Due to weather, the Nassau/Royal Caribbean Fun Run in Paradise that was being put on by Royal Caribbean and ESPN, has been cancelled.  The run was scheduled to take place yesterday morning but Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas could not dock in Nassau due to high seas and windy conditions.

Prior to the race being cancelled, over 100 Royal Caribbean passengers were scheduled to participate, including several competitive running celebrities.  

The Fun Run in Paradise was scheduled to be part of the inaugural Royal 5K St Maarten Lifestyle, Running and Fitness Show which will air January 27 and 28 on the ESPN Caribbean Networks.

There is still a possibility that Allure of the Seas will be able to dock at Nassau later in the cruise itinerary.

Last month Nassau, Bahamas completed extensive dredging and refurbishment of Nassau Harbor and businesses in downtown Nassau are reporting healthy business as a result.

Ships like Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, which docks in Nassau every other Sunday, is responsible for increasing revenues in the city.

“The Bahamas was amongst many countries which were seeking to have these ships call on their ports,” said Carla Stuart, director of Cruise Development in the Ministry of Tourism & Aviation. “By the end of December, the Oasis would have made 34 visits and brought at least 183,600 passengers for the year 2010. Head tax to be derived is estimated at $2.7 million while spend from the passengers of this vessel is estimated at $12 million. The ship will continue to call every other week.”

Nassau port officials announced on September 16 that they had completed a major project to improve the port of Nassau for cruise ships. The $44 million contract, started in April of 2009, dredged 1.9 million cubic yards of material from Nassau Harbor and installed three mooring dolphins, causeways and ladders at Prince George Wharf and extension of the western end of Arawak Cay by 1,000 ft.

So why all the work?  Principally the project was to accommodate Royal Caribbean's new Oasis of the Seas, which made its maiden voyage to Nassau on December 11, 2009.

“The decision to dredge the harbour was based in part on the need to keep abreast of changes in the cruise industry where new Genesis class vessels have been introduced by the major cruise lines. In response, the Government proceeded with the enhancement of the Harbour’s capacity by dredging to accommodate the new mega cruise ships,” said Public Works and Transport Minister Neko C. Grant.

Royal Caribbean has announced that the Port of Bermuda will be closed Friday through Tuesday due to Hurricane Igor.  This means Enchantment of the Seas, which leaves Baltimore on Saturday will instead sail to Nassau, Bahamas where it will arrive on Monday and stay overnight until Tuesday.

Royal Caribbean is anticipating some cruisers not being happy with the change and giving an onboard credit to each stateroom. If a guest decides they do not want to sail at all on that itinerary, a letter of credit to be used on a future Royal Caribbean cruise. No other Royal Caribbean cruise is being affected by the hurricane at this time.

The Ministry of Tourism in the Bahamas released new tourism statistics for the country that first quarter numbers for 2010 are "a new Dawn of Hope" for a country that has been hit hard by the global recession.  Cruise arrivals for Nassau/Paradise Island and Grand Bahama as first ports of call up by 22.9 per cent and 41.8 per cent for the three months of 2010 and the largest reason? Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas.

Assessing the reasons behind the increase in cruise passenger arrivals, the Ministry of Tourism said: "Most of the increase by first port of entry to the Bahamas overall came from Royal Caribbean International's Oasis of the Seas. Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas helped to push the increase in cruise arrivals even higher. With the introduction of the Oasis of the Seas and the Freedom of the Seas to the Bahamas itinerary, it increased the number of passengers brought in by Royal Caribbean by 68.3 per cent.

Royal Caribbean Vice-President of government relations for the Caribbean and Latin America, Michael Ronan, told Bahemian newspaper The Tribune, that in 2011 Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines will "be back up over 800,000 passengers" brought to the Bahamas.  That figure is over 100,000 more than in 2010, thanks in part to the anticipated delivery of Allure of the Seas.

These figures include stops in Nassau, Freeport and its Bahamian private islands.  The news comes after a report that Oasis of the Seas was rumored to be ending stops in Nassau, but Ronan said the change was merely due to a difference in Western and Eastern Caribbean itineraries, where Oasis of the Seas only stops in Nassau on it's eastern Caribbean trips.  Ronan went on to explain that once Allure of the Seas became operational, it would start rotating Nassau calls with the Oasis of the Seas on a schedule that would be maintained through Spring 2012, with one of the ships stopping in Nassau opposite the other.

"With the Oasis vessels, we are significantly increasing the number of passengers that are going to be coming," Mr Ronan told Tribune Business. "We will be back up over 800,000 passengers in 2011. This year, I think we will be in the 700,000 in change, because we're still waiting for the arrival of the Allure, which will put us with a full year of Oasis class ships in Nassau every week. Last year, 2009, we bottomed out."

For the people of the Bahamas, the more cruisers that stop by, the better for the local economy.  For cruisers, a better economy in the Bahamas typically means less crime and better upkeep of the city (that's a generalization).  

There's a report out that Oasis of the Seas, pride of the Royal Caribbean fleet, is planning on ending port stops in Nassau, Bahamas.  On the other side, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, minister of tourism in the Bahamas, denied these claims that were first reported by Tribune Business and other media.  The news is particularly alarming to Bahemians who recently voted to spend $44 million of taxpayer monies on the Nassau harbour dredging.

There hasn't been any comment by Royal Caribbean officially on the matter.  Crime in Nassau has been in the news and could be a reason why Oasis could be changing her itinerary, if it is in fact true.