OCHO RIOS, St. Ann:
ROYAL CARIBBEAN Inter-national has scrapped plans to re-route its mega-liner, "Mariner of the Seas", from Ocho Rios to Montego Bay.
This was disclosed by "Mariner of the Seas" Captain Tor Olsen in an interview with The Gleaner this week.
Since news of the pending loss of the "Mariner" began to circulate in Ocho Rios last month, tourism interests and members of business community have been pondering over the major fallout in business that was likely to occur.
The "Mariner of the Seas" takes an average of 3,400 visitors on its fortnightly trips to Ocho Rios.
There was also growing speculation that other cruise ships calling in Ocho Rios might also be diverted to Montego Bay or to other ports outside of the island, because of problems at the port. But Captain Olsen is assuring those concerned that the passengers and crew of his ship have not had any problems with their visits to Ocho Rios. He said that it was only the unavailability of the port that would have forced the ship to make its calls in Montego Bay if the company had carried out its plans to change the itinerary.
'WE ARE NOT LEAVING'
"We are not leaving Ocho Rios," he reassured. "There was a plan in place to change the itinerary of some of our ships, and that would affect us because we would have to do our western Caribbean itinerary the opposite way. Ocho Rios was not available on Thursdays, only Montego Bay," he explained.
Captain Olsen said that with the scrapping of those plans, the "Mariner of the Seas", will continue on its original itinerary and will be in Ocho Rios every two weeks.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Ocho Rios Cruise Shipping Council, Michael Belnavis, said he was delighted to learn that the Mariner of the Seas will not be leaving Ocho Rios, at least for this year.
Mr. Belnavis said that while it was good that Royal Caribbean continues to list Ocho Rios among its most popular ports, a lot of improvement was needed at the two ports in the town that are used to berth cruise ships.
