Posts Tagged ‘private destinations’

Guest Post: Haiti Update

I’ve asked John Weis, our Associate Vice-President of Private Destinations, to share some of his thoughts as he helps coordinate our response to the natural disaster in Haiti. John and his team oversee Labadee and he can provide a unique perspective. Thank you John.

The Labadee team and I breathed a great sigh of relief when we finally heard from Maryse Kedar, President of The Solano Foundation. She lives in Port Au Prince and we have been working together for more than four years on community and development projects in Labadee.

She was very close to the epicenter of the quake and the last time that I talked to her was late yesterday in the afternoon, shortly after the second aftershock. The phone had cut off and I was fearing the worst. From that point, we hadn’t heard from her and we were getting very worried for her and her team.

Finally around 5 pm today, we got the word that she and her team were fine. Sadly she reported we had lost many friends, a few of them had worked with us on the construction project in Labadee. Our prayers go out to her and her team tonight.

Meanwhile, we continued with more thorough inspections throughout Labadee and we seem to have sustained no damages from the quake. We will be ready for Independence of the Seas if she should call on Friday.

We’re still coordinating our plans for our relief efforts and I’ll have more about that tomorrow.

I’ll try to update a couple of times tomorrow as we know more.

–John Weis, Associate Vice-President, Private Destinations, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

Interested in helping? Royal Caribbean International is working with Food For The Poor and the Pan American Development Foundation. We encourage guests to make monetary donations to either of these organizations which are currently engaged in the relief effort. For even more information on Royal Caribbean’s humanitarian relief to Haiti, click HERE.

BY:Adam|14th January, 2010 11 Comments

Earthquake in Haiti

We are all extremely saddened to hear of the earthquake-caused destruction in Haiti. While many details are imprecise or unknown at this point, there are unquestionably catastrophic conditions involving many casualties and great loss of property. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Haitian people and the Haitian diaspora.

As one of the leading investors in Haiti through our private destination at Labadee, we have nearly 30 years of involvement in the country and many, many relationships. We will attempt to utilize this blog to convey what we understand is happening and what our involvement will be in the relief effort. In this respect I will be asking our Associate VP, Private Destinations, John Weis, to partner with me in these communications.

Ironically, I am supposed to fly to New York tonight to meet at President Clinton’s offices together with the Prime Minister of Haiti to continue the discussion of how to build Haiti’s economy and promote more foreign investment. Although I guess the meeting is off, no one has said anything yet. Such is the uncertainty in the aftermath of a sudden and major event.

Over to John:

Our prayers are with the Haitian people right now.

As Adam said, our work through the years to develop Labadee has grown into strong ties with government officials, businesses and the people of Haiti.

At this point, no damage has been found after an initial inspection of Labadee. Further inspections are going to be conducted on the attractions and facilities to ensure that everything is safe for our guests.

Simultaneously, we are exploring multiple avenues to help with the humanitarian relief efforts for Haiti. We have reached out to relief organizations and the State of Florida to see how we can lend assistance with our ships scheduled to call at Labadee.

Family and friends of guests currently on a Royal Caribbean International ship schedule to call at Labadee should visit RoyalCaribbean.com for more information.

We will continue to monitor the situation in Haiti for more information as it becomes available.

Meanwhile, our sympathy goes out to the people of Haiti in the face of this tragic event.

(John Weis, Associate Vice President of Private Destinations, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.)

Interested in helping? Royal Caribbean International is working with Food For The Poor and the Pan American Development Foundation. We encourage guests to make monetary donations to either of these organizations which are currently engaged in the relief effort. For even more information on Royal Caribbean’s humanitarian relief to Haiti, click HERE.

BY:Adam|13th January, 2010 60 Comments