Bahamas turns to private sector for cruising revitalization

PRIVATE ISLAND INVESTMENT

If there’s any place where experiences are gospel, it is at Royal Caribbean, which in May opened its reimagined private island as Perfect Day at CocoCay. Located about 55 miles north of Nassau, the 140-acre island has been used exclusively by Royal since 1990. 

The $250 million upgrade split the island experiences into “thrill” and “chill,” the latter connoting relaxing, lounging and loitering in cabanas and pools, while the former is embodied by a 13-slide waterpark and a 1,600-foot zipline.

The big investment is part of a twofold strategy. One is to amp up the landside venues Royal owns to the quality level of its ships, with CocoCay being just the first of five Perfect Day venues in the works. 

More specific to the Bahamas, Royal also hopes to transform the market for three- and four-day cruises from Florida, with CocoCay a keystone of the strategy.

As part of the project, Royal built a $50 million pier that will be able to accommodate more and bigger ships, such as the Oasis of the Seas when it begins sailing from Miami in November.

With the transfer of the Independence of the Seas to Port Everglades next summer, Royal will have 3,000-passenger, short-cruise ships in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral, mostly going to the Bahamas.

“There is that consumer out there who wants to take shorter, more frequent vacations,” said Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales, trade support and services at Royal. “And they don’t necessarily want to be gone for seven days even if they can afford it. It really is the time they want, and they want more vacations in the short-cruise market.”

With capacity for 10,000 guests a day, CocoCay could host more than 3.6 million cruisers annually, about the same number that visited Nassau last year. 

Somewhat surprisingly, the busiest cruise line in the Bahamas has never had its own private island there. Instead, Carnival Cruise Line has piggybacked on two islands developed by sister lines: Holland America Line’s Half Moon Cay and Princess Cruises’ Princess Cays.

That will change as a result of Carnival’s agreement to develop a $100 million private port on Grand Bahama Island. The project has been slow to get off the ground, in part because the plan was approved just as the government changed hands in 2017. 

The project is expected to include a mile-long beach, a pier for two ships and capacity for up to 1 million guests a year.

One reason Carnival is building its own spot in the Bahamas after all these years is that its ships are getting bigger. The Mardi Gras, debuting next year in Port Canaveral, will carry at least 5,200 passengers, too many to tender at islands such as Half Moon Cay.

By building its own destination in the Bahamas, Carnival puts that problem behind it.

MSC Cruises plans to open the 95-acre Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve on Nov. 9. Part of the Geneva-based cruise line’s strategy is to use the development as more proof that it is in North America to stay.

A relative latecomer to the Caribbean, MSC will have four ships sailing from Miami this winter, including the 4,500-passenger Meraviglia, its largest ship to date. Although MSC is building ships at a faster clip than any other cruise line, MSC president Gianni Onorato said the 100-year lease on its island near Bimini is a big step. 

“For us, this is a little bit more than to have a new ship, because it’s really something new for us,” he said.

Disney Cruise Line opened its private island, Castaway Cay, in the Bahamas in 1998, and it is now likely to be the first cruise line with two private Bahamian stops.

In March, Disney finalized the purchase of Lighthouse Point on the southern end of Eleuthera, which will complement the Castaway Cay experience that Disney customers rate highly among port calls.

Disney Signature Experiences president Jeff Vahle said, “Today, almost three-quarters of our cruises have at least one call in the Bahamas, and we expect that to continue as we expand our fleet from four to seven ships,” 

In its development agreement, Disney pledged that by 2024 it will increase ship visits to Nassau and Freeport by 30% to 40% from 2018 levels.

Also dipping its toe into Bahamian waters starting next year is Virgin Voyages, which will make a stop in Bimini on every cruise. 

For Virgin, the Bimini Beach Club will help establish its newly launched brand as something hip and different. It will have a DJ-driven pool party on the site, which is being developed at virtually no cost to Virgin by its partner, Resorts World Bimini, which runs a casino on North Bimini.

Several other cruise lines continue to upgrade their private islands. Princess Cruises recently added high-speed WiFi at Princess Cays as well as refurbished retail and bar areas, improved landscaping and new excursions. And in March, some of the new air-conditioned villas on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private island at Great Stirrup Cay became available for preview by guests.