NCL sailing to Key West???

[cruising mickey]

Hello,

 

Does anyone know if NCL has cancelled Key West as a port or are they still sailing there?

 

thanks

[HuliHuli]

Have you searched on the NCL website for cruises including Key West?  That seems like the logical way to find out.

[mscdivina2016]

7 minutes ago, HuliHuli said:

Have you searched on the NCL website for cruises including Key West?  That seems like the logical way to find out.

NCL is still showing many ports around the world for December sailings that are not going to happen as their governments have stated that they will remain closed so looking at NCL website is useless.

 

The OP may be asking because Key west residents voted to ban cruise ships and it passed. So no ships to Key west.

But....recently the State overturned that ban and ships should .....be able return shortly.

[trivimp]

There's a few, mostly out of Tampa.  https://www.ncl.com/port-of-call/cruises-to-key-west 

[HuliHuli]

47 minutes ago, mscdivina2016 said:

NCL is still showing many ports around the world for December sailings that are not going to happen as their governments have stated that they will remain closed so looking at NCL website is useless.

I disagree.  As @trivimpfound, NCL is still booking cruises that plan to visit Key West.  Whether or not those cruises actually go there is no different than any other port of call.

 

51 minutes ago, mscdivina2016 said:

The OP may be asking because Key west residents voted to ban cruise ships and it passed. So no ships to Key west.

But....recently the State overturned that ban and ships should .....be able return shortly.

Well, the OP didn't say that and your answer is ambiguous at best.  So that put's us back at @trivimp's answer.

[1025cruise]

As of right now, Key West is not welcoming cruise ships. If they get their way, it will stay that way.

[njhorseman]

1 hour ago, mscdivina2016 said:

 

But....recently the State overturned that ban and ships should .....be able return shortly.

That law was passed months ago but to date Key West has not complied with it. I've heard they're doing that by refusing to process the cruise lines' port agreement paperwork required by the CDC.

[BermudaBound2014]

Last I heard the players were trying to work out a compromise. It seems that Mallory isn't an issue, but Pier B is problematic because it is privately owned. TONS of articles on this as they have been fighting since the first vote which took place in November of 2020. This issue has been evolving for years with many plot twists.

 

And to add, I believe 85% of the residents voted to ban cruise ships carrying more than 1,700 people. If true, I'm not sure how well cruise ship passengers will be welcomed.

 

Finally, sustainable tourism is a relatively new thing effecting the cruise industry, but growing in momentum and I believe it's here to stay. The Keys aren't the only ones banning large cruise ships. Venice did it, French Polynesia did it, Grand Cayman stopped a pier from being built to control tourism numbers. I'm also very familiar with a group in Maui trying to limit tourism (and most certainly cruise ships). And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more. 

 

To the OP: At this time, there have been no ships to have called on Key West since the ban a year ago (unless you count 1 medivac from RCL).  Royal Caribbean has already replaced Key West with a "perfect day at Coco Cay" for the foreseeable future. I suspect NCL will follow suit.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by BermudaBound2014

[njhorseman]

27 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

And to add, I believe 85% of the residents voted to ban cruise ships carrying more than 1,700 people. If true, I'm not sure how well cruise ship passengers will be welcomed.

Nothing got 85% of the vote. ( Regardless 85% of the vote is less than 85% of the residents.)

 

There were three ballot questions.

61% voted to limit the total number of passengers that can disembark on any day to 1,500.

63% voted ban ships that carry more than 1,300 passengers.

81% voted to give priority to cruise lines with the best environmental and health records.

 

The numbers above were taken from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/11/05/key-west-florida-voters-opt-ban-large-cruise-ships-visiting/6171877002/ 

 

So the two questions limiting numbers of passengers and size of ships, while clearly winning, did not win by the order of magnitude some think.

[BermudaBound2014]

23 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

Nothing got 85% of the vote. ( Regardless 85% of the vote is less than 85% of the residents.)

 

There were three ballot questions.

61% voted to limit the total number of passengers that can disembark on any day to 1,500.

63% voted ban ships that carry more than 1,300 passengers.

81% voted to give priority to cruise lines with the best environmental and health records.

 

The numbers above were taken from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/11/05/key-west-florida-voters-opt-ban-large-cruise-ships-visiting/6171877002/ 

 

So the two questions limiting numbers of passengers and size of ships, while clearly winning, did not win by the order of magnitude some think.

thank you for the clarification (and the link). There is positively some fake news out there on this subject. I appreciate the correction. 

