NCL Gem skipped St Thomas?

[calmpets]

It looks like the Gem skipped St Thomas today. Anyone heard anything from guests onboard? My stepdaughter is sailing, but she doesn't have the wifi package, so I'm out of the loop. Just curious if St Thomas said not to come there, or if NCL is trying to return to NY more quickly for some reason. Thanks for any info!

[vince_g]

Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas was denied entry into St. Thomas yesterday.  There is a press conference going on right now.  Found it by googling 'port of St. Thomas closed today'.  You'll see the facebook page for USVI port authority.

 

Apparently Grandeur had a crew member onboard who traveled from Japan in the past 14 days.

Edited March 13, 2020 by vince_g
add more info

[Jerl4738]

28 minutes ago, calmpets said:

It looks like the Gem skipped St Thomas today. Anyone heard anything from guests onboard? My stepdaughter is sailing, but she doesn't have the wifi package, so I'm out of the loop. Just curious if St Thomas said not to come there, or if NCL is trying to return to NY more quickly for some reason. Thanks for any info!

We're on the Gem right now. They made an announcement overhead last evening that we weren't going to St Thomas because of weather concerns getting back to NYC on time (Monday morning). It did seem odd...

[calmpets]

Many thanks for the info! My guess is that they thought a weather related itinerary change would go over better than a COVID-19 related change. I hope you are enjoying your cruise!

[njhorseman]

23 minutes ago, Jerl4738 said:

We're on the Gem right now. They made an announcement overhead last evening that we weren't going to St Thomas because of weather concerns getting back to NYC on time (Monday morning). It did seem odd...

This has happened several times this winter,  and isn't odd at all.

 

It affected me twice recently. One cruise I was embarking in December was delayed several hours by weather despite skipping St. Thomas to allow more time to return to NY and I was on the Gem's Feb. 14 - 24 cruise that also skipped St. Thomas due to expected weather conditions on the trip back to NY. That cruise managed to get back to NY close to schedule.

[Jerl4738]

17 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

This has happened several times this winter,  and isn't odd at all.

 

It affected me twice recently. One cruise I was embarking in December was delayed several hours by weather despite skipping St. Thomas to allow more time to return to NY and I was on the Gem's Feb. 14 - 24 cruise that also skipped St. Thomas due to expected weather conditions on the trip back to NY. That cruise managed to get back to NY close to schedule.

It was more the way it was presented than it actually happening. 

[njhorseman]

2 minutes ago, Jerl4738 said:

It was more the way it was presented than it actually happening. 

Curious about how it was presented. On the Feb 14 cruise the captain made the announcement at about 6 pm, an hour or so after the ship had departed Antigua.