Basseterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
February 26,2008 (CUOPM)
The parade of cruise ships into the Basseterre Roadstead continued on Saturday with the visit of nearly 6,000 passengers and 3,000 crew members.
The Queen Mary 2 arrived from Tortola, British Virgin Islands with 2,256 passengers and 1279 crew before sailing for The Bahamas; the Empress of the Seas arrived from Puerto Rico with 1699 passengers and a crew of 672, before sailing for St. Maarten and the Oceana docked with 1996 passengers and a crew of 887 from the Dominican Republic. It later sailed for Antigua. In all 5,851 cruise passengers visited Saturday along with 2,838 crew members.
Most of the passengers on the three ships disembarked and went on sight-seeing tours via taxis, tour buses and the St. Kitts Scenic Railway; shopping, sun and sea-bathing, hiking, horse-back riding, snorkeling, golfing, kayaking and sailing.
The visit of the three ships on Saturday brought the number of cruise ships for last week to seven, and 22 cruise ships for the month of February with an estimated 49,000 passengers.
Legend of the Seas and Astor visited Monday, while Empress of the Seas and Carnival Destiny are scheduled to berth on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
Some 81,000 cruise ship passengers from 42 ships are scheduled to visit St. Kitts in March.
The 2007/2008 Cruise Ship Season is set to be the best ever in the history of the industry with the expected visit of over 400,000 cruise passengers. Over 60,000 passengers visited in December and January saw some 68,038. 33,357 passengers are expected from 19 ship calls in April.
Although the 2007/2008 Cruise Ship Season officially ends in April, the Carnival Destiny which is calling all-year-round will make six calls with 13,394 passengers in May; 10,568 passengers in June; 13,210 passengers from five calls in July, and 10,568 passengers in August and a similar number from four calls in September.