The Guardian reports that cruise ships are still docking at private beaches some 60 miles from Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone, where “passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.”
Apparently Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines struggled over “a difficult decision over whether to dock as per itinerary at Labadee Beach, Haiti after last week’s tragic quake,” but decided to dock anyway, a decision that has divided passengers. Many passengers are deciding to stay aboard; “one said he was ‘sickened’”
“I just can’t see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,” one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the north coast on Friday; a second cruise ship, the 3,100-passenger Navigator of the Seas is due to dock.
The Florida cruise company leases a picturesque wooded peninsula and its five pristine beaches from the government for passengers to “cut loose” with watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market before returning on board before dusk. Safety is guaranteed by armed guards at the gate.”
Some passengers are worried that “desperate people might breach the resort’s 12ft high fences to get food and drink, but others seemed determined to enjoy their holiday.”
Royal Caribbean says that hundreds of people rely on the Labadee resort for their livelihood and that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each visit.
It also claims that it is using the docking opportunity to “ use our ships as transport vessels for relief supplies and personnel to Haiti.”
Forty pallets of rice, beans, powdered milk, water, and canned foods were delivered on Friday, and a further 80 are due and 16 on two subsequent ships. When supplies arrive in Labadee, they are distributed by Food for the Poor, a longtime partner of Royal Caribbean in Haiti.
Royal Caribbean has also pledged $1m to the relief effort and will spend part of that helping 200 Haitian crew members.
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