Cruise Lines Give Up on Samana

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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Pull out of cruise ships worries icon Dominican port town



Samana, Dominican Republic.- Royal Caribbean Cruises will cut Samana from its itinerary next season, according to Samana?s Taxi Drivers Association, and becomes the second line to announce such a move, after a Norwegian company made the same decision in September.

Taxi Drivers Association president Dionisio Smith, quoted by hoy.com.do, said union members and other organizations of the province will hold a march 9am Wednesday to demand the Government's action for resolve the problems which push cruise lines away.

He said taxi drivers and other organizations support the construction of a privately managed cruise port, in addition to other activities in Samana Bay. "We want President Danilo Medina to intervene in this situation," he said, adding that Samana is one of the country?s three poorest provinces.

The announced pullout worries service providers for cruise passengers expected to arrive throughout the high winter season, when each ship leaves an estimated more than RD$1.0 million to the local economy.
 

oldschool

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Oct 9, 2004
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Pull out of cruise ships worries icon Dominican port town



Samana, Dominican Republic.- Royal Caribbean Cruises will cut Samana from its itinerary next season, according to Samana?s Taxi Drivers Association, and becomes the second line to announce such a move, after a Norwegian company made the same decision in September.

Taxi Drivers Association president Dionisio Smith, quoted by hoy.com.do, said union members and other organizations of the province will hold a march 9am Wednesday to demand the Government's action for resolve the problems which push cruise lines away.

He said taxi drivers and other organizations support the construction of a privately managed cruise port, in addition to other activities in Samana Bay. "We want President Danilo Medina to intervene in this situation," he said, adding that Samana is one of the country?s three poorest provinces.

The announced pullout worries service providers for cruise passengers expected to arrive throughout the high winter season, when each ship leaves an estimated more than RD$1.0 million to the local economy.

Hmmmm........ I wonder if they know they could be one of the reasons that the cruise ships decided not to stop in Samana anymore
 

caribmike

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Jul 9, 2009
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"My friend", "My friend, come over here!" from 20 dif. directions at a time... etc... maybe? Together with ripping everybody off as much as possible?
 

Empiric

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How much was spend to build the new road going to Samana?

How much is the gov paying to the co. that built the road, due to the lack of use, much less toll $ coming in to recover investment [overstimated]

What could have been done inside Samana with that much money spend on the road? [that could generate income to the builder/developer, to recover investment]

if tourist were to come by "boat", why a road? Samana even have an airport [international I think]

Was there any other reason to build the road, other than increase tourism?

Maybe building roads is an easier than planning a holistic tourist community.

Cruise ships not arriving at Punta Cana yet?, why not?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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I am not so sure

Same reason as 33 years ago: the Samanenses.


I do know what happened in POP many years ago. However, the real "Samanenses" are educated, polite and speak English. I cannot imagine them being the root cause.

I can, however, well imagine other person who have arrived in Saman? to exploit the cruise liners. As a poster above has said, it is possible that the Taxi Association is also a cause for the deletion of Carnival.

All told, I think there are other reasons.
1) No deep draught anchorage close to land.
2) Exploitation of tourists with no thought as to "tomorrow" ,,,ie, no education of tour guides and service providers that emphasized: "Look, these people talk to other people and they fill out forms about how they were received here in Saman?....It is better to have 'half a loaf today and not no loaf tomorrow'....well they are now with no loaf
3) As also mentioned, they need to clean up their acts...or perhaps stage more typical activities, not hokey, made-up "folklore" but the real Samanense cultural activities. I have seen them and they are awesome. (even staged, they would be interesting)

Now we know why Maimon will be private, closed to the non-tourist public, and successful....as is that place over in Haiti.

Cordially,


HB
 

drstock

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Oct 29, 2010
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When I told friends of mine in the UK that I was moving to the DR, they were horrified. Their only experience of this country was disembarking from a cruise ship and being pestered so much that in the end they felt intimidated and returned to the ship as quickly as possible. They couldn't remember where in the DR they landed, but this sort of activity certainly puts off many would be visitors and, presumably, the cruise lines when they are aware of it.
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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I went to visit some friends this year who came in on a cruise to Samana. They were on shore about 5 or 6 hours. They had to be shuttled to and from the cruise ship on small boats. All there was for them to do was to look at junk jewelry and paint by number artwork that is sold all around the island at tourist locations. In that location there was not much of a beach. They could take a quick whale watching tour or perhaps go to the waterfall.

I imagine that the new port at Maimon is one big reason why the one in Samana is being abandoned. As if Medina could do anything about it.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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How much was spend to build the new road going to Samana?

