Royal Caribbean Provides Tourists, Relief To Haiti

[Emit]

The CEO of Royal Caribbean International says the company's cruise ships are still arriving in Haiti. Adam Goldstein tells Steve Inskeep that Haiti's government has asked his company to continue docking its luxury liners at Labadee in northern Haiti, which wasn't closed by the earthquake. Goldstein says Royal Caribbean's ships have begun to offload supplies of drinking water, food and dry goods for earthquake victims.

Listen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122716579

[tammywammy]

1. One of the previous threads on this link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7499026

[dipsydoodle]

2. Maybe possibly be a reaction to bad press

but its a positive reaction so good on them.

The crusie liners may well now be the only source of supply that the "haves" will have for quite some period of time.
They may even learn what its like to be a "have not".

[Born_A_Truman]

3. The concensus of Cruise Critic posters agrees

Go to Labadee, spend money with the Haitian vendors (no bargaining!), tip well, bring bottled water, etc. Some are planning on bringing and leaving clothing items, buying food but eating on the ship instead so that the food will be taken back to families on the island, etc.

Deserting the people who depend on the cruise ships for their livlihood now will only further hurt their situations.

[MineralMan]

4. A better reaction for the cruise lines would be to steam to Haiti

and transport injured people to nearby ports where they can get treatment. Now, that would be good publicity for these companies. Instead, they're docking at Labadee and doing what they usually do, except for dumping some excess inventory from their stores as a half-hearted gesture.