Philipsburg- The Dr. A.C. Wathey Cruise Facility is operational for cruise ship traffic. The first cruise ship the Noordam is scheduled to dock at the cruise pier on Tuesday. Another cruise vessel is scheduled for Wednesday and four on Thursday.
The Noordam will be docking on the Southwest side of the cruise pier. Divers who have been carrying out underwater debris assessments have discovered some containers on the seabed on the East side of the cruise pier; however this will not disrupt the cruise port operations and the scheduling of vessels.
Commissioner of Port Affairs Theo Heyliger pointed out that cruise tourism is one of the industries that are most resilient in times of disaster. "Once a cruise destination's port facilities are up and running, the cruise lines will call at your destination as long as the rest of the damage to a destination is minimal.
"We need tour operators and other cruise industry service providers to speed up their recovery efforts in order to be ready to cater to the thousands of cruise passengers that will be calling at the Port of St. Maarten this week
and the weeks beyond.
"Together as a nation, we must show our resilience and welcome our cruise passengers with open arms," Commissioner of Port Affairs Theo Heyliger stated.
Harbour Group of Companies Managing Director Mark Mingo says that port assessments have been carried out and things are looking good.
"Clean-up operations were carried out after the hurricane passed. The cruise welcome area is clean of debris which littered the area due to storm surge. There are some cosmetic damages and there are a few things that still need to be worked on, and those will be completed before the first cruise ship call, otherwise we are good to go.
"The most important thing is our economy and cruise tourism injects millions into our island. Every effort has been made to reach where we are today.
"With respect to the cargo and cruise expansion areas, we expect that there will be delays after going through the experience of having a category three hurricanes pass 50 miles from our island. From what we can see, the structures remain intact.
"Assessments are being made of the second cruise pier that will be able to accommodate Future Larger Vessels (FLV) of over 200,000 tons. The contractor is working diligently in order to get things back on track with the construction activities.
"I would like to thank the St. Maarten Ports Authority (SMPA) management and staff especially the Maritime Department, as well as the dive team, who have been working very hard to get our cruise operations back online. They have done a great job where we can welcome our first cruise ship on Tuesday since the passing of Omar," Mark Mingo stated.
Construction of the multi-million dollar Dr. A.C. Wathey Cruise & Cargo Facility expansion project started at the end of December 2007 with scheduled completion for the end of 2009.
The cruise expansion entails the construction of a second cruise jetty of 445 meters in length and 21 meters in width. This new jetty will be able to accommodate two FLVs such as the Queen Mary II and the Genesis class cruise ships, the latter currently under construction in European shipyards.