Revellers scramble as Tobago Carnival ferry tickets sell out

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Mas­quer­aders head­ing to To­ba­go Car­ni­val are fac­ing a trans­porta­tion night­mare, with fer­ry tick­ets for sev­er­al key dates sold out less than 24 hours af­ter go­ing on sale.

This comes as flights to To­ba­go from Oc­to­ber 27-30 have al­so been sold out while re­turn flights are un­avail­able from No­vem­ber 2-4.

On Tues­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter­is­land Fer­ry Ser­vice re­leased the sail­ing sched­ule for Oc­to­ber, show­ing just one pas­sen­ger fer­ry op­er­a­tional.

The MV Gold­en Car­ri­er car­go boat is the on­ly oth­er ves­sel in ser­vice next month.

Less than 24 hours af­ter tick­ets went live, there were no avail­able seats on sail­ings from Port-of-Spain to Scar­bor­ough from Oc­to­ber 27-30.

Tick­ets for sail­ings from Scar­bor­ough to Port-of-Spain were al­so sold out from No­vem­ber 2-4.

The an­nu­al fes­ti­val, which gets un­der way from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 1, is a ma­jor event on the is­land’s tourism cal­en­dar.

Close to 40,000 rev­ellers ar­rived in To­ba­go for last year’s fes­ti­val, with 22,000 trans­port­ed on the seabridge.

A group of friends who had planned the trip for close to a year left the port emp­ty-hand­ed and frus­trat­ed yes­ter­day.

Mar­cus, who hails from Ari­ma, said thou­sands of dol­lars had al­ready been spent on a down pay­ment for their ac­com­mo­da­tion, J’Ou­vert cos­tumes and fete tick­ets.

The Oc­to­ber sched­ule has left him, and many oth­ers, be­mused as there are just six ad­di­tion­al sail­ings, com­pared to 22 in 2025.

The Buc­coo Reef fast fer­ry and Galleons Pas­sage are not on the Oc­to­ber sched­ule, leav­ing on­ly the APT James and the Gold­en Car­ri­er car­go ves­sel list­ed for ser­vice.

As his girl­friend wait­ed in the long line at the port, Mar­cus said the group had tried to pur­chase tick­ets on­line, but were un­suc­cess­ful.

“I done come to terms with the fact (that we not go­ing through). 

“They need to do bet­ter and put things in place. This is mad­ness.”

He be­lieves the neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ence would damp­en the car­ni­val and de­ter fu­ture rev­ellers.

To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion head Kevon McKen­na told Guardian Me­dia he is con­cerned, but is leav­ing it to the au­thor­i­ties to rec­ti­fy.

“I would de­fer to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) who has an el­e­ment of trans­porta­tion un­der its re­mit in en­sur­ing that we re­ceive the in­creased air and sea trans­porta­tion that is re­quired,” he said.

Mean­while, oth­er fete stake­hold­ers not­ed the ar­rival of pas­sen­gers is not the on­ly cause for con­cern.

One pro­mot­er said To­ba­go does not have the ca­pac­i­ty to pro­vide cer­tain equip­ment and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture for the car­ni­val.

“We have a num­ber of ser­vice providers from Trinidad. The 40-foot mu­sic trail­er trucks have to come up on the boat,” he said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man has called for the im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett, adding that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty’s close­ness with cen­tral gov­ern­ment was not ben­e­fit­ing To­ba­go.

“What is the pur­pose of all this friend­ship and al­liances with the cronies in Trinidad if sim­ple en­ti­tle­ments like these can­not be se­cured for To­ba­go?” she asked.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett said she has spo­ken to Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John to ex­press her con­cerns about the sched­ule and has ad­vo­cat­ed for ad­di­tion­al sail­ings.

Hack­ett re­vealed that John has ac­knowl­edged the con­cerns and promised to get back to her on the mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Port Au­thor­i­ty and Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John about the sta­tus of the oth­er pas­sen­ger ves­sels for the car­ni­val, but there was no re­sponse up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.