St Maarten

Just read this link saying that the first cruise ships back into St Maarten are imminent - any one know when the first P&O ones are due back there

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=8225

We were supposed to be visiting St. Maarten at the end of February but this has been changed to Martinique so presumably P&O will not be visiting before March at the earliest. I assume once the change of port has happened they wouldn't change it back - too much to do with changing excursions, port bookings etc.

Don't know about P&O but were told on our recent Marella (Thompson) cruise that they were going back to St Maarten in Dec.

We were supposed to be visiting St. Maarten at the end of February but this has been changed to Martinique so presumably P&O will not be visiting before March at the earliest. I assume once the change of port has happened they wouldn't change it back - too much to do with changing excursions, port bookings etc.

My thought is that they probably won't be going back there this Winter season in the Caribbean, as all the changes have had to be made, before they return to Southampton in the Spring..........

I understand that plans have been made but I was hoping that P&O would show support and return to St Maarten and Tortola as soon as they were able as they are regular stops on their Caribbean itineraries. I think others on here would like to show their support to these 2 islands by visiting them ASAP.

I don't think that Dominica, another regular P&O stop will be available for a long time but it would be nice to see P&O showing support to the other 2.

Our itinerary for February has been changed to miss St Maarten and Tortola. I would have loved to go to both but P&O has had to take the right decision for all its passengers. Tortola is far from ready to accept large groups of cruise passengers / holiday makers with lack of water, power and homelessness across the island. St Maarten I understand is only allowing one small ship in per day until the infrastructure improves.

Also having had to make the change from St. Maarten and then arrange excursions etc. at the new port, in our case, Martinique, they can't really then, at the last minute, change back again even if the current situation improves. All new excursions would have to be arranged according to the state of the infrastructure of the island, many usual ones wouldn't, I assume, be viable.

We have a change in March/April on Aurora to Guadeloupe instead of t Maarten, can't see them changing back.

The cruise port may be reopening but don't confuse this with reopening at full capacity. St Maarten will be able to handle a limited number of ships before the end of the current season.

Its not just the port that influences this - ships need to plan excursions for a certain percentage of passengers - some of these will take a little longer to get back in place.