Re: 12/2014 - Amber Cove ??? How long will this last ???
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.
Last edited by steviewonder; 10-12-2015 at 07:52 PM.
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