KINGSTON-Jamaica's newest cruise ship port will not be ready to host passengers for another month and a half due to the sluggish pace of final preparations, officials with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and the government said Tuesday. John Tercek, vice president of new business development for the Miami-based company, said the two-berth cruise port in the north coast town of Falmouth is ready to dock ships but sections of the 32-acre site remain a tangle of scaffolding and unfinished buildings.
"To be honest, it looks like a construction site," Tercek said during a Tuesday phone interview from Florida. During a weekend tour of the Historic Falmouth Cruise Port development, Royal Caribbean and Jamaican officials agreed that the site was not ready to deliver an entirely pleasant experience for passengers. The cruise line decided to delay scheduling the maiden port call until Feb. 17. "It actually makes a ton of sense. It's a high-profile project so why do it less than great?" said Tercek, adding that the first cruise liner next month will be the Voyager of the Seas out of Galveston, Texas.
The ambitious US$220 million project in the modest town of Falmouth, between the popular resort cities of Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, had been expected to host Royal Caribbean's 3,400-passenger Navigator of the Seas on Friday. But in recent days, it became clear that the port, being developed by the cruise line in partnership with the Port Authority of Jamaica, would not be ready for a Jan. 7 port call. The Navigator of the Seas was quickly rerouted to Montego Bay.
"We still need a major spruce-up of the town, including working on local historic buildings and diverting traffic to pedestrianize certain areas," said William Tatham, vice president of cruise shipping and marina operations for Jamaica's port authority. Complicating efforts, nearly 500 workers at the port walked off the job Monday claiming they were underpaid and overtaxed. Jamaica's labor ministry was trying Tuesday to ease the dispute and quickly end the work stoppage.
Royal Caribbean is investing some US$170 million in the three-phase project, which was designed to have one berth accommodate the cruise line's huge 16-deck, 225,000-ton (204,100-metric-ton) Oasis of the Seas. The company says it is the largest development undertaken in the Caribbean basin for years.
This first construction phase will cost some $180 million (AP)