By David G. Molyneaux, editor, TheTravelMavens.com
Cruises often include a popular day at the beach on a private island. Carnival Corp. now has a private beach on a public island, Roatan, off the Caribbean coast of Honduras.
At Mahogany Bay, cruise passengers can walk off the ship, shop at a private village, then choose a boating excursion or head to Mahogany Beach. The beach is a 10-acre private enclave with lounge chairs, cabanas for rent, floats, a beach volleyball court and watersports. The white sand beach is 825 feet long.
You can walk to the beach -- it is less than a 10-minute stroll on new pavement -- or, for $10 for the day, take a ride on what Carnival calls the Magical Flying Beach Chair.
The ride is an elevated chair lift like those used at ski resorts. It takes six minutes to cross nearly 1,200 feet of cables suspended 67 feet above a canopy of trees.
I tried the chair ride several times as the lift gave me some nice views of beach and surrounding countryside. In fall 2009, price of the beach chair was $5, which became $8 in February 2010 and $10 on May 1, 2010. Carnival said price increases were the result of high operating costs and heavy demand.
At the beach, Jony, a local guy, told me the water usually is clear and warm, a nice, protected place to swim.
Shopping for coffee
Mahogany Beach is certainly convenient for cruise passengers. I spent some morning time on the sand, then headed back on the chair to my ship, the Carnival Dream, stopping first in the little village to shop for Honduran coffee as a souvenir, then later back to the beach for afternoon sun.
Carnival’s Mahogany Bay Cruise Center opened on Roatan in November and is used primarily by ships in the fleets that are owned by Carnival Corp., including Carnival, Holland America, Princess, Seabourn and Costa.
Cruise lines are looking for new Caribbean port stops where ships can dock -- nobody wants the expense or time required to tender from anchored ships into port. At Mahogany Bay on Roatan, Carnival built its own pier, which can hold two big ships. When winds are high, ships are not able to maneuver into the tight bay, so the channel may have to be widened, I was told.
Mahogany Bay is expected to host more than 200 cruise ship port stops annually, with more than 500,000 passengers headed to the beach.
For more information, http://www.mahoganybaycc.com/
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