Twisting the night away

Lance Neita, Contributor

JAMAICA AND Falmouth were at their best on Thursday last week when the Voyager of the Seas came calling. For the near 3,000 cruise-ship passengers it must have been a unique experience to see hundreds of persons waving and cheering as they came into the port. That kind of welcome is not on the normal list of 'things to expect' anywhere in the world when you embark on a modern sea-ship cruise. It was Jamaica to the world, and straight from the heart of Trelawny.

Preparing for a cruise ship to make its first call is not a task for the faint-hearted.

In this case, it was at least five years of hard work and planning, and the Falmouth story may well serve as a case history for international tourism planners with its dossier of what went wrong and what went right.

The thumbs up accorded to this visit flies in the face of all the pessimistic soothsayers who predicted that everything would go wrong. To me, the most interesting comment coming from a passenger was, "we wanted to see your Georgian architecture", telling us that the walking tour of the town is going to be a winner.

My own tourism experience referred to in last week's column took me to Port Antonio in 1968 when the Honourable Robert Lightbourne, minister of trade and industry (inclusive of tourism), spearheaded a campaign to paint up the town for the first arrival of the Norwegian Caribbean Lines M/S Starward.

The committee was broad-based and included the parish council's Rupert Arscott, Jim Patterson of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaica Tourist Board's Anthony Abrahams, Jim Furness of Jamaica Citizens Bank, Ken Chaplain representing the Jamaica Information Service, and Terry Collins of Berger Paints providing handsome discounts and contributions.

Berger also offered to fly three persons from Port Antonio to get a first-hand look at Black River, described then as what an attractive town should look like.

The Starward was special and historic as it was the first line to offer year-round seven-day cruises to Jamaica, calling at Port Antonio, Kingston, Ocho Rios and Montego Bay.

The boat was greeted at each port in similar hospitable fashion, as with the Falmouth reception, and the arrangements moved along famously but were very nearly derailed by an amusing sequence of events which ended up in an impromptu midnight party in Kingston Harbour.

It was Christmas Eve 1968, and Minister Lightbourne was hosting an official welcome to Jamaica aboard the Starward docked at Newport West. Proper decorum was the order of the evening until a small group, fresh from a round of Christmas office parties on Harbour Street, took to the dance floor for a torrid session of the twist, mash potatoes and rocksteady in the midst of the dignified and shocked gathering.

looks of consternation

It was an unscheduled interruption to the formalities but the group danced on, oblivious to the looks of consternation from the minister and his guests.

Things didn't get any better as the ship's captain, perhaps bored by the long speeches, joined us on the floor, only to hobble off after a mighty blow to the shin, allegedly from one of my extravagant steps.

The good captain took it sportingly, however, calming the ruffled feathers of those who feared a diplomatic row was in the making.

Before long, the function turned into a lively impromptu Jamaican party as the officials, including the minister, trotted out their best for the Norwegian band, with the 'dance crashers' helped off the boat to face our various bosses the following workday.

Never mind, the Starward went on to forge a sterling relationship with Jamaica over the next decade. The shipping line developed a unique on-board 'meet the people' programme, where a Jamaican family cruised each week as guests of the captain, and gave passengers insights into our culture, history, cuisine, and other interests.

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