Carnival To ‘Operate Largest Bermuda Season’
Carnival Cruise Line will “operate its largest Bermuda season ever in 2019-2020,” with more than 40 voyages visiting the island, including eight week-long cruises departing from Baltimore and Charleston next year.
This was recently announced by the company which said, “In total, six different Carnival ships – Carnival Breeze, Magic, Pride, Radiance, Sunshine and Sunrise – will offer four- to nine-day Bermuda cruises from five homeports along the eastern seaboard between now and next year.
“Carnival is the only cruise operator to offer round-trip Bermuda cruises from Charleston, Port Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale. Nine-day Bermuda departures have also been added to the New York-based schedules of the totally transformed Carnival Sunrise and Carnival Radiance that include four-day cruises to the island as well.
“Carnival’s diverse Bermuda schedule not only encompasses a wide range of cruise durations and homeports but also a variety of ship sizes and amenities, providing consumers with unprecedented opportunities to visit the popular destination.”
“Guest feedback on our Bermuda program has been nothing short of sensational and we’re delighted to expand our offerings to provide even more guests an opportunity to experience all this tropical island paradise has to offer,” said Fred Stein, Carnival’s vice president of revenue planning and deployment.
The seven week-long cruises to Bermuda from Baltimore will be offered aboard Carnival Pride and spend three days in Bermuda, while a seven-day cruise from Charleston aboard Carnival Sunshine will feature two days on the island along with a visit to the private Bahamian destination of Princess Cays. Baltimore departure dates include May 31, Aug. 2 and 23, Sept. 6 and 20, and Oct. 4 and 18, 2020. The cruise from Charleston departs Oct. 17, 2020.
The number of cruisers continues to increase while the air leisure visitor numbers are declining! Bermuda doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle the number of cruise passengers on this year’s schedule and Kevin Dallas says the Ministry of Tourism & Transport is responsible for approving the increase. There are numerous complaints from Cruisers about the long delays in getting on the ferry at Dockyard as well as other complaints about transportation and excursions. The ratio of cruisers and air arrivals should be 35% cruiser & 65% air arrival and it is just the opposite. Locals don’t want more cruisers, cruisers don’t want more cruisers adding to the wait lines and cruise lines don’t want more competition for Bermuda, yet BTA and Ministry of Tourism & Transport keep ignoring the negative aspects of more cruise ships. Bermuda tourism air arrivals started declining in the 80’s because of the “good enough” attitude of Bermuda Tourism Dept. and many properties, that same attitude is back and will soon have the same effect on all visitor numbers.
The National Tourism Plan is pretty clear on our objective when it comes to cruise; make best use of the infrastructure we already have. That means getting more callers for Dockyard outside the peak summer months, and small ship calls for Hamilton & St George.
Better distribution of our cruise visitors reduces the demands on public transportation, and makes our tour operators, experience providers and retailers more economically viable. This also benefits air visitors because operators who wouldn’t otherwise be able to operate in April or November can when they have the volume of cruise.
Carnival’s calls will support our strategic goals, and do not meaningfully impact the total number of cruise visitors to the island.
According to the above the new cruises will be coming late May thru mid-October which I hope is still considered “prime time”. You should go out to Dockyard on a Monday at 8:00am, stay until 4:00pm and observe how the “good enough” infrastructure doesn’t accommodate the number of cruisers. Take notice of the large numbers of cruisers who are returning to their ship between 2:00 & 3:00pm because very few shore excursions keep them disbursed across the island beyond those times. You need to start talking with cruisers and hearing what they expect instead of assuming the National Tourism Plan covers everything. The BDOT got complacent and tourism paid the price, BTA should be paying more attention not to make the same mistakes.
I say bring in as many ships as possible every bit counts
I also say widen town cut so St George can have a large ship in port everyday. It will really bring the dead town back to life
Dallas is a idiot! Time for him to go! Cruise passengers don’t spend as much as air passengers as all their meals are on board as part of their ticket! And they want beaches only nothing else so we can’t provide that unless they anchor off South Shore?
you are the idiot
Well said Eve… Altho more cruise visitors look good on paper it certainly puts a strain on my taxi industry. There are long lines and long waiting periods at the buses and ferries as you said but you don’t hear the complaints about them as you do if you have to wait for a taxi. The BTA has to consider the future of transportation in a wise way and let the burdens be carried equally without damaging the infrastructure that’s already in place. The taxi industry does not need further complaints against it’s delivery of service.
One air visitor contributes as much as ten cruisers. Trouble is, Bermuda is simply too expensive for the average air traveller. Too expensive to get here. Too expensive to be here,