{"id":387,"date":"2010-03-01T16:40:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T23:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=387"},"modified":"2010-03-01T16:40:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T23:40:38","slug":"cruises-critical-to-port-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=387","title":{"rendered":"Cruises Critical to Port Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The economic impact cruising makes on countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean has to be staggering beyond words. Think about it: a couple of decades ago, you could have counted the cruise ships stopping in places like Puntarenas (Costa Rica), Arica (Chile) and San Juan (Puerto Rico).<br \/>\nAnd today, you have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/\">Holland America<\/a> with 142 cruises to destinations in Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal. That&#8217;s one cruise line. That&#8217;s one season. Local merchants in all these countries, many beset by decades of poverty, count on cruise business for survival.<\/p>\n<p>Nine ships make up Holland America&#8217;s fleet in this part of the world, and that doesn&#8217;t include the new Nieuw Amsterdam. Better yet, HAL is giving customers more variety.<br \/>\nFewer 7-day and more 10-day cruises are on this year&#8217;s calendar. If you&#8217;re like us, seven days never seems quite long enough \u2014 you just get unpacked and it&#8217;s time to pull those empty suitcases out from under your stateroom bed.<br \/>\nComing this fall, 10-day cruises to the southern Caribbean feature three itinerary options. Wayfarer itineraries highlight the islands of St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Barbados and Martinique. Seafarer cruises showcase the Turks &amp; Caicos Islands, Dominican Republic, Bonaire, Cura\u00e7ao and Aruba. And 19 Sunfarer itineraries combine some of those destinations with Panama Canal cruising.<br \/>\nAnd this mist be some kind of cruise record, for HAL if not all lines: 25 full-transit cruises though the Panama Canal by the spring of 2011, on seven different ships \u2013 Statendam, Westerdam, Maasdam, Zuiderdam, Ryndam, ms Rotterdam and ms Amsterdam. The cruises range from 2 to 4 weeks.<br \/>\nMexican Riviera cruisers will benefit from Holland America&#8217;s approach to more variety, with 10-, 11-and 14-day cruises departing roundtrip from San Diego for the Sea of Cortez and Mexican Riviera in winter and spring 2011, on the ms Zaandam.<br \/>\nFor the people in those countries who can&#8217;t afford to be on cruise ships, their presence is most welcome.<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s it\u2026we&#8217;re done.<\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Arial, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: small;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The economic impact cruising makes on countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean has to be staggering beyond words. Think about it: a couple of decades ago, you could have counted the cruise ships stopping in places like Puntarenas (Costa Rica), Arica (Chile) and San Juan (Puerto Rico). And today, you have Holland&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=387\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cruises Critical to Port Countries<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}