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St. Thomas restrictions to cruisers.

Eddie1

By Eddie1,
in Princess Cruises

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mjmalino

mjmalino

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, Eddie1 said:

Has anyone been to St. Thomas on a cruise lately? What are the restrictions on entrance of cruisers to walk around downtown?

We leave on Dec 12, what can we expect?

 

Thanks

This is from the Princess website:

The ability for fully vaccinated guests to go ashore in ports of call is controlled by the governments of the ports we visit, based on their specific COVID-19 protocols and requirements. These are subject to change. All ports allow fully vaccinated guests to go ashore with Princess shore excursions. Some ports may also allow tours sold by port-authorized third-party operators or independent tours and exploration. Please be aware that in select ports you may be required to take a shore excursion provided by Princess to go ashore.

We recommend that you always carry your proof of vaccination and your negative COVID-19 test results from embarkation when going ashore. Currently, only Princess shore excursions are permitted in:

  • Bridgetown, Barbados
  • Roseau, Dominica
  • Basseterre, St. Kitts
  • Castries, St. Lucia

So, if things stay as they are, you should be able to go ashore on your own in St. Thomas.

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wrongwaywatson

wrongwaywatson

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, mjmalino said:

This is from the Princess website:

The ability for fully vaccinated guests to go ashore in ports of call is controlled by the governments of the ports we visit, based on their specific COVID-19 protocols and requirements. These are subject to change. All ports allow fully vaccinated guests to go ashore with Princess shore excursions. Some ports may also allow tours sold by port-authorized third-party operators or independent tours and exploration. Please be aware that in select ports you may be required to take a shore excursion provided by Princess to go ashore.

We recommend that you always carry your proof of vaccination and your negative COVID-19 test results from embarkation when going ashore. Currently, only Princess shore excursions are permitted in:

  • Bridgetown, Barbados
  • Roseau, Dominica
  • Basseterre, St. Kitts
  • Castries, St. Lucia

So, if things stay as they are, you should be able to go ashore on your own in St. Thomas.

Just because you can go ashore in the other areas, you might still be restricted.  We went ashore in Jamaica and they made us show our vaccination cards and carry them with us.  Then, unbeknownst to us until we tried to walk further, we were restricted to shopping in the one shopping center complex.  There was a government official stopping people trying to walk down the sidewalk.  We were not informed of this at all on the ship.  I'm not sure that they were even aware of it, because it wasn't mentioned in the port lectures.  We also were going to walk to a nearby beach and we were told that the beach is closed to non-citizens and we weren't allowed to go.   

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Bethcb

Bethcb

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, mjmalino said:

This is from the Princess website:

The ability for fully vaccinated guests to go ashore in ports of call is controlled by the governments of the ports we visit, based on their specific COVID-19 protocols and requirements. These are subject to change. All ports allow fully vaccinated guests to go ashore with Princess shore excursions. Some ports may also allow tours sold by port-authorized third-party operators or independent tours and exploration. Please be aware that in select ports you may be required to take a shore excursion provided by Princess to go ashore.

We recommend that you always carry your proof of vaccination and your negative COVID-19 test results from embarkation when going ashore. Currently, only Princess shore excursions are permitted in:

  • Bridgetown, Barbados
  • Roseau, Dominica
  • Basseterre, St. Kitts
  • Castries, St. Lucia

So, if things stay as they are, you should be able to go ashore on your own in St. Thomas.

Barbados allows government approved excursions. We booked Glory tours from Viator. They are approved. 

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lx200gps

lx200gps

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, Eddie1 said:

Has anyone been to St. Thomas on a cruise lately? What are the restrictions on entrance of cruisers to walk around downtown?

We leave on Dec 12, what can we expect?

 

Thanks

We were in St Thomas off the Sky this past Tuesday. No apparent restrictions of any sort that we could see. Private and Princess tours were going out and many people, us included, were walking around town. In CA the masks were no more or less apparent than anywhere else; many wore them, many, including locals, did not.  I'd be interested in hearing what others thought about CA, as we found it still quite far from in previous, post-hurricane, condition.  Still many damaged buildings etc.

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
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21 hours ago, Bethcb said:

Barbados allows government approved excursions. We booked Glory tours from Viator. They are approved. 

If your not on any tour, do they allow you to al least walk around the terminal & near-by shops?

