by Linda Straker
- Cruise calls 29 from December to 7 January cancelled to protect our population
- Over 200 cruise ships scheduled to berth during 2021–2022 season
- Permission granted if less than 1% of passengers on board are infected with Covid-19 or other infectious diseases
Grenada’s health and port authorities cancelled 5 cruise ship calls between December and January due to outbreaks of flu-like symptoms onboard.
Based on the Grenada Cruise Ship Protocol, cruise lines are mandated to immediately report outbreaks of acute respiratory illness/flu-like illness among passengers or crew members and SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 any positive case to the port health authority and local agents.
“Using these guidelines, the health authorities of Grenada have cancelled 5 cruise calls from December 29th, 2021 to January 7th, 2022 to protect our population. This precautionary process is applied to all cruise calls expected into Grenada until May 2022 when the 2021–2022 season ends,” said Nikoyan Roberts, Manager, Nautical Development who is currently the Acting Marketing & Sales Manager, Grenada Tourism Authority.
Grenada’s 2021/2022 cruise ship season began in November and a little more than 200 ships are scheduled to berth at the island’s harbour. However, since the discovery of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 several ships have either cancelled schedules to their ports or were turned away because of the Covid-19 outbreak onboard.
Health Minister Nickolas Steele disclosed on Tuesday during the post-cabinet briefing that there is a health protocol or an agreement with minimum requirements for cruise ships and all other sailing vessels to fulfil for them to be allowed to berth at any of the harbours in the country.
“There is a protocol for cruise ships whether the cruise ship has any positive cases or not. A protocol for how we deal with cruise ships coming into Grenada,” Steele said. Among other things, the protocol mandates that permission will only be granted to a sailing vessel if less than 1% of the passengers on board are infected with Covid-19 or other infectious diseases.
Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruises have announced the cancellation of some scheduled cruises but locally, there is no cancellation for upcoming calls. “We are yet to receive notification for cancellations, and we do have them on schedule for next week,” said a cruise ship sector official.
