any information since they announced that we would be keeping this as the last port on the cruise.

 

It has been extremely difficult to find any "real" information on what shape the island is in...there are a few excursions available through the ship, but near impossible to get answers (even from direct messages) from private companies. I wish RCL would give us some kind of information on what to expect...especially if there is something that we can help contribute to (via volunteering, bringing supplies, etc.).

 

I guess we will find out the real situation in a couple of weeks.

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We are sailing on the Grandeur of the Seas next Saturday, scheduled to be the first RCL ship back to the port (on the 17th). We haven't heard any information since they announced that we would be keeping this as the last port on the cruise.

 

It has been extremely difficult to find any "real" information on what shape the island is in...there are a few excursions available through the ship, but near impossible to get answers (even from direct messages) from private companies. I wish RCL would give us some kind of information on what to expect...especially if there is something that we can help contribute to (via volunteering, bringing supplies, etc.).

 

I guess we will find out the real situation in a couple of weeks.

 

I understand. We are on the Jewel and visiting St. Martin on December 26. Will you please post what information you learn from being there? When will you get back?

 

Good luck!

Renee

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I understand. We are on the Jewel and visiting St. Martin on December 26. Will you please post what information you learn from being there? When will you get back?

 

Good luck!

Renee

 

 

Yes, I will absolutely update! We return on the 21st.

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