Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
"For some reason they must have some great fear that the passengers need to be protected from everyone else."
Let me see, hmmm
1. Tourist with video camera's of hooker's on the beach & street.
2. Instances of crooked cops shaking them down.
3. Situations of being robbed and even shot while in the process of being robbed.
4. Avoiding being hustled for money by a gang of beggars.
Again, with them at their own separate beach with the majority of rift-raft on the other side, the Carnival cruise line with assistance of ol' girl is protecting them in a much more safer and convenient manner. I am sure that particular beach will have a daytime guard force to keep out "undesirables" just before the ship arrives and "guard" them while they are there. Then, after any "Cruise Ship Tourist" leave the private beach, it's back to normal. With them not intermingled with the rest of the Playa Beach population, it easily gives everyone who wants to exactly count the numbers of tourist that actually come all the way to Sosua. They are bused in and bused out and stay in a small area. Miss the bus back and your shit out of luck with the boat waiting for you.
Seems like a great trade-off to me. If ABC wants to show up for one of their groundbreaking, fucking fact-finding tours, Carnival is not labeled or smeared as sponsoring trips to the Hooker Beach.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
j_d66
Their dollar should be no more valuable than mine. Sure they might drop a little dinero in the few hours they are there but I spend much more in the course of 7-10 days than they ever will
You are there for 7 to 10 days..... the next ship will bring 40 or 50 others.
Tourist oriented places do not care about the tourist, only the continual flow of fresh meat. Carnival will provide that, you will not.
Let them have Playa Alicia, only been there twice and for about 10 minutes in total. As Seville said, if it protects the real beach all for the better.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
distantvoyeur
You are there for 7 to 10 days..... the next ship will bring 40 or 50 others.
Tourist oriented places do not care about the tourist, only the continual flow of fresh meat. Carnival will provide that, you will not.
Let them have Playa Alicia, only been there twice and for about 10 minutes in total. As Seville said, if it protects the real beach all for the better.
That's right so look at it this way.
Ambercove.com has 86 ships scheduled to be in port from Oct 2015 through August 2016 not counting the Adoina cause that is the ship doing the volunteer work so there will be almost no cruise passengers gracing Sosua from that trip
Let's assume they can get 50 passengers each from those ships or 4,300 passengers and assume they each spend 1,500 RD while in Sosua. (I doubt most will not spend anything near that cause they are only there a few hours at most. Lunch and drinks and maybe a souvenir.
They would generate 6,450,000 RD of new revenue.
Now lets take a typical monger tourist who comes to Sosua for 5 days and spends an average of 5,000 RD per day (a pretty modest sum I would say) or 25,000 RD during the five days.
It would only take 258 people coming for 5 days and spending 5,000 RD per day to generate the same 6,450,000 RD of revenue
So you tell me which one is more valuable to the Sosua economy there is no comparison.
Tweak the numbers however you like but the point is that the tourist who comes for a few days will forever blow away anything the a cruise ship passenger is going to bring to town.
I just think it is comical that they think they need to close down a beach and keep them from enjoying any kind of real Dominican experience.
I understand wanting to keep the chicas away but lets be real, most of the cruise ship passengers are going to be husbands and wives or families with no interest in picking up a chica anyway.
If you want to shelter them, keep them at the Amber Cove beach
That is the very reason I never booked a ship sponsored excursion when I took a cruise.
I found a local who would take me to where I could experience what the island was really about.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seville
I'm okay with them using playa alicia for the cruise ship people. Maybe they will decide that is a better and cheaper option than razing everything on Sosua beach to build those tourist plazas. It would leave more money for them to pocket while leaving the beach I enjoy so much alone.
If only, I agree!!!
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Can someone explain what part of the beach they are going to close? I am confused.
If I take a moto down to the start lets say from rumba....then start walking the beach all the way to the end passing seville area etc....then end and you walk up to highway and take a moto...
Is it the whole beach on my walk or the latter part or something totally different?
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hunter
Can someone explain what part of the beach they are going to close? I am confused.
If I take a moto down to the start lets say from rumba....then start walking the beach all the way to the end passing seville area etc....then end and you walk up to highway and take a moto...
Is it the whole beach on my walk or the latter part or something totally different?
