Many folks locally oppose the cruise ships and the overbuilding of mega resorts. Seems silly when we have plenty of local guest houses and quaint hotels that would love to boast 100% occupancy and are not.  Many are on the losing end, as more day trippers from cruise ships invade the islands, many repeat overnight visitors are vowing not to repeat their vacations here as they don't like the overcrowding either.

 

Our beaches are over run with day trippers and day beach rental chairs and ditto for our roads. The taxi drivers seem to think they rule the island and cause many unnecessary traffic jams.

 

Government isn't listening to their people that live and work here. A handful of higher ups are most likely compensated from the cruise ships behind closed doors with anonymous locked brief cases. I know, I used to work on a cruise line and when we wanted our way, to invade a peaceful island, all it took was a brief case of untraceable cash and suddenly contracts are signed.

 

Sad.

 

I am not saying anyone here took any bribes, but why the local government has chosen to run over the small businesses in favor of mega resorts and budget minded day trippers from cruise ships is just mind boggling.

 

I think if the tourist board and other higher  ups in government, spent a week SAILING the BVI in a charter boat, then they would see first hand the Nature's Little Secrets that bring the sailors and unique overnight tourists to the islands.

 

I remember reading for years and years that the BVI would NEVER ever allow big cruise ships to come in and pollute our waters.  What ever happened to those promises? We now have people pollution!  Too many day trippers on too small an island.

 

We can only hope and pray that the powers to be will one day come to their senses and bring back the high dollar overnight visitors and lessen the cruise-ship people pollution. It can be done, the government here survived quite well without moneys from the cruise ships and small businesses thrived. Now many small businesses feel like the "quality" of the visitors has declined. In other words, a family on vacation here for 2 weeks will spend  a heck of a lot more than day trippers and the majority of that money will remain in the BVI. Not so, the way things are now.

 

Many locals are angry that the day trippers have nice buses to ride around in all day when the rest of us don't even have  public transpiration available. I hate to see the island become an angry place. 

 

For eons the BVI has been known as a friendly welcoming destination.  Most tourists used to come for 2 or more weeks, not a few hours looking for the cheapest bargain on T-shirts that scream "BVI" on them, just to say "Yep, we stopped there on our cruise ship."

 

I don't mean to offend those that travel by cruise ships, but look at our roads and schools, WHERE is the cruise ship money going?  The government gets a hefty fee for every ship that calls here, but we can't see where that money has helped the BVI any. Many roads that were tore up in the floods years ago, have still not been repaired. Many vistas are just overgrown wide spaces in the road, where you have to stand on your toes to see the views. Many have no guard rails or picturesque rock wall. Take one step too many with your camera and OOPS!

 

Our schools are not attracting the very best educators nor are we turning out loads of scholars. Yet money is pouring in almost every day from these cruise ships and we don't see where it is going.

 

Even our garbage situation is out of control again. Neighborhood dumps where garbage is dropped off daily have this huge ring of garbage strewn all around that seems to grow bigger each day.  Up and down the roads, garbage is blowing around and finding garbage cans in the heart of Road Town is rare indeed, yet the restaurants do a high volume of take-away foods and this take-away debris is found scattered everywhere.

 

I wonder if folks on Tortola know that many cruise ship passengers pay $88 and up for just a ride to Cane Garden Bay Beach. That is because the cruise ship gets  a cut, the middle man gets a cut and the taxi of course gets a cut, yet so much of this money is just sailing away and not staying on the island at all.

 

Well, I've slung enough mud today to probably hang myself, but I've interviewed loads of shop keepers, inn keepers, and hospitality workers and I still haven't found that crowd of local folks who are jumping up and down in favor of cruise ship day trippers EXCEPT for the new taxi drivers and the beach chair rental guys and the middle men who have sewn up contracts with the cruise ships to provide overpriced tours. 

 

The BVI will soon celebrate emancipation and freedom, but now we bring in cruise ships who employ slave labor to work in the bowels of the ships and live in cramped quarters beneath the water lines. A cruise ship passenger might typically see 15-25% of the crew at most, the rest are never seen, using secret passageways to traverse the ships to work at ridiculously low wages whether they are oilers in the engine rooms or dishwashers in the galley.  If the cruise ships had to honor the same minimum wages payments of the islands they visit, then the cruise ship fees for passengers would of course increase likewise and the slave labor would be eliminated.

 

It's as if we are saying modern day slavery is OK, as long as it is HIDDEN from our view!