The more I dig on the background on this, the more I think they’re doing something useful under less than ideal circumstances.

Looks like they are the fastest transport. It also appears that almost every cruise vessel docking there over the next while will be bringing in supplies. Go looking for pictures of the dock there, though – this is strickly forklift and truck operation; no cranes or multi-level conveyors here. Nearby this area are Haitian facilities – still operating – that need those supplies.

As to timing – this was an 8 day cruise that departed Ft Lauderdale on January 9th. They had been on the water for 5 days before the quake struck. They picked up the special provisions from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Acting as a delivery run wasn’t part of the original cruise.

Cruise ships operate on a very tight schedule. This ship was in Haiti on Friday – by Sunday, they were *departing* on a different cruise. That same tight schedule means that picking a different port of call – with 48 hours notice – was going to be next to impossible. Even a half-day’s delay to the schedule would start to push back into an affect on close to ten thousand people.

Finally – UN officials on the island are indicating this stop, with passengers going onshore, is a net benefit for Haiti. Keeping the economic engines turning over will mean that Haiti can continue to recover long after the disaster aid starts tapering off.

For anyone without specialized and needed skills, the aid message has been pretty consistent – cash donations through trusted groups. Three thousand unplanned volunteers just dropped in sixty miles from Port-Au-Prince isn’t going to be a big help. Donations made by those same passengers via their cruise account will be.

Oh optimism, you cruel shit.

http://donations.ebay.com/charity/event.jsp?NP_ID=-52

You don’t have to have an ebay account, they just have a special Haiti Relief page where you can easily paypal money to a lot of good charities, Doctors Without Borders among them.

And as always, life is for the living.

Besides that I guess that we have a situation similar to the one after the Tsunami: Even if it sounds harsh, those tourists have to keep coming as they bring the money the Haitians need.

Then this made me realize you got a perfect beach you could probably use for this kind of stuff for wherever this place might be.

Place should open up for transport ships.

On another note, I would think the passengers of this cruise would not want to stop at Haiti right now. Makes for a real buzzkill.

In recognition of the enormous profits that the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has derived from this disaster-striken island, we have come into port briefly to drop off donations from the corporation and passengers, which will go to general relief, with specific sums earmarked for the local people who would otherwise have served us at this time. To those local people, we give our most sincere condolences for the family and friends who have been killed, injured or left homeless, and we urge them to tend to those loved ones today rather than waiting on us while we enjoy ourselves.

Of course, we wouldn’t dream of spending a day frolicking and gorging ourselves on this beautiful beach, while 200,000 freshly dead disaster victims await burial beyond our high fences — for the same reason that we expect that our neighbors won’t come over to the ashes of our burned homes with party-streamers, cake, and a Yahtzee set. It would be as grotesque as toasting marshmallows over the crematorium’s chimney, as tasteless as taking tourist photos at a memorial service for someone’s beloved child.

We have made arrangements with one of the other local ports-of-call for our passengers to get some time to relax, and we will put in there later today. We thank our passengers for their understanding over the brief delay.

This story does raise an interesting moral question, though. Should the cruise company — who has invested heavily in the area and whose business helps support the local economy — pull out of Haiti all together, or continue with business as usual in a part of the country that appears to be unaffected by the natural disaster?

If/when Haiti recovers from this immediate situation and the charitable aid stops, it’s going to need money from somewhere and the tourist industry would appear to be one of the few things that the country has going for it.

So, which is best for a company that does business with Haiti — pull out now for a short-term PR gain and long-term hardship for Labadee, or stick with its investment, suffer the PR consequences and continue to support the Haitian economy?

There’s clearly more to this story than this sensationalist BB headline (by Cory – quel surprise) makes out.

Doctors without Borders is doing an excellent job of setting up hospital facilities on site. Donations to help their efforts would be far more cost effective than immediately retrofitting a cruise ship as a hospital. Indeed, it would be a huge waste of resources to do such a thing in this case. The Cruise company (and Haiti) are far better off with the cruise ships delivering supplies and the company giving money to people TRAINED to handle these situations.

I don’t see YOU dropping a million dollars of aid, PLUS supply shipments, to Haiti…or did I miss that in all of the “let’s crucify the company that is actually doing some good in Haiti and is continuing their visits at the REQUEST of the Haitian government?”

You could make the same case for the decency of an employer who forces an employee to work after his children were killed in an auto-wreck: “Would it be better if he fired the worker?”

No. It would be better if he gave him time off with pay while he is reeling from tragedy.

And it would be better for Haiti if the company made its donations and then didn’t demand that the undoubtably bereaved and reeling locals wait on its customers while they gorge and sun themselves.

There is “more to this story” indeed: there’s an army of corporate apologists who can’t conceive of any middle ground between cavorting on a disaster site and abandoning people altogether, and who dismiss anyone who sees things differently as “sensationalist.”

I am glad I skipped Cory’s comments the first time, though. That’s a hell of a lot of vitriol just for someone who simply hadn’t quite worked out the valid solution he suggested. It’s always unpleasant to see someone so very, very eager to use any excuse to treat other people as disgusting and inferior.

Very smart brain, very saddening personality.

To call Labadee a port is laughable, its a beach. A Port of call. It is not a deep water region, no cranes, no real infrastructure to deal with large amounts of aid.

Now let’s say the company in question sells party hats. Is it disrespectful for me to buy a party hat from them when they are grieving?

Not making the stop would have been better PR. I’m sure the cruise company realizes it. But I really don’t think that would have been better for Haiti.

When you are bereaved, you don’t expect that the rest of the world will stop until you recover. But it *is* reasonable to expect that they won’t come over to your house uninvited and put some Adam Sandler videos on the DVD player and snog on the sofa while you weep in the bedroom.