Pod Port to transform Roatan: Say Goodnight Gracie.

[Doc]

I know, I know... we've heard it all before, but cruise ships are always looking for something new, different and cheaper....

May 13, 2007: Carnival Corp. on Tuesday announced it had signed an agreement to build and operate a cruise facility on the island of Roatan, Honduras. The facility, to be called Mahogany Bay, is to start being built in fall 2007, with a completion target of summer 2009 and a cost $50 million. The two-berth terminal will be capable of accommodating the post-Panamax vessels and up to 7,000 daily passengers. The project is part of Carnival Corp.'s commitment to developing Caribbean ports for the benefit of Carnival consumers. Adjacent to the facility will be a retail shopping area with restaurants and bars.

Details: Carnival Corporation & plc has signed an agreement to build and operate a cruise terminal on the island of Roatan, Honduras. Development of the facility – to be called "Mahogany Bay – Roatan" – is expected to start in fall 2007 and be completed by summer 2009 at a cost of $50 million.

The cruise facility will be situated on 20 acres on the Roatan waterfront and will consist of a two-berth cruise terminal capable of accommodating super post-Panamax vessels and up to 7,000 passengers daily.

Partnering with Carnival on the project is Jerry Hynds, a local business leader and a member of the Honduran Congress. He is also the owner of Coral Cay, a resort property located adjacent to the planned port facility.

Note: This is in Dixon Cove, just East of the Airport, a few hundred yards West of Mary's Place.

Within five years of operation, "Mahogany Bay – Roatan" is expected to host 225 cruise ship calls and 500,000 passengers annually.

Adjacent to the facility will be a 35,000-square-foot Welcome Center including retail shops, restaurants and bars, along with a 60-foot-high lighthouse, a lagoon with cascading waterfalls, and a nature trail.

A transportation hub with the ability to accommodate taxis, rental cars and tour buses is also planned. A variety of shore excursion opportunities, to be provided by local tour operators, are being developed, as well.

The island is currently featured on the western Caribbean itineraries of Carnival Corporation & plc brands Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises, and P&O Cruises. The new "Mahogany Bay – Roatan" facility will further enhance guests’ shoreside experience on the popular island destination.

The new Roatan project continues Carnival Corporation & plc’s efforts at developing Caribbean ports to provide consumers with an even greater variety of destination choices within the region. These include the new Grand Turk Cruise Center, which in its first year in operation hosted nearly 300,000 passengers.

 

[tedtim]

I did not read where there will be money set aside for improvements to infrastructure such as water, waste disposal and roads. $50 million sounds like a lot of cash, but I bet it has little or no room for anything other than the port facilities.

We went on a Carnival cruise a few years ago that stopped in Belize (last and final big family vacation). We had to take a shuttle from the ship to shore. Nice facility selling all types of tourist baubbles (and expensive ones at that). We also took one of the excursions. Once we left the facilities built for the cruise ships, it all went down hill. There was no real investment elsewhere.

I hope the same thing does not happen to Roatan.

Prices will rise, similar to what happens in Coz when the cruise ships stop for a day.

 

[DeputyDan]

It will happen!

Creation of an artifical environment for the podsters.

Hawaii ring a bell! Podsters go there on planes!

 

[highdesert]

Sad ...

My guess is some hotel companies and the same outfits that vend trinkets at cruise ship docks in other Caribbean and Central American ports will do great. Not to mention the dive ops who are nearby, who'll have shiny new cattle boats lined up at the dock for day divers. I doubt much will change for the locals.

And what are the odds that the marine life will not suffer at nearby dive sites? Can you imagine Mary's Place trying to resist not only the inevitable change in water quality, but also the increase in diver numbers?

We're thinking of Roatan in June; guess it'll be our goodbye to the Roatan we know.

 

[jbeach69]

Progress is wonderful... until it runs right over the top of us... or someplace that we feel is special and don't want it changed... Saw the changes to Grand Cayman, to Belize, to Mexico, to the Bahamas, and just about everywhere the Cruise Ships have gone... but it will be a great boon to some people in Roatan, at least for a while... very sad though for those really 'one of a kind' places on our small planet such as Mary's Place and others in that area.... Of course, if 'we', the vast traveling USA public didn't go on those ships, then they would not go to places what 'we' want to stay the same..... someone said once that we always destroy the very things that we love so much.....

 

[jbeach69]

P/S The reefs around CoCo View were much better before Fantesy Island was built, and I remember diving the Ship and Walls there during construction of that new 'resort' and crying inside my dive mask at the destruction of that wonderful reef system. Bill Evans and his family had turned CCV into a great dive resort and had not changed a thing in the oceans to do it, and then had to watch as others moved in and all but destroyed what they had worked so hard to preserve.... Progress.... do we really need it??????

 

[Doc]

Ahh, so someone else remembers, as well. What a pox.