Good Deed for the Day

The first of the week I was in Labadee, Haiti. Labadee is a section of the island of Hispaniola that RCCL leases as a tropical paradise for a cruise ship passengers. Is is about 60 miles from the destruction and chaos of Port Au Prince and the devastation of the earthquake.

RCCL has taken some hits lately because tourists are on luxury vacations in Labadee while on the other side of the island the locals are struggling just to survive. I don't say this just because I work for them occasionally, but RCCL is doing much more than people know to help their hosts. First of all the cruise ship industry is the only income for this part of the Island, if the ships stopped coming it would make it even more difficult to recover. The ship provides thousands of dollars weekly to the revenue stream. Other than sunshine the passengers are not taking anything away from the island since the ship provides all the food and water for their guests. There is no negative impact on the people of Haiti as they are building back.

Every day a ship stops by tons of supplies are unloaded.
Ships can carry hundreds of times more supplies than planes. These mega ships even more so. This is a picture I took of the more than five truck loads of supplies the Liberty of The Seas brought and unloaded. Every ship that stops by brings an equal amount of supplies, and as long as a ship is coming there to bring tourists, there is no cost to the Haitian government. The supply shipment is covered by the cost of the vacationers tickets.

So although it may appear to be a case of the wealthy fiddling while Haiti burns, it really is much more complex than that. It really is a win/win situation.

Bravo to my sometimes employer for adding aid and support to their list of daily cruise activities.

As you were,
Jay