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Cruise port in negotiations on third home porting opportunity

Wed, May 12th 2021, 08:11 AM
Business Nassau Guardian Stories

Nassau Cruise Port Limited (NCP) is in talks to solidify a third home porting opportunity, this time with MSC Cruises, the cruise port’s Chief Executive Officer Mike Maura Jr. told Guardian Business yesterday, adding that NCP has ordered hardware for the port earlier than scheduled in order to support home porting.

According to Maura, given the limited amount of berth space due to ongoing construction at Nassau’s cruise port, NCP hopes MSC will agree to begin its cruise sailings on Sundays, given that both Crystal Cruises and Royal Caribbean International (RCI) will have their ships in port on Saturdays.
“On Sunday we would put MSC at berth 16 because its the closest pier to the temporary arrivals terminal,” Maura said.
‘It makes the walk less for the passengers, it’s a more convenient berth from a guest perspective and so they get the benefit of that better berth by coming in on Sunday.
“There’s a material difference between home port sailing and transit sailing. The obvious is once you begin you’ve got the whole process of handling luggage and you’ve got ship provisioning, which requires trucks to have access to the piers to be able to load the supplies on the ship. So it’s a more involved process from an operations perspective and so we have allocated berth 16, which is the berth closest to land as a home port berth.”
Maura said Crystal Cruises will use berth 16 on Saturdays during its embarkation and debarkation processes, while RCI’s Adventure of the Seas ship will use berth 22, which is the center berth at the cruise port.
Berth 16 was the first pier NCP’s general contractor began to renovate last year. Maura said 500 feet of berth 16 will be completed in time to support the ships coming in beginning next month. 
According to Maura, NCP has ordered two luggage scanning machines for the home porting process, while RCI is providing two more, which it is bringing in to Nassau next week. 
He said NCP’s luggage scanners were part of the original port redevelopment plan and were ordered early to support the home porting initiative.   

According to Maura, given the limited amount of berth space due to ongoing construction at Nassau’s cruise port, NCP hopes MSC will agree to begin its cruise sailings on Sundays, given that both Crystal Cruises and Royal Caribbean International (RCI) will have their ships in port on Saturdays.

“On Sunday we would put MSC at berth 16 because its the closest pier to the temporary arrivals terminal,” Maura said.

‘It makes the walk less for the passengers, it’s a more convenient berth from a guest perspective and so they get the benefit of that better berth by coming in on Sunday.

“There’s a material difference between home port sailing and transit sailing. The obvious is once you begin you’ve got the whole process of handling luggage and you’ve got ship provisioning, which requires trucks to have access to the piers to be able to load the supplies on the ship. So it’s a more involved process from an operations perspective and so we have allocated berth 16, which is the berth closest to land as a home port berth.”

Maura said Crystal Cruises will use berth 16 on Saturdays during its embarkation and debarkation processes, while RCI’s Adventure of the Seas ship will use berth 22, which is the center berth at the cruise port.

Berth 16 was the first pier NCP’s general contractor began to renovate last year. Maura said 500 feet of berth 16 will be completed in time to support the ships coming in beginning next month. 

According to Maura, NCP has ordered two luggage scanning machines for the home porting process, while RCI is providing two more, which it is bringing in to Nassau next week. 

He said NCP’s luggage scanners were part of the original port redevelopment plan and were ordered early to support the home porting initiative.   

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