Differnt beach hunter. Playa Alicia (or Sin Salida) is down calle Dr Rosen. Keep going past Rockys, New Garden, belkies until you can't walk any further (dead end street ending at the beach)
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Irie
Differnt beach hunter. Playa Alicia (or Sin Salida) is down calle Dr Rosen. Keep going past Rockys, New Garden, belkies until you can't walk any further (dead end street ending at the beach)
But from Sevilles post Playa Alicia is not the plan.......that is SEvilles plan......that is where I am confused.....:confused:
If they used the big beach what part of that will they use?
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hunter
Can someone explain what part of the beach they are going to close? I am confused.
If I take a moto down to the start lets say from rumba....then start walking the beach all the way to the end passing seville area etc....then end and you walk up to highway and take a moto...
Is it the whole beach on my walk or the latter part or something totally different?
Playa Alicia is a small beach near Casa Marina, it's often pretty empty anyway, they can close it at the entrance, it's not the same beach Seville goes to, that's playa Sosua.
Playa Alicia.
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...6&d=1410269996
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...5&d=1410269976
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...4&d=1410269950
There's also a small park before the entrance and a decent café.
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...7&d=1410270020
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...0&d=1410270091
http://news.insearchofchicas.org/for...7&d=1410269722
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hunter
But from Sevilles post Playa Alicia is not the plan.......that is SEvilles plan......that is where I am confused.....:confused:
If they used the big beach what part of that will they use?
got ya. Misread what you were getting at. Thought you were talking about the current situation. Carry on
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Irie
got ya. Misread what you were getting at. Thought you were talking about the current situation. Carry on
Yeah I wasnt clear. Maybe the tourist officials dont know what beach they are going to use yet :confused:
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hunter
But from Sevilles post Playa Alicia is not the plan.......that is SEvilles plan......that is where I am confused.....:confused:
If they used the big beach what part of that will they use?
Under the plan to have another port in Sosua, All of it.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Preaching to the choir here......
Monger has greater value but greater publicity downside. Would you like your hometown to be known as whore central (hurts property values et al)?
If you could remove the negative view of the area and prop up the economy to a small degree, would you not?
I don't see this as working though. Sosua's greatest asset to me is Playa Sosua, but I like a little grunge in my trips, it's real. Most tourists want their shiny AI.
If you do research, you can find PFP anywhere in the world. There is just something about the whole package of the town that appeals to me and others.
The value to the Sosua economy is still to a select few, the majority are still in poverty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
j_d66
So you tell me which one is more valuable to the Sosua economy there is no comparison.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
The big project they are talking about is the main beach in sosua with all the vendors
http://www.sosuanews.com/index.php?id=3816&article=1
The plan was to tear all of the buildings down and build a big plaza
The vendors do not like it because they will have to start paying rent and are afraid it will become unaffordable for them
They said the bulldozers were all set to level the place like Sept 2014 but it never happened than it all kinda died down until the latest report surfaced
http://www.sosuanews.com/index.php?id=4217&article=1
Frankly I take much of what Sosuanews reports with a grain of salt since
I could be wrong but I don't think building a port in Sosua is part of that plan.
I highly doubt they would build a port there now as it would be to close to Amber Cove
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
j_d66
That's right so look at it this way...
Ambercove.com has 86 ships scheduled to be in port from Oct 2015 through August 2016 not counting the Adoina cause that is the ship doing the volunteer work so there will be almost no cruise passengers gracing Sosua from that trip.
Let's assume they can get 50 passengers each from those ships or 4,300 passengers and assume they each spend 1,500 RD while in Sosua. (I doubt most will not spend anything near that cause they are only there a few hours at most. Lunch and drinks and maybe a souvenir
They would generate 6,450,000 RD of new revenue. Now lets take a typical monger tourist who comes to Sosua for 5 days and spends an average of 5,000 RD per day (a pretty modest sum I would say) or 25,000 RD during the five days. It would only take 258 people coming for 5 days and spending 5,000 RD per day to generate the same 6,450,000 RD of revenue. So you tell me which one is more valuable to the Sosua economy there is no comparison.
Tweak the numbers however you like but the point is that the tourist who comes for a few days will forever blow away anything the a cruise ship passenger is going to bring to town.
I just think it is comical that they think they need to close down a beach and keep them from enjoying any kind of real Dominican experience.
I understand wanting to keep the chicas away but lets be real, most of the cruise ship passengers are going to be husbands and wives or families with no interest in picking up a chica anyway. If you want to shelter them, keep them at the Amber Cove beach
That is the very reason I never booked a ship sponsored excursion when I took a cruise. I found a local who would take me to where I could experience what the island was really about.
