April comes in like a mega-cruise ship as the West Indian Co. Ltd. confirmed that eight cruise ships will call on St. Thomas on Tuesday. WICO also announced a nearly 20 percent jump in projected passenger arrivals for the summer cruise ship schedule.
The Explorer of the Seas begins its new schedule of calls Tuesday and will be joined at the WICO dock that day by Carnival Triumph and Holland America's Zaandam. The Nordic Empress and Volendam will dock at Crown Bay while Westerdam, Radisson Diamond and Olympic Voyager will anchor in St. Thomas harbor.
WICO also announced that the M/V Mercury will make a previously unscheduled call Monday at the WICO dock, while Horizon will berth at Sub Base.
For the summer season from May 1 to Sept. 30, there will be 183 calls compared to 173 for the same period last year, an increase of 7 percent. But passenger arrivals will go up from last year's 396,353 to an anticipated 475,000 thanks largely to the new mega-cruise ships' increased capacity.
Those figures represent an increase of nearly 20 percent.
Among changes announced by WICO:
– Carnival Fascination will make its last call to St. Thomas on April 15 before repositioning to Miami for cruises to the Western Caribbean and the Bahamas;
– Grand Princess stays in the Caribbean this summer and begins bi-weekly calls on May 16;
– Norway and Maasdam will make bi-weekly calls on Thursday beginning April 26;
– Norway makes its last call on Aug. 30 before being deployed to Asia;
– Monarch of the Seas makes its last call on Sept. 17 before repositioning to Fort Lauderdale for Western Caribbean cruises.