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roysue

roysue

Posted
Posted
On 11/27/2021 at 4:41 PM, wrongwaywatson said:

Just because you can go ashore in the other areas, you might still be restricted.  We went ashore in Jamaica and they made us show our vaccination cards and carry them with us.  Then, unbeknownst to us until we tried to walk further, we were restricted to shopping in the one shopping center complex.  There was a government official stopping people trying to walk down the sidewalk.  We were not informed of this at all on the ship.  I'm not sure that they were even aware of it, because it wasn't mentioned in the port lectures.  We also were going to walk to a nearby beach and we were told that the beach is closed to non-citizens and we weren't allowed to go.   

How did you find a list of government approved shore excursion providers?

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roysue

roysue

Posted
Posted
On 11/27/2021 at 4:43 PM, Bethcb said:

Barbados allows government approved excursions. We booked Glory tours from Viator. They are approved. 

How did you find a list 9f government approved tour operators?  Thanks!

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bonship

bonship

Posted
Posted

We are on Caribbean Princess right now and were in St thomas Weds. We got off ship, took taxi to Red Hook Ferry and travelled to St John for the day. No restrictions other than masks on taxi and ferry and walking through shopping area in St John. Lovely day. 

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CruisinCadie

CruisinCadie

Posted
Posted

Was on the previous Enchanted Princess sailing.  In St. Kitts and St. Lucia, you could take a ship's tour or a government approved tour.  There were taxis and tour operators waiting at the port for private tours.  In Dominica, only ship tours were allowed.  All three ports had shopping available, although in Dominica it was more of a craft market than regular stores.

In Antigua, St. Thomas, and Nassau, you could go anywhere.  We docked at Havensight Mall in St. Thomas and many of the shops were closed.  We were always told to take our passports but were only asked for them in St. Thomas.

BTW, in Nassau there were golf carts to take people from the ships to the main port entrance, I assume for a fee since they were independently operated.

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, CruisinCadie said:

We were always told to take our passports but were only asked for them in St. Thomas.

Are you sure they told you to take your passports?

In the past they only told people to take an photo ID with you which was sufficient for returning to the ship.

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kitty2264

kitty2264

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

Are you sure they told you to take your passports?

In the past they only told people to take an photo ID with you which was sufficient for returning to the ship.

We were in St Thomas yesterday and we were advised to take our passports as a precaution. They told us that in the event of an emergency we would not be able to board a plane.  From what I read, even a passport card won't work for a flight in the Caribbean.

 

It's a precautionary thing.  I used my real id drivers license to get through port security without a problem.

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MissP22

MissP22

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, kitty2264 said:

We were in St Thomas yesterday and we were advised to take our passports as a precaution. They told us that in the event of an emergency we would not be able to board a plane.  From what I read, even a passport card won't work for a flight in the Caribbean.

 

It's a precautionary thing.  I used my real id drivers license to get through port security without a problem.

If for some reason you didn't make it back to the ship security would have emptied out your safe & left it with the port agent along with your luggage. 

Either way you wouldn't have been stranded without your passport.

and yes, a passport card is practically worthless to enter the US from some parts of the world. 

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Mr_Steve_&_Me

Mr_Steve_&_Me

Posted
Posted
On 11/27/2021 at 9:57 AM, mjmalino said:

This is from the Princess website:

The ability for fully vaccinated guests to go ashore in ports of call is controlled by the governments of the ports we visit, based on their specific COVID-19 protocols and requirements. These are subject to change. All ports allow fully vaccinated guests to go ashore with Princess shore excursions. Some ports may also allow tours sold by port-authorized third-party operators or independent tours and exploration. Please be aware that in select ports you may be required to take a shore excursion provided by Princess to go ashore.

We recommend that you always carry your proof of vaccination and your negative COVID-19 test results from embarkation when going ashore. Currently, only Princess shore excursions are permitted in:

  • Bridgetown, Barbados
  • Roseau, Dominica
  • Basseterre, St. Kitts
  • Castries, St. Lucia

So, if things stay as they are, you should be able to go ashore on your own in St. Thomas.

I was just in St Thomas on Dec 7. Walked around town with no problem. Masks are required to enter any store, and at every port, including this one, we were asked to carry ID and vaccination card, although no-one asked to see it.  Maybe they want us to have them with us in case there is an accident while in port requiring hospital or emergency care.

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