Above: a Club Med cruise ship

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Cruise season has officially begun on the island of Nevis.

The first cruise ship of the season came from Club Med on Nov. 9, carrying 389 passengers. The ship will be making two more visits this season, part of a total of 29 ships expected to call on the West Indian island this year.

That’s not as many as in years past, Nevis Tourism Minister Mark Brantley said, but he vowed to work on improving the island’s cruise sector.

“We feel that to get 29 calls now, as we are trying to rebuild this sector, bearing in mind that we do not have the physical infrastructure – the cruise ship berth, the piers and the like, so we have really gone out to try and track smaller ships which have to tender in,” he said.

The largest ship to call on Nevis this year will be the Azamara Quest, which has a capacity of 694 passengers. That ship will visit Nevis three times, with the first call on Dec. 3.

Other ships coming to the island this season include the Sea Dream II, the Star Clipper and the Seabourn Pride, among others.

“The idea behind cruise and the position we have taken as to cruise is that we do not see cruise as an end in itself,” Brantley said. “We see cruise as a window of opportunity, a way that we market our land-based tourism.”

“I don’t have very lofty ambitions; my ambitions are really achievable in my view,” he said this week. “If at the end of this season the taxi men and the vendors and restaurateurs and hoteliers and the farmers and all the allied people can say to me they had a good season, meaning they have more moneys in their pocket then I feel that we would be doing a good job.”