Carnival Spirit made its maiden cruise call on the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis on Wednesday, November 09, 2022, making it the first call from Carnival Cruise Line to dock at Port Zante in Basseterre, St. Kitts for the 2022-2023 season.
Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Marsha Henderson, and other key personnel were on hand to welcome Captain Salvatore Siviero, crew and passengers.
“Captain Salvatore, I am honoured this morning to welcome you, your crew and passengers to our beautiful destination St. Kitts on your inaugural call. In fact, you are the first call from the Carnival Corp for this season and we are looking forward to the additional calls. We want to welcome you on behalf of the Government and people of St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Minister Henderson during the Plaque Exchange Ceremony. “I think this call signifies the longstanding relationship we have as a destination with Carnival Corp and we look forward to continued relations with Carnival.”
November is a very active month for the cruise sector in St. Kitts and Nevis.
“I am excited for November alone. We have seven (7) inaugural calls. This call today is the Carnival Spirit with a passenger capacity of just about over 2500 persons and we have at least three (3) calls for Carnival Spirit this season, giving us a projected passenger capacity of just over 7600 and so we are excited,” said the Tourism Minister. “Coming off of the [COVID-19] Pandemic persons hadn’t worked for the past two years and so the more inaugural calls we have the better it is for us as an economy. So we are super excited and we are looking forward to even more inaugural calls for the cruise season.”
Chief Executive Officer at the St. Kitts Tourism Authority, Ellison “Tommy” Thompson said that “this is a great start to the cruise season and we anticipate a very robust season moving forward.”
Captain Salvatore thanked Minister Henderson for the warm welcome and expressed a desire to increase calls to the destination.
Carnival Spirit was launched on July 07, 2000. It has a capacity of 2,124 passengers and 930 crew members.