DOUG ON THE GO

 

How did Celebrity address the shooting to the passengers? 

 

They communicated the news in a letter that was left at each cabin, which we found late at night after we returned from late seating dinner, but I learned of it earlier in the evening from a get together with the Housekeeping Director.  I think I still have the letter at home and can probably fax it to you tomorrow if you are interested.  Essentially the letter explained the incident and said they were cancelling the "Coral Land and Coral Sea" excursion that was going to the area, but passengers would get a refund, etc.  They discouraged passengers from visiting the area independently.  I had not booked the excursion, but decided to just take a taxi to visit Coral World previously. 

 

That evening, I started googling the news and tweeted you for your opinion whether to still go the next day or not.  When we got into port, we talked to a couple of local port security staff about it and they said it was a one-off event by a "lawless" person, and actually was not near Coki Beach, but took place near a cemetery on the way to Coki Point.  They were not targeting tourists, it was just a tragic accident of a tourist getting caught in the crossfire, being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  How terrible for the teenager's parents!  The port security and a taxi driver local assured us that it was still a safe area to go.  They also said it would probably be even safer now with more police presence in the area too, so we felt it would be ok to go. 

 

How was the atmosphere at Coki Point, St. Thomas? 

 

 In our safari bus taxi, everybody else got off at the Ritz Carlton and we were the only people to get off at Coral World!  Once we got there, we were struck by how empty it was, which is not surprising since we knew that Celebrity had cancelled its excursions and we heard Epic had done the same after chatting with the other taxi passengers who were from the Epic.  There was hardly anyone at Coral World, maybe a dozen other family or couple groups.  Normally it probably would be mobbed with cruise passengers on excursions.   In the restroom, I chatted with a local staff woman and she said the same thing as what the port security people did.  That it was not aimed at tourists and it was the very first time this had ever happened, but "<Coral World> was paying for it now."  She seemed very worried about the impact to Coral World.    Did you see the picture of Coki Beach that I tweeted last Wednesday?  When we left, I saw 3 police cars parked in the area.  We didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  
 
After thoughts of passengers after the excursion was over? 

 

Since the cruise cancelled its excursions, no "after thoughts" of passengers per se, but my personal thoughts are that it was a totally random event.  There is violent crime anywhere you visit, and this was just a tragic occurrence where it just happened at the split second tourists were going by.  I had not heard any previous news about Coki being a dangerous place, have you?  I felt safe there and my family didn't encounter any issues.
 
Your personal feeling about cruise lines possibly stopping excursions there?

 

I think it is good for the cruise lines to be overly prudent about cancelling excursions due to the nature of the incident, a shooting death.  I just read an article from cruisecritic yesterday that St. Thomas is taking active steps to beef up security and safety in that area and other tourist areas, and I think that will go a long way to regain the trust of the cruiselines and the public.  I guess it may take a few weeks, but my guess is excursions will resume soon and the businesses in that area will bounce back.