St. Kitts Hears Good News from Celebrity Cruises, RCCL

St. Kitts Hears Good News from Celebrity Cruises, RCCL

A personal visit by Kittitian tourism officials to Royal Caribbean International & Celebrity Cruises in Miami last Friday has resulted in a vote of confidence for the Eastern Caribbean destination.

Minister of Tourism & International Transport, Senator Ricky Skerritt, revealed today that Federico Gonzalez-Denton, RCI/Celebrity’s Director for Government Relations, told him and Tourism Authority CEO, Rosecita Jeffers who was also on the visit that the Celebrity Solstice would make two unscheduled calls to St Kitts on February 2 and March 3 next year.

According to Minister Skerritt, the addition of these two calls is a clear vote of confidence in the viability of St. Kitts as a port-of-call for Celebrity Cruises. Five other Celebrity ships are already making 47 scheduled calls to St Kitts, but this season’s schedule did not previously include calls from the ‘Solstice’.

This comes on the heels of a previous decision by Celebrity to scale back island excursions in St Kitts after the November 14 gun-point hold-up of a tour bus carrying 17 passengers from the Celebrity Mercury cruise ship. At the time, Princess Cruises and the Carnival Miracle both dropped St Kitts as a port of call in the days following the incident.

However, Skerritt said the face-to-face meeting with top Celebrity officials enabled him to apologize in person on behalf of the Government and citizens of St Kitts & Nevis for the “unprecedented” robbery.

The Tourism Minister also took the opportunity to discuss measures being taken locally to strengthen cruise passenger safety and security, and to minimize the risk of a similar incident recurring.

Celebrity’s Head of Security, Gary Bald, also confirmed that, since the incident, security officials from the cruise line were in ongoing contact with the St. Kitts & Nevis Police High Command on matters related to the police investigation.