Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 13, 2021 (SKNIS): Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Lindsay Grant, said that the Seabourn Odyssey and the Celebrity Millennium are scheduled to arrive in July 2021 during the Prime Minister’s Press Conference on July 8.
He said, “Since the pandemic hit in March of 2020, we have been working assiduously behind the scenes getting our stakeholders ready for the eventual day of the start of the cruise and so we have trained in excess of 5000 of our persons in the industry ensuring that the new protocols that are now in place will be followed when we open up our cruise industry.”
“As it stands at the moment, we are ready and able to accept the first cruise ship which would be Seabourn Odyssey on Thursday the 22nd of July,” said Honourable Grant. “The Seabourn Odyssey will come every week thereafter and then we have the Celebrity Millennium which will come on July the 28th.”
“When the Celebrity Millennium comes on July the 28th, it will come every other week thereafter and I should also say that August looks or is looking pretty good as in fact we should have in August a number of ships including the Allure of the Seas, which is of the Royal Caribbean brand which is a huge ship,” said Minister Grant.
“We are basically beginning the phase of allowing ships in and I must tell you though that as far as we are aware, the ships that would come that is the Seabourn Odyssey and the Celebrity Millennium, will come with fully vaccinated crew and passengers,” he added. “This means that we are expecting the crew onboard to be 98% vaccinated and the passengers to be 95% vaccinated.”
The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has removed the 24-hour curfew that was in place from the 26th of June to the 11th of July and has now instituted a 9 pm to 5 am curfew for two weeks in the first instance.