PHILIPSBURG--Royal Caribbean International’s cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas will be in port today, Tuesday, to repatriate her crew and to take on provisions.
This will be the sixth ship in the past week to make use of Port St. Maarten for crew repatriation and food provisioning.
“Port St. Maarten is a strategic port in the Northeastern Caribbean. Additional services offered by the destination to the cruise ship sector are fuel bunkering and food provisioning. This makes a positive contribution to the national economy. …
“The repatriation of crew is carried out based on the port’s strict ‘Sterile Port Protocol’ that ensures public health, safety and security and falls under the scope of the National Ordinance on Public Health, which is part of the international health regulations as issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The country’s infrastructure … makes it easy for a cruise ship to have crew’s travel documents processed and then have them taken directly to the airport to board their international flight,” said Port St. Maarten in a press release on Monday.
Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas and Carnival Cruise Lines’ cruise ship Carnival Legend were anchored just off Pelican as of 7:30pm Monday, while Royal Caribbean cruise ship Independence of the Seas laid at anchor in international waters between St. Maarten and Saba.
