THE inaugural Bimini SuperFast cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, arrived at the port at Resorts World Bimini yesterday with more than 800 visitors on board. The influx of visitors during what is traditionally the “slow” tourism season for the island was welcomed by business owners in the hospitality sector who had been anticipating the start of the weekday cruises.
“Business is great, it feels like a weekend,” said water sports entrepreneur Edward Reckley. “When you look at the hundreds of people here today, I know this is the beginning of a great thing for the island. A lot of these people are in the media, so word is going to travel quickly and we will see a lot of repeat business. Biminites have been waiting to see this kind of thing for a long time and we are ready to welcome them with open arms.”
With the new service, Bimini SuperFast is sailing three days a week from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and three days a week from Miami on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Service from Miami will be increased to four days a week by Thanksgiving, providing daily cruise ferry service to Bimini from South Florida. The daily service will improve the quality of life for Biminites as for the first time, fresh produce will arrive on a daily basis and the cost of transporting goods to Bimini will be significantly reduced.
“Resorts World Bimini injects millions of dollars directly into the local economy; however the money spent in town by visitors who come to Bimini aboard the SuperFast is providing a substantial indirect impact,” RWB Executive Dana Leibovitz said. “When the island succeeds, we succeed, and we are pleased that the people of Bimini are benefitting from our cruise service on so many levels.”
Comments
kbambar 10 years ago
To have only 800 people on an inaugural cruise with a great many being special invites, travel agents and so on shows that the Bimini Superfast concept is going down fast. No matter how much they advertise they will eventual have to change their master plan and start cruising to Grand Bahamas and other places bringing some passengers but more profitable as a cargo carrier. As they have poured in millions into the hotel and pier they will have to keep going to Bimini maybe only on weekends but the rest of the week this will change. I predict early next year when they see that they are still losing money concentrating only on Bimini.
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