You know the jokes about who you’d like to be stuck with on a deserted island? (Warning: answering the question can be dangerous to your health, or your relationship, or both.) Cruise lines have made it clear who they’d like to find on their once-deserted islands…you!
At least five lines have them, and two were making news this week by announcing official openings. Norwegian, the first line to buy a whole island for itself, unveiled the first phase of its expansion at Great Stirrup Cay (above). Holland America, which holds the deed on Half Moon Cay, is importing a pirate from the past…you may have heard of Captain Morgan.
NCL’s visitors will now be tendered to a new marina, with four docks that will accelerate the tendering process, both coming and going. But the big improvement is that the dining facility at the marina will seat 500 passengers who don’t want to eat on the beach. The beachfront is bigger because all the food prep will be done inside now (pizza station, two grills, hot and cold buffet), with two full bars…it helps to keep the sand out of the pinball colada.
Ah, bars.
At Half Moon Cay — no, we don’t know why they call all these places “cays” — the new bar is Captain Morgan on the Rocks Island Bar, and you can bet they’ll be serving more than the captain’s drink of choice, which is (or was) rum. They’ll also be serving a healthy dose of history, with nautical artifacts and historical anecdotes decorating the double-decked, 100-foot long, three-mast schooner that washed up on the beach so it could be dressed up as a watering hole. Up to 326 patrons can imbibe and enjoy tales of Captain Henry, who would be 213 years old had he lived to see this.
Yes, matey, it must have been the rum that did him in.