2023-07-27 08:44:51
What goes better with a Caribbean cruise than a lonely island with a turquoise blue lagoon and a palm beach? Well, the island is no longer lonely as soon as a large cruise ship anchors there in the morning. However, the one-day stays on these islands are still exclusive – and therefore extremely popular with cruise vacationers with their pirate romance and Robinson Crusoe feeling.
The opinions on the private islands of the cruise lines vary between “paradise” and “art world”. And different ideas of vacation collide: If you want to experience culture and historical sites, you won’t get anything from these islands. For the perfect day at the beach, carefree and safe, they are just right.
When the private island trend took off in the late 1980s, there was typically little more than a beach, palm trees, aquamarine waters, a steel drum band, and a bar serving margaritas and Bahama Mamas. Today, most of the islands and private beaches are organized like amusement parks, without losing their original charm.
Almost every cruise company today has at least one private island. With ever new attractions, they try to outdo each other and thus lure the sun-seeking audience to their Bahamas and Caribbean cruises. Coco Cay (Royal Caribbeans) has the tallest waterslide in North America, MSC boasts the longest sandy beaches at Ocean Cay, horseback riding on the beach at Half Moon Cay (Holland America Lines), and NCL has the largest at Harvest Cay in Belize Freshwater pool in the Caribbean – but Coco Cay is now also claiming the latter record for itself.
All islands offer a few things: more or less lonely dream beaches, swimming and snorkeling, palm tree romance, BBQ lunch from the charcoal grill and Caribbean cocktails from the beach bar. In addition, the shipping companies are pursuing quite different concepts. The two opposite poles are the islands of Coco Cay and Ocean Cay. The former has been advertising a veritable water park and expensive cabanas directly over the water since 2019. On the second, noisy attractions are deliberately avoided, one wants to score points with peace and endless, white beaches.
Ocean Cay: Stranderlebnis pur
MSC only opened the completely rebuilt private island of Ocean Cay in the Bahamas in 2019. The Swiss shipping company has transformed an island formerly used industrially for argonite sand mining into long, white beaches with newly planted palm trees and plenty of space for passengers.
A red and white lighthouse dummy with a romantic sunset bar and a lagoon for bathing and water sports, whose fine sand is reminiscent of Bora-Bora in the South Pacific, provide the right island feeling. The only party here is after sunset, when the lighthouse puts on an impressive laser show in the night sky.
A man-made lighthouse is one of Ocean Cay’s landmarks
Those: pa/Newscom/Patrick Connolly
However, MSC affords an expensive special feature on Ocean Cay: the island is surrounded by 165 square kilometers of marine conservation area, which the MSC Foundation has taken under its wing. In cooperation with two American universities, research is being carried out there on so-called super corals, which are better able to withstand climate change.
Coco Cay: slides and helium balloon
The Bahamas private island of Coco Cay by Royal Caribbean, on the other hand, has been expanded into a veritable amusement park: record-breakingly long or fast water slides, an outdoor wave pool, a huge freshwater lagoon with a swim-up bar and a party atmosphere offer variety for passengers who want more than sunbathing.
A zipline even runs halfway across the island. And the exclusive Coco Beach Club offers cabanas on stilts directly over the water of a turquoise lagoon. A helium balloon allows passengers to soar up to 150 meters above the island and see everything from above, including a view of neighboring NCL’s Great Stirrup Cay.
A wave pool on Coco Cay
What: pa/ZUMAPRESS.com/Joe Burbank
If you don’t need all of these attractions, which are quite expensive to pay, you can still find free dream beaches on Coco Cay. A few steps further there are even lonely stretches of beach with lots of peace and original island romance. And that, although Coco Cay can now receive two of the largest cruise ships with a total of over 12,000 passengers at the same time.
By the way, it doesn’t always have to be an entire island. Royal Caribbean has maintained an exclusive beach in Labadee, Haiti, since 1986. Princess Cruises secured the southern tip of the Bahamas island of Eleuthera as “Princess Cays” in 1992. And NCL has owned Harvest Cay in Belize as a private destination since 2016.
The Beginnings on the Stirrup Cays
The popularity of private islands has continued unabated since Norwegian Caribbean Line, now NCL, started the trend on Great Stirrup Cay in 1977. The idea of having an “out island” in the Bahamas all to yourself fueled the Robinson Crusoe and pirate fantasies of the crusaders back then.
Surprisingly, however, an imitator was not found until ten years later. Eastern Cruise Line, now Royal Caribbean, bought NCL’s neighboring island of Little Stirrup Cay in 1988, later renamed Coco Cay. Short trips advertised as “Super Cruises” were intended to give new impetus to what was then, like now, the highly competitive cruise market from Miami.
Great Stirrup Cay was one of the first private islands in the Bahamas
What: Getty Images/Jadwiga Figula
In the 1980s, Coco Cay was little more than a few sun loungers and hammocks tucked under the palm trees. The entertainment program consisted of beach volleyball and an organized treasure hunt through the island’s sparse jungle – with a bottle of rum as the main prize.
The ships could not dock due to the lack of a pier, but rather the passengers drove to the beach in dinghies. “Everyone found it very charming. People just didn’t want to leave,” recalls Ken Rush, then assistant cruise director on the 1,000-passenger ship Emerald Seas and now director of entertainment at Royal Caribbean.
The islands are a safe bet
What the cruise vacationers didn’t realize was that drug smugglers were up to mischief in the Bahamas at the time, including those from the Medellin cartel, tolerated by the corrupt Bahamian government. Cathy Reed, a dive instructor on Little Stirrup Cay in the mid-1980s, recalls, “The island was a pretty wild place when the ship wasn’t there. Once we accidentally came across hundreds of bales of cannabis waiting to be picked up in the jungle. We were threatened by men with machine guns.”
Since then, the situation has changed fundamentally, also thanks to close cooperation with the American authorities. The Bahamas in particular have long had the drug problem under control. Because cruise tourism is not only an important economic factor for the Bahamas, but also for many other Caribbean countries.
On the one hand, the Bahamas earn directly from the mooring fees for the ships, on the other hand, through the lease for the islands. In addition, they usually oblige the shipping companies to call at Nassau or Freeport on a cruise in addition to their private island and to ensure further sales there.
Contrasting program in Nassau: as a rule, the ships dock here or in Freeport
Source: pa/Westend61/Michael Runkel
Many jobs are also created on the islands for locals. Royal Caribbean, for example, states that currently 60 percent of the approximately 540 permanent employees on Coco Cay are from the Bahamas. The goal is a rate of 80 percent. The souvenir and handicraft shops on the island are also run by locals, who commute almost daily by ferry from the neighboring island of Great Harbor Cay.
More about cruise:
The market is growing, berths are becoming increasingly scarce. The shipping companies benefit from the island deals above all because they secure long-term reliable points of contact with the islands and beaches. And the private destinations are popular with passengers – not least because, unlike regular Caribbean ports, they offer a carefree environment safe from crime and pushy street vendors. Everything indicates that the private islands will continue to be a success story.
#Caribbean #Private #islands #hit #cruise #destination