Grand Turk cruise - pretty beaches, a wide variety of water sports and more
The Day the Cruise Ships Came to Town -- Grand Turk is the kind of place that lingers with you long after you've left. Maybe that's why some people are concerned that the new kids in town -- the Carnival Cruise Line ships that started arriving at the new Grand Turk Cruise Center in February 2006 -- will rend the very fabric that makes this place uniquely quaint. In a 40-year land-lease deal with the TCI government, the cruise line has built a $42-million "tourism village" designed to look like a Bermudian salt-rakers' settlement from the early 19th century. It's a colorful, respectful representation of the local architecture, but its fantastical theme-park underpinnings can't help but peek through. Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, for example, is here, bigger, bolder, and brassier than any other Margaritaville on earth, straddled by a lagoon pool with swim-up bars and slides. And silliness reigns when cruise passengers driving multicolored dune buggies parade through the streets of Grand Turk. Carnival did many wonderful things for Grand Turk in preparation for its opening. Like a good guest, it came in and sort of neatened up the place. It paved the potholed Duke Street area and sandblasted the dirt off the old lighthouse. It brought construction jobs and spiffier taxis to the islands, and locally owned shops opened up in the cruise center. It's bringing business to local tour operators, and a nice touch is the horse-drawn carriages that clip-clop through town. On the downside, it cut a hole (albeit an environmentally sensitive one) in the coral reef to build a passage to allow 2,000- to 3,000-passenger ships to dock here. It had "historic" plaques created -- the ones now gracing Duke Street's historic inns, restaurants, and the like -- but made the mistake of not letting the owners of said places approve the finished products before they hung them up. Many locals were miffed, claiming the plaques were inaccurate, ungrammatical even, and gave much too much personal information about the current owners and not enough actual history. As a result, some owners simply removed the plaques. Even worse is the fear among the diving community that the cruise ships will foment an environment that is too slick and pricey for the folks who have been coming here for years. Only time will tell, but at press time business appears to be booming in all sectors, and the lovely laid-back rhythms of Grand Turk continue apace.
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Grand Turk Vacations site
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