Cruise ships have been docked for year due to coronavirus. Why they’re in Beaufort again
Smaller coastal cruise ships are beginning to make stops in Beaufort again, with passengers, after a year-long absence from the waterfront due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, two larger cruise ships are still tied up in Port Royal waiting to return to service.
The “American Star,” operated by Connecticut-based American Cruise Lines, was tied to the wall at Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park near the Beaufort Downtown Marina Thursday while its passengers learned the history of the city and explored downtown.
“People are making a decision to travel,” said Robb Wells, president and CEO of the Beaufort-Port Royal Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is monitoring the return of visitors. “That’s a personal health assessment.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued a no-sail order for larger cruise ships in September 2020. Later, it added conditions for resuming sailing.
But those orders do not affect ships with capacities of fewer than 250 passengers.
American Cruise Lines, which resumed operations in March, operates smaller ships such as American Star and Independence., which have capacities of 100. Both make port of call stops in Beaufort.
“We’re just very happy to be operating,” said Alexa Paolella, the company’s public relations manager.
The company has resumed cruises with COVID-19 protocols in place.
Its small ships cruising along the southern coast are operating at a maximum guest capacity of 75% through the spring.
Guests who are not fully vaccinated must take a COVID-19 test within four days of the start of their cruise.
Fully vaccinated guests are not required to obtain a COVID-19 test prior to traveling to the ship but are asked to present proof of the vaccine at time of boarding.
American Cruise Lines was the first to resume cruises in the United States this year, with its March 13 departures across the country just shy of a full year pause in operations, the company said.
Among the company’s offerings are eight-day cruises between Florida’s Amelia Island and Charleston, which includes stops in Beaufort. Those cruises will continue through April and return in November and December.
A year ago, with the pandemic just beginning, the same cruise ship in Beaufort Thursday, “American Star,” received permission from the marina manager to temporarily dock in Beaufort with a limited crew while trips were postponed. Residents raised concerns about the possible spread of coronavirus.
The CDC continues to recommend that people avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide.
That Beaufort has remained on the itinerary for multiple visitor segments, including cruise ships, is a sign that the area continues to be a destination for visitors, said Wells, adding he expects leisure travel to return first following the pandemic.
Cruise ships aren’t “a large part of our business,” Wells said, “but it is a part of the business, and for that we want to give them the same experience we share with anybody.”
By happenstance, the sea-faring tourists who stopped in Beaufort last week were treated to an unofficial Blue Angels show. The low-flying jets left trails of white exhaust as they roared across the sky at low levels, thrilling tourists and locals.
Jet fighter pilots with the U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, were conducting flight training out of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
“And a free air show!” passenger Joyceln Vogel, 67, of Nebraska, one of the cruise ship passengers, said.
Meanwhile, two cruise ships owned by Victory Cruise Line, which have larger carrying capacities than the American Cruise Lines ships that dock in Beaufort, are tied along the wharf on Battery Creek, still in flux because of COVID-19.
“They’re going to be there for a while more,” said Whit Suber, a real estate broker working on the private redevelopment efforts of two miles of waterfront at Port of Port Royal. “For the sake of their business, I wish they were enable to execute their summer plans, but there are still COVID restrictions out there preventing them from doing so.”
Grey Ghost LLC, the developer of the two miles of waterfront, leases the dock to the not-for-profit Warrior Sailing organization, which runs a program to get military veterans on the water. Victory Cruise lines is renting the dock space from the not-for-profit group.
“We don[t know how long they will be here,” Suber said. “We will accommodate them as long as we can. At some point we need to develop the marina, but that’s not eminent right now.”
