Thread: Tourists left stranded on beach with nothing to do

Tourists left stranded on beach with nothing to do
By Yasmin Popescu
yasmin@nasguard.com

Over 1,000 passengers looking for a beaching day in Grand?Bahama were disappointed as they were left at the Taino Beach without anything to do on Wednesday morning.
A vendor on Taino Beach said they were called out by someone they refused to name, to open their business on the beach because the beach was crowded with tourists who had nothing to do.
It was noted that the Junkanoo Beach Club, which is normally open was closed on that one day.
Operators of the Junkanoo Beach Club said they were not alerted to this cruise ship coming in and had decided to take a day off.
Ed Gate, of the Junkanoo Beach Club said in a short telephone interview that his business has a contract with Carnival Cruises but, he said, Carnival had cancelled the call that was on schedule for (Wednesday).
Stating that it was a bad judgement call on his part, Gate noted that his establishment is normally open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. But he said there are some days when they would open and have no customers come in at all. With this in mind, they had decided without any scheduled call, to take the day off.
The Junkanoo Beach Club normally offered chaise lounge chairs, food, drinks and activities for their customers.
However, according to the Freeport Harbour, The Costa Atlantica made an unscheduled stop to Grand Bahama on Wednesday with 2,476 passengers.
The vessel left Mexico in its itinerary and is on its ways to Nassau after its one day stop here in Freeport.
Also filling in the gap was T&B water sports, as well as Tony Macaroni and Outriggers Restaurants and bars.
While some tourists were taken to the beach and left by some taxi drivers and were not pleased with this reception, others were happy to stay out on the beach, soaking up the sun while on their towels on the sand and enjoying a little swim in the beautiful waters.
Bahamians looking on were not pleased with the way guests are being treated. One vendor said it reminded them of the situation at the Lucayan Grand Resort where the tourists are asked to pay to use their beaches. One vendor in particular feels that the business of tourism in Grand Bahama needs to be looked at seriously.
He continued to say that they were concerned about what is being done to the tourism industry in Grand Bahama.
"It is putting another bad mark in the industry" said the vendor. "We had 1,000 people come here today and about 800 of them will go back and complain."
He noted the problem is that they will talk about and compare their visit to other islands in The Bahamas where he feels they will receive a lot of good services, versus what they experienced in Grand Bahama.

http://bit.ly/sys8ss

A real shame when something like that happens!

Junkanoo Beach Club in is Freeport ... very close to the Port Lucaya Market Place. Actually, there is another beach across from Lucaya Market Place ... wonder why they didn't just go to it.