CAYMAN opens to cruise passengers on Monday March 21

GRAND CAYMAN,  March 19. 2022 - Cayman will reopen its ports to cruise passengers beginning Monday March 21, when the first cruise ship returns to the jurisdiction and according to  Premier Wayne Panton, passengers will not be required to do lateral flow testing before disembarking in Cayman.

Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Panton stated that cruise travellers will be tested prior to boarding the ship. However, and due to  the logistical complications involved in conducting testing for passengers who wished to come ashore in Grand Cayman they will not be required to do so upon disembarkation.

“We accepted that it would be difficult for that to happen,” Panton acknowledged, stating, “The counterbalance to that, of course, is that unlike the stayover tourists, who are usually here for an average of 5.5 days, the cruise visitors are probably here, on average, on a daily basis between five to six hours. So it represents a much smaller window of opportunity or a much smaller window of risk.”

He added that cruise tourists would be operating in “little bubbles” with less intense interaction with Cayman’s population than stayover tourists.

Only fully vaccinated passengers over 12 will be allowed to disembark. Children 12 and under will be given the same vaccination status as the adults in their group.

This means passengers will be required to have received their final dose of a Cayman Islands-approved vaccine at least 14 days prior to the beginning of the cruise.

All crew must be vaccinated and no COVID-positive passenger or crew will be allowed to disembark, regardless of whether they have symptoms or not.

The amended regulations come into effect on Monday, 21 March. Within the first four weeks of cruise lines returning to the Cayman Islands, 21 ships carrying up to 74,208 passengers are scheduled to arrive.

The Disney Magic, with a maximum capacity of 2,700 passengers, will be the first ship to arrive, beginning the phased resumption of cruise tourism in Cayman, thereby “helping us to define a new normal for our cruise tourism industry, our tourism industry as a whole. And this will help us move more effectively towards full economic recovery,”  Panton said .

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