From the Vacations to Go newsletter regarding damage to Cancun and Cozumel:
I reported last week that damage from Hurricane Wilma had closed
Cancun and
Cozumel to tourism, by sea or by land, and that very few details were known. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case with major natural disasters, no news was bad news.
We have since learned that the friendly and laid-back island of Cozumel--one of the most popular cruise destinations in the world based on the number of visitors--has suffered extreme damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. All three cruise piers have been damaged, with the International Pier and Punta Langosta Pier suffering moderate damage. Puerto Maya, the newest pier filled with shops and boutiques and owned by Carnival Corporation, has been destroyed. Roads on the south side of the island have been destroyed, and the power is still out in many places. The island's world-famous coral formations are being evaluated and early reports indicate that deep-water formations are intact but some shallow-water formations were "affected".
Fortunately, the downtown area is in the best shape, with power and phone service and some operational restaurants. Some tourism officials have suggested that Cozumel could be ready to accept tendering operations from cruise ships by mid-November, but I would not count on that. In my opinion, as of this moment, all scheduled port calls in Cozumel for the remainder of 2005 are questionable, and it will be many months before the island will be able to accommodate the huge number of daily visitors it received prior to Wilma. (Cozumel was scheduled to receive 1600 cruise ship calls and 3 million cruise visitors in 2005).
Cruise lines are substituting other Mexican ports such as
Costa Maya,
Progreso and
Veracruz for Cozumel whenever possible.
Playa del Carmen may also be used as an alternative port, though that area suffered some damage and is not fully operational at the moment.
It's important to note here that the cruise lines can only rely on what they are told by the port authority as to how soon they can return, and no one, including the port authority, knows for sure when that will be, at this time.
Thirty five miles away, Cancun was hit equally hard. A spokeswoman for the Cancun Hotel Association said that 100% of Cancun's hotels were damaged, and that the area might not be fully recovered before Easter. According to the Association of Hotel Owners, 80% of hotel rooms were damaged, with shattered windows being the primary problem. There are reports of beach erosion in some areas and also reports that the beach actually expanded in front of some hotels.
Cancun is served by three ports. The downtown port is currently closed, with no details available as to when it might re-open. The ports at Calica (40 miles away) and Playa del Carmen (60 miles away) are operational but cruise ship passengers calling there will not be allowed to visit Cancun until the tourism infrastructure has been repaired. Cancun is to resort-based tourism what Cozumel is to cruise ship tourists--the top destination in Mexico. As bad as the destruction may be, there is no doubt that the Mexican government will do everything possible to restore both Cancun and Cozumel to their original condition. In the meantime, the surge of new visitors will be a boon to the other Mexican ports and may increase the pace of development of those areas quite a bit.
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Cancun and Cozumel
Cozumel will be open 11/15/05 via TENDER?
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