THE LONG-AWAITED visit to Wexford of almost 900 German passengers on the cruise ship MS Albatross unfortunately had an unhappy ending as the endeavour was blown off course by this year’s summer weather.
Wexford’s 2015 summer weather has been lamented by the public but on Wednesday last it claimed another victim, halting the anchoring of the cruise ship off the coast of Rosslare.
Siobhan O’Neill of Wexford Co. Council’s Tourism Department said that the cancellation of the anchoring had caused huge disappointment amongst those who had worked so hard for the visit but she remarked that they had known the weather would be a risk.
“Unfortunately, because the passengers were to be ferried in from off the coast, the high wind became a problem and the event had to be cancelled.”
However, she said that despite the cancellation of the event, the lead-in to it and the amount of preparation and planning that went into it had not gone unnoticed by Waterford Cruise, the tourist operator the council had been working with on the event.
She added that with a second cruise ship due to arrive in July of next year and, on this occasion, dock fully at the port, the future for similar cruise visits looked very bright.
“The tour operators were impressed with the level of cooperation they got from the port and from the Co. Council and they are happy to continue the relationship with us not only for cruise tourism but also domestic tourism.”
[Full story in this week’s Echo]