Carnival Victory Passengers Robbed
During St. Lucia Bike And Hike Excursion
April 29, 2010
It is hard to imagine with the history of cruise ship passengers and St. Lucia, that any cruise line would still be sponsoring passenger excursions on the island. Yet, that is what a Cruise Bruise passenger has reported to us.
In our effort to confirm this report, we checked all the major media outlets and local papers, finding no news at all of this incident taking place over a month ago.
I contacted Carnival Corp's Jennifer de la Cruz to ask her about this incident nobody was talking about. Specifically, I posed three questions to her:
1. Why was this incident not reported to the media in order to alert future passengers?
2. Why was this excursion offered after an incident involving NCL passengers at this same location in December 2009?
3. Why are you still offering this excursion after telling passengers involved in the incident you would discontinue the excursion out of a concern for passenger safety?
Ms. De la Cruz and in effect Carnival Corp refused to respond to our request for answers to the above the questions, or to comment on the incident in general. It would seem the policy of "If we don't admit it happened, it never took place" is still firmly in place.
Our visitor reported to us:
"... my wife and i were on a cruise out of San Juan on the carnival victory.4-25-10 to 5-2-10 great cruise until April 29 on st.Lucia when we chose a carnival shore excursion.bike and hike to anise la Raye water falls.we had 14 in our group and 4 were robbed. 2 men came out of the bush,faces covered,one had a machete and one had a pistol.make a long story short.made a police report at anise la ray police dept and then again on the ship.carnival had promised us that the bike and hike shore excursion would be canceled and no longer offered also carnival told us that 2 people were arrested and charged with the hold up.is there any way you can verify this information and let me know? I'm concerned for any other unknowing passengers, thinking that it is a safe excursion..we came home and googled it and found out that it is a high crime area and that there has been several robbery's at this same water fall ..."
Our visitor is correct.
Fourteen passengers from the Norwegian Dawn were robbed on St. Lucia on December 9, 2010. The seven couples purchased a shore excursion to tour River Rock Waterfall at Anse La Raye, Soufriere. Andreas Westby, a member of the International Cruise Victims Association told of their horrendous experience, involving attackers with at least one gun and a knife.
On January 23, 2008, official reports state that six Norwegian Pearl cruise ship passengers, two Americans and four Canadians were on a forest trail above the Botanical Gardens when two masked men, one yielding a machete and the other a gun, robbed them of their ID, jewelry, purses and wallets.
The two tour guides were robbed and one of them, Katia Polius, 23, attempted to call for help on her cell phone. The bandits noticed and attacked her. When the masked men left, it is reported Polius escorted the guests to their taxi . . . then fainted. Hours after the incident, Chastanet, Communications Minister Guy Joseph and John Broughton were meeting with the victims aboard the Pearl.
At that time, Guy Joseph told the media,"We expect the media to do responsible broadcasting on these matters so that while we give the information it is not thrown out of proportion to make St Lucia look worse than it is."
Given this latest incident wasn't reported to the media at all by St. Lucia officials nor reported by Carnival Corp, it appears a cover-up is underway in order to further tourism and profit damage control.
It is interesting to note that the U.S. State Department statement on St. Lucia dated October 19, 2009, says "Crime, including armed robbery, does occur and is rising in St. Lucia. Violent crime is often connected to narcotics trafficking. Petty crime also occurs, with tourists being targeted often..."
Crime had risen so much prior to this latest attack the government had become worried. Caranews reported on February 25, 2010, "Prime Minister Stephenson King says the imposition of a curfew and obtaining external assistance from friendly governments are options his government will have to consider should the crime situation get worse in St Lucia.
“I am now even now contemplating that if our efforts and that of the police do not bring about a reduction, we shall see external assistance whether from the British, the Americans, the Canadians or the Israelis to assist us in dealing with this situation,” King said in a radio broadcast.
“We will seek help both in terms of technical cooperation, financial support where necessary and even if it means manpower support, as the type of criminal activity that is taking place in St. Lucia at this time calls for a high level of expertise,” the Prime Minister added."
On February 19, 2010 a gang attacked and robbed a police escorted cash deposit at the waterfront Branch of the Bank of Saint Lucia.
During the heist police officer Vincent Peters was murdered and a fellow officer was shot as well.
While the increasing crime in St. Lucia has been reported in the media, the cruise lines continue to call there and to sponsor excursions booked aboard their ship that take passengers into high crime areas.
Update: August 9, 2010 - The unofficial response to this incident is that it never took place. Print media never released the story and there are no police blotter mentions. The only aspect we had been able to confirm was that Carnival Victory did leave San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 25, returning on May 2 and was in St. Lucia on April 29, as our visitor stated. We were also able to confirm that if a police report was to be made, it would in deed be made at Anse la Raye Police Station in Saint Lucia.
Then today, I was able to locate an HTS Channel 4 May 5, 2010 article that brushes by the incident. Their copy reads:
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