U.S. travel alert: Cruise line stops visits to popular Caribbean resort

A major cruise line has stopped visits to the private Caribbean resort it operates due to an increase of violence and unrest in the area.

Royal Caribbean announced it was suspending calls at Labadee, its resort on the northern coast of Haiti. The move comes after the U.S. State Department issued an alert for Haiti and advised people not to visit the country. Haiti is at a Level Four travel advisory, alongside countries such as Russia, Syria and Burkina Faso.

“Due to the evolving situation in Haiti, and in an abundance of caution, we’re temporally suspending our visits to Labadee for our entire fleet,” the company said in a prepared statement as reported by Cruiseindustrynews.com. “We continue to monitor and assess the situation with our Global Security & Intelligence Team.”

Neither passengers nor crew have faced violence or threats, the company said.

Several Royal Caribbean ships were set to visit Labadee over the next several days. Instead, those stops will be replaced by a day at sea as well as extra time at a previously scheduled stop in Falmouth, Jamaica. Other ships will visit Nassau, the Bahamas or Perfect Day at CocoCay, another company-owned location.

Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic sharing the island to the east. The Dominican Republic is under a level 2 advisory with visitors urged to exercise increased caution.

A do-not-travel alert for Haiti was issued in July 2023 for what the State Department described as “kidnapping, crime, civil unrest and poor health care infrastructure.” Later that month, the U.S. ordered all family members of U.S. government employees and non-emergency personnel to leave the country. American government personnel have been limited to only confined areas around the Embassy and are not allowed to walk in Port-au-Prince, use any public transportation, visit banks or ATMs, drive at night or travel between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.