Is St Lucia becoming a no-go area?

[Fletcher]

St Lucia was quite possibly our least favourite island on our recent 10-island cruise. This sort of thing can't help its image for crass commercialisation and growing lawlessness:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/cruise-news/9994365/Cruise-passengers-robbed-at-gunpoint-in-St-Lucia.html

[mn_isla_girl]

St Lucia was quite possibly our least favourite island on our recent 10-island cruise. This sort of thing can't help its image for crass commercialisation and growing lawlessness:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/cruise-news/9994365/Cruise-passengers-robbed-at-gunpoint-in-St-Lucia.html

 

I've been to St. Lucia twice and have my next trip booked. Beautiful island in my opinion with lovely people.

 

Because tourism is so important on these little islands the authorities take crime against tourists very seriously. Also safety is very important to the cruiselines. Many of these islands have a large population of very poor people, of course a few of these people, now and then, are going to see a bus load of 'rich' tourists as a target. Many countries in Central America that I have visited have banditos, it's a good reminder that you shouldn't wear expensive jewelry or carry large amounts of cash as a tourist.

 

The article said: 'Tourism officials described the incident as “rare” and “unfortunate”,' It's also fortunate nobody was hurt during the robbery.

 

My local media is so busy reporting murders, they don't even report on robberies. And I consider my home safe, of course I don't go to the areas where they have the gang activity.

 

I guess if you didn't care for St. Lucia in the first place, you needn't worry about going back.

[reedprincess]

3 men are in custody. One was arrested Sat. after having bragged to friends and the police were told; that one has confessed both verbally and in a full written report, and helped lead police to the other 2 men. Some items and a small portion of cash was recovered. 13 people from the overall bus were robbed, inside the botanical gardens - the gunman did not hold up the whole bus. Pretty swift police work, and as always, very dumb criminals.

http://www.dbstvstlucia.com/newsvids

http://www.htsstlucia.org/2013_News/...h_2013.htm#new

Hope that sets some minds at ease - crime does happen here , as anywhere, and we generally catch the criminals, sometimes pretty swiftly.

All the best - enjoy your future cruises!

[Keith1010]

These things can happen in almost anywhere around the world.

 

It even happens in our own backyards as we know.

 

Keith

[Fletcher]

I'm not sure you're entirely right, Keith. A whole busload of tourists robbed at gunpoint? In a resort island full of big resorts and where a movie star can block-book a hotel and dictate who can go on (or fly over) a public beach? I don't think this sort of thing could ever happen in, say, Antigua or Barbados or even Jamaica.

 

If you exclude countries which are in a state of war or insurrection, such as Afghanistan, Yemen and the DRC, you are left with very few places where such a thing might happen - maybe parts of Central America, one or two spots in Africa and that's about it, in my view.

 

I'm just worrying that St Lucia is getting out of control.

[Keith1010]

Fletcher, where should I start:

 

Rio

Buenos Aires

Chicago

Lima

South Africa

Kenya

Barcelona

Valencia

 

We just had a tragedy in Boston.

 

It is sad but things happen.

 

I do think everyone can take precautions but unfortunately some situations are unavoidable if we are to just stay home.

 

I can list more countries and cities too. In the last year there was reported crime in other ports of cal such as Puerto Vallarta and most recently Barbados. You had mentioned Barbados but a tragedy happened two weeks before we were there very recently.I recently read about a not so good situation in Newport, RI.

 

As part of a World Cruise we were in Montevideo in February. Two weeks before we arrives some passengers on another cruise ship were robbed and accosted.

 

How about Naples?

 

The list goes on and on.

 

Keith

[Fletcher]

Yes of course there is crime everywhere. But we are talking about a bus full of cruise passengers held up at gunpoint. That's very unusual. Muggings and other violence against individual passengers or even small groups of passengers are fairly common around the world but this St Lucia thing seemed surprising, as evidenced by the coverage it has received in the press. And that's the case for the defence, M'lord.