[cruiseat50]

We got the notice yesterday that two of our ports have been dropped but Key West is still on the itinerary.  I really hope if they drop it they find another port to go to as we already have 3 sea days at the end of the cruise.

[BermudaBound2014]

8 hours ago, cruiseat50 said:

We got the notice yesterday that two of our ports have been dropped but Key West is still on the itinerary.  I really hope if they drop it they find another port to go to as we already have 3 sea days at the end of the cruise.

 

Another option that might be interesting is to do an overnight in Stirrup Cay with a huge bon fire/beach party at night. MSC is doing overnights on Ocean Cay. Not saying it's optimal in place of another island, but it would be a very easy addition to this itinerary and might be new and fun. You have a lot of sea days at the end which seems pretty simple to add in something too (pre-covid). If the keys don't work out for you, I'm hoping NCL comes up with a good alternative. Keep us posted here please, I'm now curious. 

[shof515]

2 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

MSC is doing overnights on Ocean Cay.

 

Ocean Cay has a dock where ships can dock. Much easier for an overnight staty

 

Stirrup Cay is a tender port. Can be tricky to do an overnight. An overnight tender might be possible however it can be unsafe to run the tenders at night and it is also very weather dependent 

[BermudaBound2014]

10 minutes ago, shof515 said:

 

Ocean Cay has a dock where ships can dock. Much easier for an overnight staty

 

Stirrup Cay is a tender port. Can be tricky to do an overnight. An overnight tender might be possible however it can be unsafe to run the tenders at night and it is also very weather dependent 

 

Yes, I'm aware. In fact, the extremely narrow channel into Ocean Cay means they miss that port about 50% of the time too. I have taken tenders in the dark before in Norway, so it is possible. Regardless, I was just tossing out ideas. That OP's itinerary got whacked hard, and if they can't stop in Key West that will be a triple whammy.

[vacation44]

11 hours ago, cruiseat50 said:

We got the notice yesterday that two of our ports have been dropped but Key West is still on the itinerary.  I really hope if they drop it they find another port to go to as we already have 3 sea days at the end of the cruise.

What sailing is this?   Sorry about the drops.

[Just Jo]

Duplicate

Edited November 17, 2021 by Just Jo

[Just Jo]

1 hour ago, vacation44 said:

What sailing is this?   Sorry about the drops.

 

Dawn 12/8/21

[BermudaBound2014]

19 minutes ago, Just Jo said:

 

Dawn 12/8/21

 

believe this might be the first cruise to visit Key West since the shut down. I don't recall any other line heading there in 2021. Do you see any other ships arriving before you on the port schedule (which doesn't always mean much). But if you can identify other ships are on the port schedule you can always follow them to see if they actually dock in Key West.

Edited November 17, 2021 by BermudaBound2014

[mking8288]

13 hours ago, cruiseat50 said:

 ... We got the notice yesterday that two of our ports have been dropped but Key West is still on the itinerary.  I really hope if they drop it they find another port to go to as we already have 3 sea days at the end of the cruise.

 

Good luck and really, you folks gonna need it - we loved the Norwegian Dawn (2003, 2005 and more recently, back on her in 2019 - pretty amazing ship with the refurbishment, had to look hard into places for signs of being a much "older" ship in the fleet.  

 

Hate to mention, in case you & others aren't aware, that the odds of a successful stop at GSC to tender is highly dependent on weather, seas can be smooth & calm but if it is windy, especially if the wind direction is from the north - the ride is going to be rough & choppy, assuming the ship's captain in conjunction with the island's safety officer make the joint call to launch the double decker Norway 1 and 2 to commence the tender transfer.  On our most two planned stop at GSC coming out of NY, score was 0 for 2, missed it both times (Escape & Gem) - we've at the island, ready to drop anchor and then ... engines started up & pulled away, became another "fun day at sea" - on the 14 nighters, ended up with 3 full days at sea toward the next pier stop. 

 

We haven't step foot on GSC since they remodeled with major changes, zip lines and the extra cabanas, etc. and were looking forward to go ashore ourselves to check things out personally ... well, we are booked for early 2022 on another run - going to follow along & see.  

 

Watch for the hungry, diving seagulls nearby eyeballing your plate of food - they're brave & fast in snatching a meal.