It has been posted that Disney isn't coming to St Maarten anymore. I'm confused or no one has told the port authority. The cruise schedule says Disney is coming January 2016, in may, June, July twice each month & I think it was 3 times in august & so on. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" />

Cruise ship schedules are made a year, and usually more, in advance, so 2016 stops would already have been planned a long time ago. I tried to go to Disney's website and could not figure out their itineraries for the future, because there was some issue with my browser. I would be surprised if Disney doesn't come to SXM in future, but I do know that they have made a commitment to Tortola (which is a totally bad cruise ship destination, in my opinion, but they didn't ask me...)

We also saw the Disney ships twice during our most recent Nov/Dec visit while we shopped the goodies along Front Street, so at least as of then it was still visiting regularly. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Dave Herbert from Happy Hour Tours has also mentioned that Disney was not coming any longer to SXM. He usually knows this information as he deals directly with the crews at his booth by the terminal.

Found that shocking, so I went to VTG website and did a search for next two years, St Martin and Disney.

It looks like a fact. Only two port stops for all of Disney on the Disney Magic next November on trips from New York to San Juan and return.

Seems silly to abandon altogether one of the primo stops, especially for Tortola which is a dud unless you have a sailboat to load up.

Maybe just a dollars calculation or an Orient AN decision. Guess they aren't building the new Orient shops for Disney. Maybe the uptick in violence on the main drag factored in. I know cruise lines yanked back on Jamaica stops like Ocho Rios for that reason.

It would be interesting to see consolidated cruiseline stats on reported incidents by Pax in each port. The little daily cruise bulletins don't say much unless they really have to and maybe lately they've had to warn Pax to be careful in both Phillipsburg and Marigot and keep your eyes closed on Orient .

SXM Port schedule shows Disney in port in December of next year, so not sure which is correct. As you said, pretty stupid to abandon SXM versus Tortola, which is not a good cruise ship stop at all.

Does it really matter if there are enough ships to feed the local market, is it important that Disney calls here ?

Back in the days when you could walk the entire beach at Orient in the nude at anytime, Waikiki had a deal with Disney and the surf was full of tykes having the time of their lives. The ships warned about the nudity, I saw the flier they put out but the kids were having too much fun to realize there were clothed let alone naked adults. Some of the women at Waikiki were top-free, but not many.

Come on. Nudity had nothing to do with Disneys decision to not come to Sxm.

Scubaman
I did not mention nudity as being a reason for Disney not coming to SXM. It was just a comment about the way things use to be. To be perfectly frank you sometimes read things into post that are not there and then comment offending people. I do not mean to be disrespectful but we don't need to lose more members.

Does anyone know if the Disney Line has a different owner than most of the cruise lines? I ask because that waterfront Disney Land like park at Pointe Blanche, being supported by a cruise line, might factor into their decision to no longer have SXM as a stop.

Disney from what I understand has built their own Disney facility on another
Island, people can shop, dine etc. there so they will not be coming to SXM in 2016. Who knows what the future will be & their last ship to SXM was in late November.

NCL has also switched some of there ships to the BVI.

Disney and NCL partnered together to build at facility at Tortola in the BVI. They both replaced SXM in their 7 day eastern carribean itineraries, so they won't be making weekly calls. However, both have SXM in other itineraries, so they will both still have ships in from time to time, just not as frequently as every week.

My cousin is on one of those Disney ship next November from NY, and she said that they are not returning to NY, as they are repositioning that ship.

january, scubaman and dlbert--enough of the squabbling.. Stick to the topic.

It is if you want to sail to SXM on a Disney ship LOL...

I checked the Disney Cruise Line website and it shows the ship going to Tortola on the dates that show on the port st. maarten website, so the port schedule is not correct. The Disney Fantasy currently sails the 7 day eastern and 7 day western Caribbean. The 7 day eastern itinerary is what SXM was replaced with Tortola. Any transatlantic or southern Caribbean itinerary may still include SXM, so its possible you may still see a Disney ship here or there, but there will be no more weekly calls.