[Keith1010]

We can point to places in so many areas of the world where events happen including Boston. I suppose if what happened in Boston happened in St. Lucia we would be having this same discussion.

 

Keith

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

A very similar robbery to that on St Lucia happened in Nassau, Bahamas a year or two ago.

 

The fact is tourists on tour buses are sitting ducks if alert and determined locals know tour bus schedules and routines. It kind of reminds me of the Jesse James style train robberies in the post Civil War era.

[reedprincess]

Yes of course there is crime everywhere. But we are talking about a bus full of cruise passengers held up at gunpoint. That's very unusual. Muggings and other violence against individual passengers or even small groups of passengers are fairly common around the world but this St Lucia thing seemed surprising, as evidenced by the coverage it has received in the press. And that's the case for the defence, M'lord.

It was not a whole bus load of passengers that was held up - read the news stories more closely. It was a small group of people off a large bus tour. They were not robbed while on the bus.They were robbed inside the botanical gardens, while touring the beautiful gardens in smaller tour groups. It was actually about 13 people held up and robbed. Still horrible, and should not happen - and the lady tour guide showing them around is the one who had the injured leg, looks like she will need surgery to put her knee back together. The botanical gardens is reviewing and beefing up their security measures.

 

The 3 men who committed this crime have been apprehended already (one the next day, and the other two the following day). Not sure that would be the case with a robbery in Norfolk.

Yes, there was a random shooting of cruise passengers right in the harbour area in Barbados a few weeks ago - yet you list it as a place where nothing like this would happen. And they too have been host to star studded weddings where they have closed beaches and hotels to local access for the duration of the event, even building fences to keep people out and so on.

News stories about crime in beautiful vacation places tend to get large coverage both because they happen in "paradise" and because they are so very rare. For whatever reason, people around the world view "vacation" destinations as places where no crime should ever happen - and yet all these places are countries and cities with actual people living in them and some of those people are criminals, whether here in the Caribbean, in Europe, in the US or UK and so on. Press coverage is always overblown when something rare happens - for example, Boston's tragedy - 24/48 hour non-stop coverage because it is so unusual and so tragic. Our prayers go out to all those affected there, however I bet it doesn't stop people from visiting Boston from here on out. And it shouldn't - it was unusual. And horribly tragic.

If you don't want to visit St. Lucia anymore because of this incident, totally understandable. It's too bad you'll miss out on all the beauty of the island and the wonderfulness of the vast majority of our people, but there are other nice places to visit too; I hope you find one that has no crime at all - and let us all know about that too.

All the best to you in your future travels and endeavours.

[Fletcher]

If you don't want to visit St. Lucia anymore because of this incident, totally understandable. It's too bad you'll miss out on all the beauty of the island and the wonderfulness of the vast majority of our people, but there are other nice places to visit too; I hope you find one that has no crime at all - and let us all know about that too.

All the best to you in your future travels and endeavours.

 

Thanks Reedprincess - I'm going to exit from this Forum now. I'm really a South Pacific person and as beautiful as St Lucia and some other Caribbean islands are, they are small beer compared to Pacific islands such as Moorea, Aitutaki, Isle of Pines, Samoa and so on. And crime is virtually unknown there, tipping is regarded as an insult and big resorts and huge cruise ships are rarities.

[Fletcher]

I'd just add to that - one of the things we did on our cruise was to do our own thing on most islands, generally renting a car for the day. We did this on St Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, Martinique and Barbados. We took a few taxis and we also took a day room at a hotel on Grenada. All that worked out very well. On St Lucia we took a local tour which we didn't like at all and ended up just having lunch at the Jalousie/Sugar Beach Hotel.

 

I had hoped in various posting to encourage people not to take tours, especially overpriced ship tours. I quickly found out this was not what the vast majority of people want. People want to be shown things, to be led around in a group, and that's OK with me. It's just not what I am looking for at all.