First of all, one issue that Carnival has is that 75% of the passengers must leave the port for a minimum of 4 hours. I know from a reliable source with the cruise line that the facilities in port can only handle up to 1,200 people. The other points I will make as far as Sosua/Cabarete is concern are these. The DR govt, and NC tourism authorities have been promised by Carnival that other cruise lines ( except RCL) will be in Amber Cove on non Carnival days with a minimum of 2 day stays. They are not listed in the schedule because contracts and dates have not been finalized for 2015/16. When these dates have been finalized, then tour operators will be offering a fun/sun day in Sosua, as well as kite surfing , nightly entertainment in Cabarete. As most of you know Cabarete is not known for swimming,snorkling, or scuba diving like Sosua in the daytime, and at night Cabarete offers more for non mongers then Sosua. I've seen the marketing adverts for cruise passengers that will be showing beaches in Sosua, with wind surfing, restaurant dining and nightly entertainment only in Cabarete.
So what is happening now with Playa Alicia is typical Dominican way of doing anything, lets wait for the last minute, and use as many band aids as we can until Carnival delivers us the passengers they have promised. As far as the comparison to numbers and dollars spent with mongers vs cruise passengers, that is a non issue for the govt, and the NC officials. They still believe that in order to establish a higher spending with tourism, it will only come from families and future cruise visitors.
So when all is said and done, the mongers visiting the NC and how things will change because of the cruise industry is way too early for everyone. I would bet that at least Sosua will not be changing until after the election next May 2016. As for Puerto Plata, they will at least be up to speed by then on how to handle spreading a minimum of 2,500 passengers one day a week in the NC.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
steviewonder
First of all, one issue that Carnival has is that 75% of the passengers must leave the port for a minimum of 4 hours. I know from a reliable source with the cruise line that the facilities in port can only handle up to 1,200 people. The other points I will make as far as Sosua/Cabarete is concern are these. The DR govt, and NC tourism authorities have been promised by Carnival that other cruise lines ( except RCL) will be in Amber Cove on non Carnival days with a minimum of 2 day stays. They are not listed in the schedule because contracts and dates have not been finalized for 2015/16. When these dates have been finalized, then tour operators will be offering a fun/sun day in Sosua, as well as kite surfing , nightly entertainment in Cabarete. As most of you know Cabarete is not known for swimming,snorkling, or scuba diving like Sosua in the daytime, and at night Cabarete offers more for non mongers then Sosua. I've seen the marketing adverts for cruise passengers that will be showing beaches in Sosua, with wind surfing, restaurant dining and nightly entertainment only in Cabarete.
So what is happening now with Playa Alicia is typical Dominican way of doing anything, lets wait for the last minute, and use as many band aids as we can until Carnival delivers us the passengers they have promised. As far as the comparison to numbers and dollars spent with mongers vs cruise passengers, that is a non issue for the govt, and the NC officials. They still believe that in order to establish a higher spending with tourism, it will only come from families and future cruise visitors.
So when all is said and done, the mongers visiting the NC and how things will change because of the cruise industry is way too early for everyone. I would bet that at least Sosua will not be changing until after the election next May 2016. As for Puerto Plata, they will at least be up to speed by then on how to handle spreading a minimum of 2,500 passengers one day a week in the NC.
Is that some kind of new rule or something because I have been on several cruises over the years and never once was I told I had to leave the port much less the ship.
That thought process really doesn't make much sense since Carnival is in the game to make as much money for themselves as possible and no better way than to have you held captive as close to their port as possible.
In the end the officials of Sosua etc will very likely bend over backwards to please the whims of Carnival and the ministry of tourism and very likely a push to drive the monger traffic out of town will also occur.
Than they will sit back and wonder why no more than a handful of the cruise ship tourists will ever grace their fair city.
Than who will support them. The expats? I think not.
The locals will ultimately be the ones who will suffer.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
j_d66
Is that some kind of new rule or something because I have been on several cruises over the years and never once was I told I had to leave the port much less the ship.
That thought process really doesn't make much sense since Carnival is in the game to make as much money for themselves as possible and no better way than to have you held captive as close to their port as possible.
In the end the officials of Sosua etc will very likely bend over backwards to please the whims of Carnival and the ministry of tourism and very likely a push to drive the monger traffic out of town will also occur.
