The Ethical Optimist

You think travel writers are tough? Well, your job in the cruise line PR department just got tougher if you work for Royal Caribbean.

You would think that PR folks and their companies would have learned a few lessons from the Tsunami disaster.  If you recall a few sent out ridiculous press releases trying to tie their products/services into the news cycle of human tragedy.  Sadly, however, the folks at Royal Carribean didn’t pay attention as evidenced by this boneheaded move that was brought to my attention today:

Cruise ship docks at private beach in Haiti for barbeque and water sports

The Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines’ ship Independence of the Seas went ahead with its scheduled stop at a fenced-in private Haitian beach surrounded by armed guards, leaving its passengers to “cut loose” on the beach, just a few kilometers from one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the region’s history. The ship’s owners justified it as a humanitarian call, because the ship also delivered 40 palettes of relief supplies while its passengers frolicked on zip-lines and ate barbeque within the 12-foot-high fence’s perimeter.

Needless to say, the press are all over this story now. The company tried to whitewash the story by saying they delivered 40 pallets of water and humanitarian supplies while docking. Well folks, if you were that concerned, why didn’t you just park an empty ship there so folks had a place to live for a few weeks? Cruise ships throw away more food in a week’s journey than most Haitian’s see in a month.

Several of RC’s guests were quoted as saying it put a damper on the trip…no kidding?

“I just can’t see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,” one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.

I’m still shaking my head, stunned at the stupidity of their management team. It’s called crisis contingency planning folks: re-route the damn ship!

Unreal.