Seaborne Odyssey will dock in Bequia, August 7

Seaborne Odyssey will be the first cruise ship to dock in the multi-island state of SVG. The ship will call at Port Elizabeth, Bequia, the largest of the Grenadine islands, on August 7.

At a press conference in Kingstown, St Vincent’s Minister of Tourism Carlos James said the ship is hoping to call every other Saturday until October.

James said this is the early stage, and they are expecting to see some 224 calls to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“We anticipate additional calls, and, of course, this is subject to, as I stated very early, the caveat as it relates to what transpires with COVID-19, both locally and internationally. We can be announcing this today and the next four, five months, we are announcing that we have to go back to the drawing board because of some development in the international market”.

Of the 224 calls to the multi-island state, 14 of them are inaugural.

“This is positive news for us, and this can only augur well for stakeholders in the industry and in terms of our economy, and I am looking forward to seeing those 14 first-time vessels to our destination. Several of the vessels will be in port on the same day”.

James said the destination is expecting calls from larger vessels, such as the Britannia and Azur, which each have a capacity of over 4,000 passengers.

“We have to prepare as to how we handle the season, how we ensure that safety remains the most critical word in all of the operations to ensure that COVID-19 is something that we can contain and we can handle as it relates to the destination,” James said.