Southern Caribbean with Tortola - no longer has Tortola

[joeyjeremiah]

I just got notice that my enchanted princess cruise for Dec 20, 2024 which is described and sold as Southern Caribbean with Tortola will no longer be going to Tortola because of Port Congestion. Instead our day in St. Thomas is being moved and no longer in port until 10 pm and a stop in San Juan is being added. I know port changes can happen and we are still before final payment so it is possible to cancel and at least we have lots of notice however of all the ports on the itinerary to cancel to cancel the one listed as the feature stop of the itinerary is an interesting decision.

[memoak]

11 minutes ago, joeyjeremiah said:

I just got notice that my enchanted princess cruise for Dec 20, 2024 which is described and sold as Southern Caribbean with Tortola will no longer be going to Tortola because of Port Congestion. Instead our day in St. Thomas is being moved and no longer in port until 10 pm and a stop in San Juan is being added. I know port changes can happen and we are still before final payment so it is possible to cancel and at least we have lots of notice however of all the ports on the itinerary to cancel to cancel the one listed as the feature stop of the itinerary is an interesting decision.

It is not really a cruise line decision if the port no longer has the capacity for a lot of ships. Many ports are limiting size and number of ships these days

[paddingtonbear]

Yes, unfortunately, access is being restricted in places like like Bar Horbor, Maine. Santorini, Venice and some fjords in Norway. 
 

At least you got prior warning before the final payment so you can make an informed decision. Such a pity though. 
 

Edited August 8 by paddingtonbear

[joeyjeremiah]

2 minutes ago, memoak said:

It is not really a cruise line decision if the port no longer has the capacity for a lot of ships. Many ports are limiting size and number of ships these days

That is true however we were scheduled to be in Port from 7:00am-4:00 pm. Also in Port is P&O Arvia and NCL Jewel from 12:00pm-7:00pm . There are still other days still showing 3 ships in port. I'm wondering if maybe we got bumped to tender instead of dock so they changed the schedule instead? Hard to say what the actual reason was.

[JimmyVWine]

As long as the mainstream cruise lines continue to build bigger and bigger ships and we continue to let them by patronizing them, this is going to happen more and more often.  One very large ship is now carrying as many passengers as three ships did 25 years ago.  So "three ships in port" today is the equivalent of "9 ships in port" in 2000.  And that never happened.  Not even close.

 

Speaking as someone who has taken many non-cruise vacations to the BVI between 1985 and 2005, I remember planning our days around the cruise ship schedule.  We would only go to places like The Baths, Trunk Bay, Brewers Bay or Cane Garden Bay on days when ships were not in port.  And that was back when "ships in port" meant maybe 2,500 people coming ashore.  I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere near a place like Tortola with 10,000 people coming ashore.  And I can only imagine the damage being done by that many people to the coral life.  I hate to say it, but if one wants to visit places like St. John, Tortola or Virgin Gorda, one needs to plan a land-based vacation or cruise on a small ship.  The beasts that are currently being built are purpose built for places like St. Thomas and San Juan. 

Edited August 8 by JimmyVWine

[Kabuki12]

I received the same email for Enchanted embarking on Jan 19th.  Tortola is cancelled and we will be visiting Grand Turk in it's place.  I'm just glad that we have another port to go to.  It's a 20 day cruise and Grand Turk is now on the itinerary twice.

[joeyjeremiah]

22 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

As long as the mainstream cruise lines continue to build bigger and bigger ships and we continue to let them by patronizing them, this is going to happen more and more often.  One very large ship is now carrying as many passengers as three ships did 25 years ago.  So "three ships in port" today is the equivalent of "9 ships in port" in 2000.  And that never happened.  Not even close.

 

Speaking as someone who has taken many non-cruise vacations to the BVI between 1985 and 2005, I remember planning our days around the cruise ship schedule.  We would only go to places like The Baths, Trunk Bay, Brewers Bay or Cane Garden Bay on days when ships were not in port.  And that was back when "ships in port" meant maybe 2,500 people coming ashore.  I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere near a place like Tortola with 10,000 people coming ashore.  And I can only imagine the damage being done by that many people to the coral life.  I hate to say it, but if one wants to visit places like St. John, Tortola or Virgin Gorda, one needs to plan a land-based vacation or cruise on a small ship.  The beasts that are currently being built are purpose built for places like St. Thomas and San Juan. 

That is true but Tortola has a size limit of less than 180,000 GRT . So Oasis class ships and larger can't port there. The Enchanted is still within the size limit permitted by the port at 145,000 GRT

Edited August 8 by joeyjeremiah

[PescadoAmarillo]

46 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

As long as the mainstream cruise lines continue to build bigger and bigger ships and we continue to let them by patronizing them, this is going to happen more and more often.  One very large ship is now carrying as many passengers as three ships did 25 years ago.  So "three ships in port" today is the equivalent of "9 ships in port" in 2000.  And that never happened.  Not even close.

 

Speaking as someone who has taken many non-cruise vacations to the BVI between 1985 and 2005, I remember planning our days around the cruise ship schedule.  We would only go to places like The Baths, Trunk Bay, Brewers Bay or Cane Garden Bay on days when ships were not in port.  And that was back when "ships in port" meant maybe 2,500 people coming ashore.  I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere near a place like Tortola with 10,000 people coming ashore.  And I can only imagine the damage being done by that many people to the coral life.  I hate to say it, but if one wants to visit places like St. John, Tortola or Virgin Gorda, one needs to plan a land-based vacation or cruise on a small ship.  The beasts that are currently being built are purpose built for places like St. Thomas and San Juan. 

We often remember back to when we went to Cozumel for diving in the 90s. We didn’t leave our resort two days of the week, called (with a shudder) cruise ship day. There was one pier in town and ships could only come two days a week. And, you’re right, the reefs were in pristine condition. 

[skynight]

San Juan in my opinion is a nice port , at least equal probably better. I would not cancel. A cruise vacation is just that, a cruise.

[JimmyVWine]

38 minutes ago, joeyjeremiah said:

That is true but Tortola has a size limit of less than 180,000 GRT . So Oasis class ships and larger can't port there. The Enchanted is still within the size limit permitted by the port at 145,000 GRT

Yes.  But the Enchanted Princess carries a passenger load of roughly 3,500.  The earlier iteration of Royal Princess carried 1,200.  So the 3:1 ratio of old ships compared to current ships still holds.  The Oasis Class (and bigger) would skew things even further, but they aren't even in play here.

[Wishing on a star]

I would be disappointed if that happened to me.

Not that I have to see Tortola, but that is a Port where you can do an excursion over to Soggy Dollar/White Bay Jost Van Dyke!

 

Santorini had been trying to limit Cruise Ship guests to around 8000 at one time.   Seems that, for some reason, they stopped doing that...  So, SUN Princess was allowed on the Schedule.  Now, as the last ship allowed on schedule, SUN is having to re-route.  The island simply cannot begin to handle. that number of cruise ship passengers, logistically.

Edited August 8 by Wishing on a star

[Senga]

We're booked on Enchanted 20 night in March and Tortola is the ONLY island we're interested in.  Sure hope they don't cancel our day there or we won't be getting off the ship for the entire cruise.

[Wishing on a star]

Hopefully you will be okay in March.

Cruisemapper shows only one other smaller ship that day.

You should be good to go!