ROAD TOWN, Tortola — The British Virgin Islands welcomed its first cruise ship in 15 months when Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Millennium docked at the Cyril B. Romney Pier Park with 414 passengers.
It was a far cry from the normal capacity of over 2,000 passengers, but a welcome sight after months of non-activity following the pandemic, as first reported in the Virgin Islands Daily News.
BVI Ports Authority Security Manager Dave Smith described the feeling of many in the territory shortly after witnessing the cruise ship slowly pulling in around 8 a.m.
“It’s an exciting time, because we haven’t seen ships in over a year. It was really a happy time for me seeing the ship coming around the corner and coming in to the port,” Smith told The Daily News.“Now we’re sitting here and seeing all the passengers coming off the port and you see them going to their different tour vessels and taxis. So, it’s a really good time.”
Smith said that John Samuel, one of three BVI pilots that include Shaun Durante and Jameel Vanterpool of Virgin Gorda, helped bring the ship to the port.
“Anything coming into our waters, using our channel and our facility it’s our responsibility—we can’t leave it up to the ship and make an error then blame us for it,” he explained. “So let us make the error and we are fully responsible and that’s pretty much what the pilot does.”
He added that people tend to think that “the ship is following the pilot boat but that’s not the case at all.”
“The pilot boat went out, put the pilot on board then they move away. They simply come with the ship — behind it, side of it, in front it — but the ship is not following it. When the ship is moored, he gets back on that pilot vessel and he goes back to his destination,” Smith said.
Two of the first passengers off the ship were return visitors who wasted no time in catching Speedy’s 8:30 a.m. ferry to Virgin Gorda. An agent for the BVI port told The Daily News that another 100 passengers took the White Bay Ferry for a day trip to the Baths on Virgin Gorda.
There was some controversy after a flyer, attributed to the National Parks Trust, circulated on social media a day earlier about The Baths on Virgin Gorda being open only to cruise passengers on Thursday. The NPT, however, said the flyer was “fake news.”
At-Large Representative Shereen Flax-Charles of Virgin Gorda, who worked in the tourism sector prior to entering politics, confirmed during an appearance on a local radio show Thursday morning that the issue had been addressed overnight.
“We appreciate the business from the cruise ship. We appreciate the guests that come off to visit and to see what the BVI has to offer — we have a lot to offer,” Flax-Charles noted. “However, one particular stakeholder in tourism cannot control our national treasure.”
Flax-Charles said Thursday possibly could have been the only day overnight guests and residents of Virgin Gorda would have a chance to visit The Baths.
“We cannot allow these kind of things to happen. We have to stand up. The public has the right to go to any beach in the BVI at any time. It cannot be exclusive for a cruise line,” he said.
Flax-Charles said had this been allowed, it would have set a bad precedent for when ships returned to a regular schedule, and passengers opted to go to Cane Garden Bay or Long Bay, Beef Island.
“We should not restrict any beach for any cruise ship,” the legislator said.
Vincent Wheatley, a Ninth District representative who serves as minister of Labor and Natural Resources and lives on Virgin Gorda, also put the matter to rest.
In an online post, he said that despite requests by the cruise lines to have beaches opened only to passengers, the BVI government “has never and will never agree to this as all beaches are public.”
“This decision was made a long time ago and all government members were made aware of it,” Wheatley wrote. “I find it quite unfortunate that a flyer should come out saying differently.”
Further, “despite all efforts to have it corrected in a timely manner, the debacle was allowed to escalate no doubt, causing great harm to our reputation. The matter has since been rectified by the relevant department. In such difficult and uncertain times we all have to work together for the betterment of the BVI.”
By DEAN GREENAWAY/The Virgin Islands Daily News