10 Ships in Grand Cayman on January 26th

[JLC@SD]

How does this happen......:confused: Here is the link:

 

http://www.cruisecal.com/dnn/Default.aspx?tabid=109

 

There will be the...... Sea Princess, Star Princess Norwegian Jewel, Radiance of the Seas, Carnival Valor, Rhapsody of the Seas, Norwegian Dawn, Oceana, Jewel of the Seas and Carnival Conquest........ crowding each other for anchor and tender space. Each ship averages 3,000 passengers.

 

If you are on the Sea or Star, you will be joined by 30,000 other people at Stingray Bay........:eek:

[Logie]

Wow! Is say unless you are Elite and using your get out of jail free card in the tender line to just forget it and stay on the ship.

 

Maybe some of the ships will see this and change. I remember once we were to be in St Thomas or St Maarten and one of the days there were too many ships. They switched the two around and we were fine.

[chasetf]

Wow! Is say unless you are Elite and using your get out of jail free card in the tender line to just forget it and stay on the ship.

I am afraid even that would not help. The Grand has at least 4 total, and sometimes 5 or 6 ships in port when it is in. Makes one understand where all the tendering complaints are coming from with that small tender docking area......:(

[Coral]

Sounds miserable!

 

It could be worse - there could be a few Voyager class ships there :( I am not sure if I would even bother getting off the ship.

[sherman931]

Me thinks that more and more people will choose to stay on board. Will this be good or bad for the ship? and the vednors in port?

[Verystormy]

Got to say this is the main thing that puts my wife off cruising - we normally holiday in tropical parts of the world such as South America, India Africa and Thailand, normally we feel "crowded" if there are more than a dozen people on two miles of beach, or twenty tourists in town at the same time, how she would cope with these numbers i would not like to imagine. It is of course only going to get worse. As cruising becomes more popluar, more ships and bigger ships being built, we are going to have to learn to "adapt"

[woodofpine]

What the GC tourist authorities are thinking. When this many ships are at port (which is pretty common now) it must significantly impair the island as a destination for (far more economically important) land based tourists. GC is just too small to handle this sort of load.

 

The last time we were on GC in March we faced this sort of scene; the elbow to elbow throngs everywhere basically ruined what is otherwise a wonderful island...

[spongerob]

I wonder what the locals think about all this? Whether or not you go ashore, they still get the port fees. Too bad there aren't any good alternatives to provide some competition. It feels a bit like highway robbery, or at least like paying for a movie only to find out that less than half who have tickets will actually get to see the show.

[Rolles96]

I just checked our itinerary and it shows the Star Princess going to GC on The 25th of January. Maybe thay have already changed it.

[mii]

WOW if that happened to me on a cruise I would stay on the ship. That poor island could not stand all of those people.

 

Marilyn

[Colo Cruiser]

WOW if that happened to me on a cruise I would stay on the ship. That poor island could not stand all of those people.

 

Marilyn

 

Ditto. :)

[coiran]

WOW!! Ten ships in GC at one time - if everyone goes ashore the island will sink!!

Who can we sue for this?? Maybe the Port Authority??

Ron

[bdjam]

I too would stay on the ship in this case - a cool drink poolside and a nice book would be better than fighting the crowds on shore (if I ever got there) anyday. It’s another case of greed and overrun ruining it for everyone. After my last trip to St. Thomas, where there were six ships in and walking around reminded me of being in downtown San Francisco during holiday shopping, I have a hard time picking the Caribbean as a cruise destination.

[wrp96]

And this is why I, more and more, find myself planning my own "sea" days for days we are in ports I've already been to.

[julieh]

We are in Grand Cayman at the moment and there are 4 ships in port and it was so crowded. I wouldn't get off if there were 10! There were long lines for the tenders except luckily for us Princess

 

Last time we were in St Thomas there were 10 ships in and it was horrendous. It is quite worrying as more and more ships are built and placed in the caribbean.

 

Julie

[imsulin2]

I was on a HAL cruise over Christmas, 2002, and there were 13 ships in Cozumel! The Zaandam was able to dock at a pier, so no problem getting off and on. I went on a snorkel/beach break tour, and when our tour returned the tenders from the "unlucky" ships were still operating. I noticed that a Crystal and a Radisson ship were docked at San Miguel.

[Cruisin Kay D]

According to the Cayman Port Authority's website (http://www.caymanport.com) these are the only ships scheduled to be at anchor on 1/26:

Rhapsody of The Seas

Jewel of the Seas

Sea Princess

Norwegian Dawn

Carnival Conquest

Holiday Dream (very small/less than 900 people)

Often there is a discrepancy between Cayman Port authority & cruisecal website.

 

My suggestion after being there half-dozen times, is to get off, take a cab to the Westin or Courtyard & go to their beach -- if you like to walk, then walk back towards the ships along the beach/waterfront -- then get a cab at Hyatt or at Marriott. You will LOVE this beach -- WONDERFUL, SMOOTH SAND, ETC.

[Coral]

It has been a year since I have cruised to the Caribbean (this year I did Alaska and NE/Canada) - I thought things were super crowded doing the Eastern Caribbean last December.

 

I am in the process of trying to figure out what my next cruise will be and the Caribbean is ranking very low on my list. While I find the Caribbean very gorgeous - I don't like wall to wall people in the ports. It just doesn't make the port days enjoyable.

[jnc411]

Hi, we are going to be in GC on March 23, and Cruise Cal lists 8 ships in port , so I am a bit worried about this as well , we have a tour booked , but might change our minds. Thanks for posting the port authority site, going to check that out and hope that Cruise Cal is wrong.

Cori

[Stevesan]

According to the Cayman Port Authority's website (www.caymanport.com) these are the only ships scheduled to be at anchor on 1/26:

Rhapsody of The Seas

Jewel of the Seas

Sea Princess

Norwegian Dawn

Carnival Conquest

Holiday Dream (very small/less than 900 people)

Often there is a discrepancy between Cayman Port authority & cruisecal website.

 

It's so often wrong that I finally removed the Cruise Cal bookmark from my list. Way too many errors.

[baffles]

Hi, we are going to be in GC on March 23, and Cruise Cal lists 8 ships in port , so I am a bit worried about this as well , we have a tour booked , but might change our minds. Thanks for posting the port authority site, going to check that out and hope that Cruise Cal is wrong.

Cori

 

I think we're still good for EIGHT SHIPS that day Cori. Way to many in the first place. We're going to wait and see how bad it looks before getting off. We've been here several times, so going ashore is not critical........

Is there a place on board for the March 11-25 cruise where CC people are meeting? baffles............

[Toto2Kansas]

We stopped at GC once with 7 ships in port. We tendered in, and went right back to the ship. There was not enough room to even walk around. Sorry to have to share that with you but it resembled an actual zoo of people everywhere. :(

[Katie333]

What a nightmare! GC tendering is such a disaster on good days, anything more than 4 ships is just too much to handle.

 

CruiseCal says that we are the only ship for my next cruise but I guess I should not rely on that info too much, I'll check out the cayman site listed (thanks).

[Host CJSKIDS]

GC looks like it's going to be a nightmare the day we arrive in March. There are 7 ships there that day and the Star and The Grand both arrive at the same time and depart at the same time. I wonder how the heck Princess is going to handle this. Carnival arrives 1 hour prior so they're also going to be busy handling this ship. Wonder if Princess is going to get their act together.

[BigTimeCruiser]

Boy, what a mess....I thought that Grand Cayman was a mess last month. Can't imagine 10 ships.