Robert Alon­zo

Rhap­sody of the Sea, a cruise lin­er car­ry­ing 1,500 vis­i­tors from around the world, will dock in Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Fri­day.

All of its passeg­n­ers will be ready to par­tic­pate ful­ly in T&T’s Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties.

Brain­child and vi­sion­ary of the cruise, John­ny Mack, a T&T na­tion­al and son of lo­cal mas de­sign­er So­nia Mack, said the con­cept be­hind his ini­tia­tive was an all-in­clu­sive float­ing ho­tel over the Car­ni­val week­end.

The ves­sel, which leaves Bar­ba­dos to ar­rive in Trinidad on Car­ni­val Fri­day, can ac­com­mo­date a to­tal of 2,000 pas­sen­gers.

Mack said it’s a nov­el project and first of its kind—a floa­tel con­cept—with an ini­tia­tive to in­crease ar­rivals to Trinidad and dou­ble lim­it­ed ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy.

“It’s not just an all-in­clu­sive ho­tel but al­so it is an all-in­clu­sive ex­pe­ri­ence, where there are add-ons like J’Ou­vert, cos­tumes, tick­ets to fetes etcetera,” he said.

Mack, in pro­vid­ing some de­tails about the his­to­ry of his ini­tia­tive, said he had been work­ing on the project for four years. He said it was not an easy road for him be­cause oth­er cruise lin­ers did not want to en­ter­tain stay­ing in Trinidad for more than the usu­al day, be­cause this coun­try is con­sid­ered a glob­al se­cu­ri­ty haz­ard.

How­ev­er, he said he was able to close a con­tract with Roy­al Caribbean to put on the nov­el all-in­clu­sive float­ing ho­tel for Car­ni­val in Trinidad.

“I brought 50 peo­ple from around the world for my wed­ding and Car­ni­val—Eu­rope, Asia, Mid­dle East—try­ing to ac­com­mo­date 50 peo­ple in ho­tels was a lo­gis­ti­cal night­mare, cou­pled with ma­noeu­vring trans­port, tick­ets for fetes, cos­tumes etc, so I thought I need­ed to come up with a way to ac­com­mo­date this. And here we are to­day,” he said.

Mack said the con­cept al­so helps to pro­vide trans­port and ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion, which is al­ready lim­it­ed for Car­ni­val and it’s a cheap­er so­lu­tion, since flights to Trinidad and ho­tels at Car­ni­val are very high­ly priced.

He said, “Es­pe­cial­ly af­ter a pan­dem­ic, this is what T&T needs—an in­crease in ar­rivals and spend­ing on the is­land.”

He added, “I am Tri­ni to de bone even though I have lived abroad for so many years. I feel so proud and hap­py that I can do some­thing to give back to my coun­try and to in­crease and en­hance Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tourism.”

Mack al­so not­ed, “I put to­geth­er a dream team to evan­ge­lise the cul­ture/spread the Car­ni­val cul­ture and bless the world. Our epic team has been work­ing hard to­geth­er with all gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that it is a safe and hap­py ex­pe­ri­ence for all epic cruis­ers.”

Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties on the ves­sel over the week­end will in­clude head­line acts by Ja­maican-Amer­i­can reg­gae singer Tar­rus Ri­ley, Ja­maican mu­si­cian Mr Ve­gas, Ja­maican singer Tanya Stephens, T&T so­ca artistes De­stra Gar­cia, Fa­ther Philis, Nes­sa Prep­py and Trinidad James.

There will al­so be the film­ing of Boss City Queens on­board the ship and a black tape/max­i­mum mag­a­zine/So­nia Mack pho­to shoot.

The lin­er is ex­pect­ed to leave Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Tues­day.