Carnival Corp has announced that they will replace Belize calls on nine sailings on the Carnival Glory and the Carnival Legend. The reason given was due to tender congestion. Its about a 45 minute ride from the ship to the pier.
Belize will be replaced with Costa Maya. Interestingly enough, Costa Maya was a cruise line funded port built into the Mexican Jungle.
Now there’s word that Carnival (via the FCCA) is ‘threatening’ to pull out of Cayman Islands entirely also over tenders. This problem arose when their vendor for the boats Cayman Marine Services, announced an increase of $0.75 (seventy five cents!) per person. Kinda seems like something Carnival can just pass on right to the gusts via ‘port taxes.’
I understand Cayman Marine’s need to increase the price in order to meet the rising costs of fuel and workforce. However if the Cayman Island officials got their act together and just build an actual pier, Carnival and their vendors wouldn’t have to be put in this position.