Indeed, all the representations made about the Harvest Caye Cruise Port said that it would not take Norwegian Calls away from Belize City. Here's a brief history of what was said on that subject between 2013 and 2015:...
FILE: September 2, 2013
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"There is to be no diversion of the current Belize City calls and there is to be no use of that port by ships other than NCL ships. This was our position throughout; the binding agreement will make that absolutely clear."
FILE: August 14, 2013
Colin Murphy - VP, Destination & Strategic Development, NCL
"One of the concerns that was raised is if everyone from Belize City was going to go down south. One of our competitors have been cancelling cruises because Belize is full, full, full so there up to five ship a day so we don't think it's going to be any impact to the folks in Belize City at all."
Hon. Godwin Hulse - Minister of Labour
"Any scheduled visits in the North as existing - those shall not be diverted just as simple as that. So whatever was scheduled will be maintained and then you go to the south - we won't transfer them. So all this fear that everything was happening and in Belize City it will stop - that's not true."
FILE: April 8, 2016
Daniel Ortiz
"Will the Norwegian cruise company be bringing cruise ships exclusively to Harvest Caye once this project opens?"
Colin Murphy, V.P., Destination Development, NCL
"Well I think I just answered that, I mean the majority of our ships will be going to harvest caye yes. But we will have some ships to Belize City."
FILE: May 14, 2015
Jules Vasquez
"You had said it would not affect the traffic into the Belize District port but, yet when we see their schedule though now, they had to change it up due to construction delays. Norwegian intends to send everything towards Harvest Caye."
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"Well you're perfectly correct, I had indeed said so and we had a memorandum of understanding that made that clear."
Jules Vasquez
"Sir, I know you wouldn't lie to us, so did they misrepresent to you?"
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Well not just to me. if they had been able to start in October as planned, their intention was to divert all the traffic to the south and that would have caused a problem."
Jules Vasquez
"However, you will try and hold them to their word? Because it's a consequential difference for the Belize District port."
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"There will have to be a serious discussion, let me not put it higher than that."
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