The leaden sky and the stormy showers hardly disturbed the celebrations: on the seaside of Fort-de-France, the atmosphere was resolutely festive, Sunday September 4, to welcome the passengers of the Celebrity-Equinox. It must be said that the Martinican tourism committee did not do things by halves. Cruise passengers disembark to the rhythm of biguines and zouk classics performed by a famous local orchestra, while dancers in ornate madras give captivated holidaymakers a taste of Creole culture.
A few meters away, an “Instagrammable spot”, inaugurated with great fanfare four days earlier, opposite the Pointe Simon cruise terminal, immerses tourists in a tropical atmosphere, with its high mural fresco in exuberant colors and its garden of authentic local plants, already colonized by iguanas.
Departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the 317-meter-long liner – 28 shorter than the Queen-Mary-2 –, with a capacity of 2,850 passengers, completes a circuit of eleven days and eleven nights in the Caribbean Sea. The arrival of this ship in Martinique is of particular importance in this island of the French West Indies. This Royal Caribbean International super-liner is the first cruise ship to stop there since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic two and a half years ago.
Figures close to 2019
With the confinement of March 2020 and the closing of the borders, the cruises had stopped dead, in the middle of the tourist season. In Martinique, as well as in Guadeloupe, the serious health crisis which started in July 2021 prevented the two sister islands from taking advantage of the restart of cruise circuits in the region a year ago. The ships have returned to the neighboring English-speaking islands: Saint Lucia, Dominica or even Barbados. An economic disaster for these two departments of less than 400,000 inhabitants, which had each welcomed 1 million tourists in 2019, including 30% cruise passengers.
After two consecutive white seasons for Martinican professionals in the sector, it was therefore important to mark the occasion. The musical welcome in Fort-de-France hits the mark. “We are on honeymoon. This cruise is fabulous and the islands are beautiful”raves Patricia Fox. “We got married in 2020 and we had to wait until now to take this trip”, says her husband, Daniel Carlin. The two Irish tourists hurried on because the excursionist beckoned to them. They booked a circuit in the north of the island, in the direction of Mount Pelée, the ruins of Saint-Pierre and a distillery. “I love rum! »says Patricia, before getting into the minibus ready to start.
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