At the D23 Expo last summer, it was officially announced that Disney Cruise Line are developing a second port in the Bahamas: Lighthouse Point. Located in the peninsula on the island of Eleuthera, Lighthouse Point will be the second DCL exclusive destination in the Bahamas after the popular Castaway Cay, and was given an estimated completion date of 2022-2023. Now, a dedicated website for the location has been launched, bringing lots of exciting information, updates and promises about the destination.
The Bahamas are already a home-from-home for Disney Cruise Line, with all four ships registered in the country and 75% of all the cruise itineraries offered making at least one stop in the islands. A particularly exciting factor about this development is the input from Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde – designer of Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa – who has been extensively exploring the rich art and culture of the Bahamas with experts, and we can be certain these influences will be represented at every turn in the finished location.
It is well-known that Disney pride themselves on their positive sustainability, community and environmental values and their mission to bring opportunity to the island of Eleuthera with this $250-400 million investment. Economically, it has been estimated that Disney Cruise Line operations currently contribute over $70 million towards the Bahamian annual GDP, and a forecast provided by Oxford Economic has predicted that the company’s development will provide more than an $800 million increase on top of that figure. Not only that, but space will be provided for Bahamian vendors, local agricultural products will be purchased, and hundreds of jobs will be created in construction, entertainment and maintenance. Already within the community, Disney have been supporting Eleuthera, providing funding for holiday events, scholarships, after-school programs, non-profit organizations and more.
From an environmental standpoint, Disney promises to “only move forward with a project at Lighthouse Point if it is able to do so in an environmentally responsible manner“. The Lighthouse Point website draws links to the continuing efforts made by the Disney Conservation Fund to “ensuring a world where wildlife thrives and nature is treasured and protected by saving wildlife, inspiring action and protecting the planet“. This promise assures us of the sincerity of the development, and it will be interesting to see the efforts in environmental awareness once the destination is complete.
According to the website, the purchase has been completed and the Heads of Agreement has been signed with the Bahamian government for Lighthouse Point. The next step before construction is to have the Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Management Plan approved, hold a public consultation and complete other necessary permits and formalities. Stay tuned to WDWNT for more information on the progress of the site as it is announced!
In the meantime, we would definitely recommend you have a read of the Lighthouse Point website, it’s full of interesting and detailed points on the progress of the project.
Interesting name seeing how Cedar Point already has cabins named Lighthouse Point. And they’ve been there for years:
https://www.cedarpoint.com/stay/lighthouse-point
Visit https://www.stopdisney.com/ for an alternate perspective on this development.
@Madeleine – you wrote “The Lighthouse Point website draws links to the continuing efforts made by the Disney Conservation Fund to “ensuring a world where wildlife thrives and nature is treasured and protected by saving wildlife, inspiring action and protecting the planet“. This promise assures us of the sincerity of the development, and it will be interesting to see the efforts in environmental awareness once the destination is complete.”
Disney’s business model is based on molding ‘destinations’ to fit whatever fantasy they are trying to sell. In this case, Lighthouse Point in Eleuthera (a site I’m guessing you have never visited yourself?) is a site where wildlife currently thrives and it is a naturally beautiful place. Disney is going to do the opposite of protect it. It is going to dredge, cut down, level, fill-in, remove, pave etc., in order to mold Lighthouse Point into what it wants.
Disney cannot have its cake and eat it too – on the one hand claiming that they work to ‘save wildlife, inspire action and protect the plant’, while with the other hand they are cutting it down to make way for their floating cities and destination sites, which really have little to nothing to do with the actual destination, in this case The Bahamas, or it’s people, Bahamians.
I believe there are cruise lines, for example MSC Cruises, which develop ports at already degraded sites. Take a degraded site, restore and have the added bonus of using it as a port, don’t take a beautiful and healthy site and destroy it in order to build your port.