<p>The issue of pre-term, or premature, births was very much in the news last year, following the incident aboard a Cayman Airways flight to Jamaica; however, the promised but still missing announcement concerning the proposed cruise facilities is more a case of post-term, or overdue berths.</p><p>Unfortunately, this seems to be yet another of the unfulfilled promises of the current Minister for Tourism, Hon Charles Clifford, and, given that 2009 cruise ship itineraries have probably already been fixed by now, any movement towards berthing facilities at this stage will be of no benefit to us until 2010, if then.</p><p>Royal Caribbean will be raising the &lsquo;size matters&rsquo; stakes next year with the launch of its 220,000-ton Genesis vessel, reported to be able to accommodate some 5,400 passengers. A second Genesis vessel will launch a year later.</p><p>Clearly, there is no way that our current method of passenger disembarkation could ever cope with a vessel and passenger complement of that size.</p><p>The possibility of constructing cruise ship berths has been a matter of discussion and debate for years, but with nothing ever coming of it.</p><p>We must assume that, in the light of Mr Clifford&rsquo;s seemingly premature announcement earlier this year, the government has decided in principle to move away from the antiquated system of passenger disembarkation by tenders.</p><p>It would be nice to think that there remains a niche in the market place for a small island destination like the Cayman Islands catering to smaller, more exclusive vessels (for as long as there are such things around), but realistically it&rsquo;s not going to happen.</p><p>The lack of berthing facilities in Grand Cayman has long been cited as a weakness and, clearly, the construction of adequate berths would remove what is perceived as a negative factor for passengers. <br />They would also allow cruise ships to stay overnight (if they can be persuaded to do so), which might then offer some of the revenue benefits to be gained for the economy from such quasi stay-over visitors.</p><p>Cruise ships overnighting for between one and three days will allow visitors to spend more time on the island and to spend more money, which will go some way towards alleviating the effects of any drop-off in stay-over tourism.</p><p>But all is not smooth sailing in this respect - another choice that will eventually face us is whether to allow the mega-ships to visit.</p><p>The increasing number of mega-ships putting to sea is causing some major headaches for port authorities in popular destinations, which are struggling to cope with the super-sized vessels.</p><p>As one observer has commented, &ldquo;Mega-ships for mega-ports will cost mega-bucks for cruise ship ports.&rdquo;</p><p>Modern ship technology has made most of the existing ports obsolete to the extent that port expansion programmes have had to be initiated every 10 years or so, just to keep pace with developments in the industry.</p><p>According to industry experts, at a minimum, a port serving the cruise industry today needs at least two mega-ship berths if they are to make an impact.</p><p>In addition, ports need to have dredge depths of at least 35 feet alongside. Depths under this will limit the range of ships that will call.</p><p>On top of this will be the necessary port reception and passenger-handling facilities.</p><p>And there are environmental issues inherent in the size of these floating resorts. The large passenger capacities of these ships have an impact with which we can already identify, such as traffic congestion, crowded beaches and waste releases. In fact, the poor waste-management record of cruise lines in general led one of our regular columnists to characterise many cruise ships as &ldquo;behaving like floating elephants in our Caribbean Sea&rdquo;.</p><p>In addition, there is the sedimentation caused by cruise ships, the possibility of serious damage to our fragile reefs and the extreme toxicity to marine life, plus the dangers related to the huge surface area of anti-fouling paint these ships have underneath.</p><p>However, if we don&rsquo;t accommodate the market requirements, is there any long-term future in this sector for the Cayman Islands?</p><p>There would definitely seem to be none in the absence of permanent berthing facilities.</p><p>This could well be a case, therefore, of being between the devil and the deep blue sea.</p>