The Gov­ern­ment has re­fund­ed Roy­al Caribbean Cruise Line the $6 mil­lion Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion seized from aboard one of its two ves­sels clear­ing the way for a re­sump­tion of its ser­vice to To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Tourism and Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Os­wald Williams said this might be too late for the com­pa­ny to re­sume calls to To­ba­go for the com­ing cruise ship sea­son which starts in Oc­to­ber/No­vem­ber. He said the mat­ter was raised with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­pa­ny at the Mi­a­mi Trade Fair for the Cruise In­dus­try and they promised to take it up with their board of di­rec­tors at their next meet­ing.

Williams said it was late for plan­ning the sched­ule that was nor­mal­ly done 12 to 18 months be­fore the start of the sea­son. The mon­ey was seized fol­low­ing a court mat­ter in Grena­da two years ago. Williams said THA rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the fair were able to con­firm the will­ing­ness of the Sea Dream and the Wind Surf to re­turn to Char­lot­teville in the next cruise sea­son. In ad­di­tion, a new ves­sel from the Club Med Line was al­so go­ing to call at Char­lot­teville if the con­di­tion of the jet­ty was im­proved. Williams, along with THA chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, al­so at­tend­ed a sus­tain­able tourism con­fer­ence in Bermu­da from April 3 to 6.