All the cruise ship visits to the Cayman Islands have been cancelled until further notice. The Christmas cruise of Holland America’s MS Nieuw Statendam is one of them, scheduled to visit Grand Cayman on 28th of December, 2021. Officials have confirmed on Wednesday that the cruise stop will not happen because of the public anxiety over the expansion of COVID-19 cases on the cruise ships, especially with the new Omicron variant threat.

Premier Wayne Panton stated this as a response to a viewer’s question on CMR’s Premier Access show, referring to the arrival of the Cruise Ships to the Cayman Islands. Pryor to this, just a week earlier, Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan said that the visit would be very safe. Currently, he is on leave, visiting his family for the holidays in the UK. 

“Obviously, a lot of circumstances are constantly evolving… This is one of those cases where circumstances have conspired against us,” he said with a wry tone. Noting that there were “a variety of issues”, he concluded, “it’s probably not the best for this to continue”.

Panton said, “The risk profile and the circumstances and the potential benefit that you thought was going to happen look less likely to materialize and the risk profile looks likely to shift against you, so we have taken a position that we are not going to proceed with this cruise ship visit. Unfortunately, it will have some impact on some folks, but by and large most people probably feel it would not be the right time and reflects mixed messaging,” he said.

This announcement was criticized by some people because it was made on a social media platform, instead of on the publicly funded government television channel CIGTV or maybe on an official press briefing.

In November, The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Transport announced the long-awaited arrival of the first cruise ship to George Town, signaling the return of cruise ships to the Grand Cayman. However, for now, the plans to restart the cruise industry in this island nation will have to wait.