Than they will sit back and wonder why no more than a handful of the cruise ship tourists will ever grace their fair city.
Than who will support them. The expats? I think not.
The locals will ultimately be the ones who will suffer.
I didnt say it was a new rule, it's simply a fact that in Amber Cove there is not enough space to accommodate over 1,200 people in the shopping village, and water park area. This may change once a beach area is finially opened for the passengers, but until then Carnival needs their customers to visit Puerto Plata city centre by the bus loads, or book in large numbers with the tour operators.
While everyone is entitled to an opinion about what impact the cruise lines may play in the tourism business for the NC. I for one believe it will exceed by the end of 2016 all projected numbers that Amber Cove was budgeting for. However, for what impact the focus has for Sosua and the mongering situation, again that's anyone guess what the govt. will do. But if history teaches us anything, then Sosua town and entertainment will remain the same for a very long time.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Seville
I'm okay with them using playa alicia for the cruise ship people. Maybe they will decide that is a better and cheaper option than razing everything on Sosua beach to build those tourist plazas. It would leave more money for them to pocket while leaving the beach I enjoy so much alone.
I concur ... completely!!!
My favorite "beach excursion" in the Su, other than hanging out in the close environs of Ruby's with whatever fellow-mongers admitted themselves as members of the ISOC community, is entirely centered on the pastime of scuba-diving. If I were IDIOT enough to cruise down to the North Coast as a paying passenger on Carnal Crooze Lines ... I would probably be delighted if they had a dive-boat that would carry me out to a couple of patch-reefs that were close to Maimon. In all honesty - I'd be delighted to ride out from Blackbeard's to a decent, different reef north or west of Maimon.
The fact of the matter is, though, that visitors other than cruise-ship passengers will not get a chance to join up with the cruise-ship tours. Even if the chosen dive-operator is well-established in the Su,
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Westy
I concur ... completely!!!
My favorite "beach excursion" in the Su, other than hanging out in the close environs of Ruby's with whatever fellow-mongers admitted themselves as members of the ISOC community, is entirely centered on the pastime of scuba-diving. If I were IDIOT enough to cruise down to the North Coast as a paying passenger on Carnal Crooze Lines ... I would probably be delighted if they had a dive-boat that would carry me out to a couple of patch-reefs that were close to Maimon. In all honesty - I'd be delighted to ride out from Blackbeard's to a decent, different reef north or west of Maimon.
The fact of the matter is, though, that visitors other than cruise-ship passengers will not get a chance to join up with the cruise-ship tours. Even if the chosen dive-operator is well-established in the Su,
I talked with a couple dive companies in Sosua and they declined to be a part of the official excursion package Carnival has set up because the upfront and ongoing costs involved. They calculated that the current ship visits planned is not worth the extra investment. Also, the diving customers that go on cruises are well informed about non-carnival associated dive companies on all the islands and that the Carnival customers who are divers would more than likely book independently at each dive location. The dive companies are getting many inquiries from Carnival cruise ship passengers to go diving independent of the ship sponsored packages. Also, the savings is significant...$50 savings at least per person for independent dive company vs. a Carnival sponsored package...
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
The cruise lines are expert at shearing the sheep, both the passengers and the providers.
Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
From Sosua News
13 October 2015
1 billion Pesos from President Danilo Medina
According to the Director of the Implementation Committee for Civil Works in the tourist areas (CEIZTUR), architect Kirsis De los Santos, President Danilo Medina made a billion pesos available to improve the infrastructure of the province of Puerto Plata. The past weekend the president brought a surprise visit to Puerto Plata to take into account the progress of the various projects. He visited the construction of the link road between the cruise port and Puerto Plata.
http://www.sosuanews.com/news_pictur...-13_danilo.jpg Ministerio de Turismo
He also visited the renovation of the historic center and the construction of the amphitheater. According to De los Santos, the reconstruction of the beach of Sosúa is part of the second phase. This involves the construction of two shopping plazas at both entrances of the beach and setting up a pedestrian area in the main street Pedro Clisante. A part of the Pedro Clisante will be provided with a new attractive pavement with Victorian styled streetlights. The trees are cut down and will be replaced by palm trees. Even the water treatment plant near Cabarete will be put into use in the second phase. The entrepreneurs in the Pedro Clisante are very excited about all these beautiful initiatives. But they hope the work will not take place in the high season (November to April). If they start to work on the street during the peak season, it will lead to large revenue losses.