Some cruise lines have expressed an interest in offering sunset beach parties for their guests at the two St. Thomas parks managed by the Magens Bay Authority, according to a meeting of its governing board last week.
The matter came up after board member Dayle Barry sought clarification from board Chairperson Barbara Petersen regarding an email with nine recommendations that she sent to board members after attending the annual Seatrade conference in Miami in April.
While the email has not been shared publicly, among the items discussed at Tuesday’s meeting were sunset parties for cruise guests at Smith Bay Park, known locally as Lindqvist Beach, and a collaboration with Disney Cruise Line to improve the entrance at Magens Bay, namely the backlog of vehicles that often snakes more than a mile up the road on busy cruise ship days.
The annual Seatrade event is hosted by the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, or FCCA, a not-for-profit trade organization comprising 23 member lines operating nearly 200 vessels in Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America. It was created in 1972 with a mandate to “provide a forum for discussion on cruise operations, tourism development, ports, tour operations, safety, security and other cruise industry issues,” according to its website.
While V.I. Tourism Department and other government officials regularly attend the conference, the Magens Bay Authority board has only recently begun to do so, with participation left up to the individual board members.
Representatives from the authority attended the conference for the first time in 2022, then again in 2023. Petersen attended this year with Magens Bay Authority Operations Manager MemorieAnne Brown-Callender and afterwards sent a report on their meetings to her fellow board members, including interest by the Azamara and SeaDream cruise lines in the private parties.
Barry questioned what the cost would be to host the after-hours events, how late they would last, and whether the authority is offering both Magens Bay and Smith Bay as venues.
“Princess Cruises has also expressed an interest in evening events at the park. However, there is no mention of directing that entity to the Smith Bay Park. Is this an oversight, or was there a reason that SeaDream was directed to Smith Bay and Princess was not?” Barry asked.
“From what I know about SeaDream, it’s a different clientele and if I remember the conversation we were having — which we do have with a lot of the vendors — when it’s that, quote unquote, ‘upscale more exclusive cruise,’ we’re directing them to Smith Bay because it is more quaint. They’re looking for a different experience. When we describe the two parks, they tend to lean on, ‘We like the idea of Smith Bay more,’” said Petersen, who added that they always include both parks when pitching Magens Bay Authority.
“Azamara was another one that we met with, and they were very enthusiastic about Smith Bay. Again, they are very upscale, and they want that chi-chi, exclusive kind of event. A basket with cheese and wine, a chaise lounge and quietness, and that is what Smith Bay offers,” said Petersen.
“The use of Smith Bay for sunset parties was recommended by MBA personnel for Azamara. It seems that such recommendations and matters should be discussed by the entire board before being recommended to cruise ship partners. Did I miss a meeting where this was discussed?” Barry replied.
“I don’t think we have to discuss with the board what we think, the management, what they envision. The board ultimately has the final decision,” said Petersen. “So, if you go to a vendor, and the vendor may know what we have to offer, and they may suggest something, and we’re like, ‘That will never happen.’ It happens all the time. Vendors will come to us and they’ll go, ‘This is what we want to do,’ and based on the bylaws of the MBA, we know it’s never going to happen; they still insist they are going to ask, and it gets voted up or down,” she said.
“When we go to a conference, we don’t go with a list of what we can and can’t say to a vendor as it relates to what we envision is going to happen. Ultimately, the board makes the final decision. That’s why we encourage all board members to attend the conferences, so you will be able to provide whatever your inputs are,” said Petersen.
With nine recommendations arising from convention, Barry questioned whether there was “any intention to formally submit these to board with a plan of action for those that require multiple steps and stakeholders, and if so, what is the time frame?”
Petersen said formal recommendations will be forthcoming, and now that they have a new general manager — Monique Simon started on the job June 3 — “they will move to a more formal request for some of the ideas they are looking at.”
Board member Katina Coulianos, who is on the Planning, Policy, Rules and Regulations Committee that Barry heads, suggested they should be involved in discussions about new tour proposals going forward.
“I think the Planning Committee should be more involved in these discussions with some of these tours to make sure they actually are in compliance with our development policies,” said Coulianos. “And in cases where there might be suggestions of having evening activities, those might not be things that could go on all year ‘round because there are other natural systems that we have to take into account, such as turtle nesting times. There might be times you wouldn’t want to have those types of activities on the beach. In any case, I think the planning committee should be involved, including issues of lighting and things like that,” she said.
“Understood,” said Petersen.
Regarding the Disney collaboration, Barry said he didn’t “recall recent discussions regarding alteration of the entrance or Disney’s participation in such a project, nor do I recall any mention of such a project in any recent manager’s report.”
Petersen said the discussion was not about changing the entrance, but rather logistics, when the Disney team was recently on St. Thomas and she and other board members met with them to discuss issues of traffic congestion. They also met at Seatrade, and afterwards had a meeting via Zoom.
“The conversation was, ‘How do you move so many people and how can you help us?’ It’s just a matter of them teaching us the logistics of moving mass amounts of people in a short period of time. There was no conversation about Disney coming down or the Magens Bay Authority changing anything as it relates to any construction or anything like that. If it indeed required construction, and it moved on to that, the board would be involved,” said Petersen.
“Again, most of these conferences, most of the meetings you have with these vendors, it’s about how can we support one another to make for a better guest experience for the people who are using our parks. That was it. So, Miss Callender and myself did meet with Disney. They move thousands and thousands of people every day on their ships and at their parks and we wanted to get some insight into ‘How do you do it? Could you look at what we have and tell us what we are doing right and doing wrong?’ That was it,” said Petersen.
Part of the issue is taxi drivers that wait until they arrive at the park’s gate to sort out fares from multiple passengers. The board voted during the meeting to hold a series of town halls to educate the taxi associations about what is expected of them at Magens Bay.
The first meeting will be held on June 15 at 10 a.m. and is open to all taxi drivers and taxi associations. There will be more meetings to come, said Petersen. “We’ve agreed to have a slew of town hall meetings to work with the taxi operators, specifically the associations, and then training their members on what it would look like when you do business with Magens Bay,” she said. “We want to make it as seamless as possible.”
The meeting is currently scheduled to take place at Shed 4 at Magens Bay, though the location could change to a different area of the park if there is a request to rent the venue for a wedding or a party, said Petersen.
Attending the meeting on May 28, which was held in lieu of the usual third Friday of the month date, were board members Barbara Petersen, Cecile de Jongh, Katina Coulianos, Dayle Barry, Robert Maron, and Kevin Rodriguez, who is serving as the governor’s interim representative on the board in place of Avery Lewis, the St. Thomas/Water Island administrator who has taken a leave of absence to run for a Senate seat. Under V.I. law, candidates seeking election to the Virgin Islands Legislature are required to take a leave of absence from their governmental duties.
