Oct. 1, 2007 — There are hints and suggestions from several ships’ agents in the territory that some cruise ships are coming back to St. Croix, but they confirmed very little and said any major turnaround is probably several years away.
“There has been some interest in St. Croix,” said Steve Vasaturo, president of Deliver It, a shipping agency on St. Thomas. “I can’t give the names of any lines. But to give the people of St. Croix the hope they need and deserve, I have hope that a couple of lines will return by the 2008-2009 season.”
Vasaturo’s company is a major player in the business of serving cruise ships in the Virgin Islands. Deliver It was recently selected by Holland America Line, Windstar Cruises, SeaDream Yacht Club, Club Med, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Silver Seas Cruises. The company already served Princess Cruises and its sister lines. Deliver It officials expect to serve 457,000 passengers during the upcoming season.
“Cruise ships to St. Croix is one of those very hot topics,” Vasaturo said. “So I don’t want to say anything that can be misleading. But I can say several of the lines … have shown an interest in St. Croix and have asked me for pro-forma invoices for services in St. Croix.”
Any major influx of ships and tourists is probably several years away, Vasaturo said.
“As you know, these cruise lines begin advertising a couple of years in advance on their websites,” he said. “So any new destination is usually a few years out.”
Bringing in ships and finding unique, interesting things for the passengers to do is something of a chicken-or-egg dilemma.
“We work with a lot of the smaller cruise lines, which tend to be higher end,” said Dave Dutcher, senior ships' agent for Deliver It. “And they have expressed an interest going in. They’ve said to us it does not make a lot of sense to bring in a giant ship without a lot of tours and organized activities. And if only one ship comes in, that makes it difficult to develop tours and such.”
Cruise companies are looking for interesting, safe experiences for their customers, Dutcher said.
“One thing they are interested in is resolving the petty-crime issue,” he said. “But what they really want is some sort of uniqueness. Something you don’t get on every cruise. I think St. Croix has a lot of opportunities there. There are opportunities for creating tours and activities that can be developed — not with a lot of capital, but with a lot of creativity."
Rick Carrington, a ships' agent on St. Croix, largely agrees with Dutcher’s prognosis.
“We have to recognize that St. Croix is not well visited,” he said. “It is pretty much a new destination. And we can take advantage of that. They are looking for a new and improved destination, and we are working to create an historical and cultural brand for the island.”
Like Vasaturo, Carrington noted the long lead time between planning for new ships to come and when they actually start arriving. Carrington said his company, Island Networks, represents Oceania Cruises. The Oceania ship Regatta is expected to call on St. Croix in November 2008.
“Oceania is looking for historical, off-the-beaten-path, cultural and historical aspects,” which plays to St. Croix’s strengths, Carringston said. Officials from several cruise lines may be visiting St. Croix in December of 2008 to have a look at those cultural and ecological assets, he said.
Ships' agents are basically the liaison between ship and land, Dutcher said.
“We assist in customs clearance, in reporting all the passenger and crew information for the Coast Guard and so on,” he said. “Once they are here, the ships have all kinds of needs. We get parts and equipment sent to us from the cruise-ship builders and suppliers. We arrange for ship parts from Italy, mattresses from other parts of Europe, anything you can think of that might be on a cruise ship. Also, their medical care on board is very limited. We help organize dental appointments and make sure the crew makes it to the doctor on time, then back to the ship on time.”
Editor's note: Island Networks did not state that any specific cruise line other than Oceania Reggata has a planned or scheduled port of call on St. Croix.
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