RE prices in Sosua will skyrocket very soon! When instead of the current dirty small beach that nobody needs a big modern port for ocean mega ships will be built and operational. Thousands and thousands of cruise tourists will fill the village! They will want many restaurants to eat and many cheap hotels to have fast sex with prostitutes! Sosua will see a great economic future with HUGE upside potential! Now is the great time to buy! Before it is late!
Valeri,
I love your optimism. Don't lose it. But let me tell you how the cruise ship business works.
I worked on ships for 12 years. I've been based out of the Caribbean, New York, Dover, England, Oslo, Norway, etc. Unless you got four or five cruise ship births where the cruise ships are coming and going all the time--both loading and unloading their passengers from--including flying them in and out of a nearby airport--i wouldn't get your hopes up too much.
The ships usually come into port and dock around 6am. Disembarkation takes place after clearing customs and the passengers have eaten breakfast. The tours take off from dockside after breakfast. If its a short tour, they're back before lunch. If its a long tour, then the lunch is usually brought with the tour buses.
Most passengers will leave the ship only on one of the tours. More adventurous passengers--and there are plenty--will be free to walk outside of the terminal area and into the streets but will be warned repeatedly of the dangers and often times discouraged completely if there has been any incidences of robbery. The warnings and discouragement comes before the ship gets into port and is done for legal & safety reasons.
Their will be a taxi area outside the terminal. But they will almost certainly be licensed taxis that will have to bid for the right to be there. The drivers will almost certainly be made to wear a badge with their names clearly printed and identification numbers clearly on them and their cars. The Taxis will have their own agendas--taking passengers to this store or that store for a cut/commission from certain businesses. This is usually considered illegal in some countries--but will happen anyway, no matter what country it is.
Port lectures will steer passengers to only a few choice spots--mostly within the terminal area or on tours sold by the ship. In the cases where they sometimes mention a store outside of the terminal area...they receive a "commission" for mentioning that store or stores. Again this is illegal, but is done anyway. Certain areas of town will be discouraged, warnings of HIV/Aids etc. will terrify many people, and most people will be discouraged from just walking around aimlessly--especially too far from the ship terminal. All passengers will be encouraged to be back for lunch, and the ship will almost certainly leave around 4:30/5:30pm and head to their next port of call.
And around and around the World turns.
Few businesses will see any profits, if any; most stores will be within the terminal grounds, passengers will be encouraged to only eat on the ship because of fear of food poisoning, and passengers themselves are often on a tight budget and often cheap...and older, and cheap, and older, and will not venture too far from the ship--except to take tours which are sold by the ship and exclusively for the ship. It's big, big money. Huge money. But only the ship see's it.
There's a lot more info that i'm leaving out of here because i simply do not have the energy, nor the time, to go into small, painstaking details about the intricacies of how ship companies operate. Suffice to say that, yes, jobs will be created in and around the terminal, but in no way can i see it having much effect--or very little effect at best--on the north coast unless of course you're involved in some direct way with the ships tours that are being promoted to its passengers on board and sold only by the ship itself--known as the Tours office/ Shore Excursions.
All tours are guided and everyone must stay with the group. Everything is run very tight and by the clock...and is very, very precise--i.e--leave at this time, stop at this time, return to the bus at this time, eat at this time, return back to ship at this time, etc. Everything is precise and there is no room for wondering around and going to a Cabana...unless of course you are one of the officers or entertainment crew--in which case you most likely will be banging the dancers or shop girls, or married, or gay...i've been three of the four.
Hope this helps!
Frank
