Cruise ships are to be temporarily moored in Visby

PRESS RELEASE 
Visby, 30 April 2020

Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP), which leases the cruise quays from Region Gotland, wants to help the cruise lines temporarily moor cruise ships in Visby. Thus by doing this, the cruise ships will already in the right place before the start of the cruise season in the Baltic Sea.

“Shipping companies around the world have emptied their ships of passengers and restricted the number of crew members to a minimum.. Therefore there is now a need to moor the ships at quays, not only so that they have access to waste water facilities and replenishment of supplies for crew members, but also so as not to burden the environment unnecessarily. In order to minimise the overall environmental impact, allowing ships to moor is the best option. If ships were to sail around at sea, they would need to have their main engines running. If they are moored at the quay, only the auxiliary engines are allowed to be running. In the global crisis we are in right now, it is important that we all help each other to minimise the impact of the crisis,” notes Henrik Ahlqvist, Head of Cruise & Ferry, Copenhagen Malmö Port AB.

Region Gotland is also in favour of the ships being temporarily moored in Visby.

“That the cruise ships are temporarily moored at Visby so that cruise operations can get underway quickly when the season opens is something that ultimately benefits both commercial activity in Gotland and tourism on the island. We are all in a very difficult situation with the Covid-19 pandemic, and so quite simply we need to help each other. We have had an excellent dialogue with CMP on the issue," says Patric Ramberg, Technical Director.

The public authorities have established as a requirement that crew are encompassed within the temporary entry ban into Sweden and are not allowed to disembark on Gotland, but rather must stay on-board and not disembark from the ship. In any case, the ships do not have full crew, but rather there is only a minimal crew on the ships.

The ships have their own medical personnel on-board. For example, if someone were to become infected with the Covid-19 virus on-board, the ship must go to a quarantine port - Visby is not a quarantine port.
The first ship arrives on 3 May and the second will arrive on 8 May.

For further information, please contact:
Henrik Ahlqvist, Head of Cruise & Ferries, Copenhagen Malmö Port AB
E-mail: henrik.ahlqvist@cmport.com Telephone: + 46 706 01 40 85

Visby Mats Eriksson, Visby Port Manager, Region Gotland
E-mail: mats.eriksson@gotland.se Telephone: +46 498 26 94 75