How much is the gov paying to the co. that built the road, due to the lack of use, much less toll $ coming in to recover investment [overstimated]

What could have been done inside Samana with that much money spend on the road? [that could generate income to the builder/developer, to recover investment]

if tourist were to come by "boat", why a road? Samana even have an airport [international I think]

Was there any other reason to build the road, other than increase tourism?

Maybe building roads is an easier than planning a holistic tourist community.

Cruise ships not arriving at Punta Cana yet?, why not?

why are there no cruise ships in Punta Cana? it is a phenomenon called "crowdout effect". the people who pay good money to stay in hotels in Punta Cana do not want two boats docked up at the same time, spilling 5000 cruise tourists into the streets . also, cruise tourism takes away customers from land based tourism. i am not going to go into long explanations, but that is the basic idea.
 

pelaut

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Aug 5, 2007
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. . . the real "Samanenses" are educated, polite and speak English. I cannot imagine them being the root cause.

Nor can I. But as you go on to point out, HB, there are sufficient malhechores among the guides, taxi drivers and other service providers who go for "half a loaf today rather than a full loaf tomorrow", to drive the ships away.

This is what? The fifth wave of on-again, off-again tourism in Saman? since when I first sailed in there in 1980?

There are cruise ship calls all over the world that lack deep draught anchorages or docks hard by the towns, yet most keep the ships coming decade after decade.

It isn't "infrastructure" that chases the tourists away, nor anything else but the basic dishonesty, greed and uneducated rudeness of the Samanenses, especially when they join unions (sindicatos) and think that earns them the right to act like thugs (cit. Fenotrano et al).

Where have all those Brahmin Samanenses been all these years? They sure weren't educating their hoi polloi to earn respect from tourists.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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I do know what happened in POP many years ago. However, the real "Samanenses" are educated, polite and speak English. I cannot imagine them being the root cause.

I can, however, well imagine other person who have arrived in Saman? to exploit the cruise liners. As a poster above has said, it is possible that the Taxi Association is also a cause for the deletion of Carnival.

All told, I think there are other reasons.
1) No deep draught anchorage close to land.
2) Exploitation of tourists with no thought as to "tomorrow" ,,,ie, no education of tour guides and service providers that emphasized: "Look, these people talk to other people and they fill out forms about how they were received here in Saman?....It is better to have 'half a loaf today and not no loaf tomorrow'....well they are now with no loaf
3) As also mentioned, they need to clean up their acts...or perhaps stage more typical activities, not hokey, made-up "folklore" but the real Samanense cultural activities. I have seen them and they are awesome. (even staged, they would be interesting)

Now we know why Maimon will be private, closed to the non-tourist public, and successful....as is that place over in Haiti.

Cordially,


HB

you mean Labadee. yes, successful for Royal Caribbean. for Haiti; not so much.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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I went to visit some friends this year who came in on a cruise to Samana. They were on shore about 5 or 6 hours. They had to be shuttled to and from the cruise ship on small boats. All there was for them to do was to look at junk jewelry and paint by number artwork that is sold all around the island at tourist locations. In that location there was not much of a beach. They could take a quick whale watching tour or perhaps go to the waterfall.

I imagine that the new port at Maimon is one big reason why the one in Samana is being abandoned. As if Medina could do anything about it.

Samana has the lowest visitor return rate in the caribbean; 18%. Barbados has around 50%
 

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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from an article in la zeta:
En el caso de Saman?, Fern?ndez (Politur) manifest? en la Z101 que el problema de esta zona est? en la falta de organizaci?n, tanto de las autoridades como de los operatores tur?sticos, y en que existe dificultad en la plataforma para recibir las embarcaciones.
Reiter? que “no hay puertos, y para recibir las embarcaciones deben hacer un trasfondo para llegar a tierra firme, lo que representa de por s? un primer problema”.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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from an article in la zeta:
En el caso de Saman?, Fern?ndez (Politur) manifest? en la Z101 que el problema de esta zona est? en la falta de organizaci?n, tanto de las autoridades como de los operatores tur?sticos, y en que existe dificultad en la plataforma para recibir las embarcaciones.
Reiter? que “no hay puertos, y para recibir las embarcaciones deben hacer un trasfondo para llegar a tierra firme, lo que representa de por s? un primer problema”.

some time back, i read some article which stated that they were going to spend some piddling amount like 10 million to make Samana a viable cruise port. i said that it could never be without dredging the harbor. people do not like docking offshore and coming to shore on some raggedy old boats that are little better than a canoe.

here is the result....