Lighthouse Point to welcome guests in Summer 2024

[ToTBellHop]

I have read that the structures are not complete and more decor and theming will be added. I don’t think a ton more, but at least some touches to make it look less bare bones. Not sure why they took this approach - in the parks I can’t imagine them debuting a new land and saying “It’s partially done, we’ll add more later.” But maybe with international projects the timeline is slower so they have to get something out even if it means opening before the project is totally complete.

Cruise line projects often fall behind. They were still finishing Wish 6 months after the inaugural sailing.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Does the finished product look a little half baked to anyone else or is it just me?

What needs to bake more? It's a beach day with a gorgeous beach.

They need to deal with the flies, yes. And some nature paths are still under construction. It's meant to let vacationers experience the natural beauty of the Bahamas in a way Nassau has never allowed. I think it does that well. Some of what I've seen has led to the first time I've ever thought, "the Bahamas actually are beautiful."

Nassau is an ugly city with turquoise water and Castaway, while filled to the brim with Disney magic, very much feels manufactured. It's technically in the Bahamas but it could be in Florida, honestly. Disney just happened to build on that particular island. There's nothing particularly breathtaking about walking along a plane runway other than the fact that's it's a novel experience for most.

Perhaps the bigger question is: would many be interested in visiting Lighthouse instead of Castaway at this point? I'd imagine not. But, Castaway is a mature private island. Lookout Cay is new and not even being called a private island (because it's not). I view it as a new destination for a Bahamian cruise and it's certainly better than a trip to Nassau!

 

[DisneyHead123]

Cruise line projects often fall behind. They were still finishing Wish 6 months after the inaugural sailing.

I get that things happen, just wonder if they should push their projected opening date way out in the era of social media. Or do test runs with cast members like they do for the parks. Having those first viral videos full of flies and kinda bare bones spaces seems like it might hurt bookings in the long run. Again, though, I get that no matter how generous a timeline is unforeseen things can always happen.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I get that things happen, just wonder if they should push their projected opening date way out in the era of social media. Or do test runs with cast members like they do for the parks. Having those first viral videos full of flies and kinda bare bones spaces seems like it might hurt bookings in the long run. Again, though, I get that no matter how generous a timeline is unforeseen things can always happen.

After the Wish delay, they worried that a delay here would severely damage the brand. Hopefully, they get things up to snuff very quickly here before real damage is done.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Does the finished product look a little half baked to anyone else or is it just me?

Yes. It looks unfinished to me at this point, the plants need a year of growth to fill in. The trails (nature and tram) also look off to me, like they ran a bulldozer through and just left the dirt wherever it ended up, a couple years of growth will likely cover and solve these issues though.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I wasn’t even thinking about Nassau, but totally agree in that it’s a tourist trap city that should be avoided at all costs.

It just appears to me like there was going to be more extensive plans from the original concepts that were pared back for Lighthouse Point. Castaway Cay this is not, which is fine, but I can’t say I’m not disappointed that it’s not.

But of course it’ll be a beautiful beach and that’s the main appeal, anyway, so it’ll definitely be an improvement for the short itineraries.

There are apparently more nature paths, a ropes course, another family beach, and a spa planned. No idea of timeline. But, eventually you won’t arrive and have to board a tram to get anywhere worthwhile.

Castaway was built up over time, too. But, we weren’t tracking that online and private islands were much more novel.

 

[jme]

Well, not necessarily- it could be the length is because of the depth, we don’t know it was for the environment.

We do know that a lot of the design choices around the pier were environmentally focused.

I'm SURE there is a monetary savings achieved by lengthening a pier versus dredging the seabed to accommodate a cruise ship, but part of the agreement with the Bahamian government to obtain and develop this land was contingent upon satisfying an Environmental Impact Assessment and approval of an Environmental Impact Plan (both of which extend FAR beyond just the pier, and include the wildlife both in the sea and on the land).
The Heads of Agreement (HOA) contract with the Bahamian Government has been made public record and can be found hosted on DCL Blog here

Of note, on the above linked page, you can see the initial site development proposed plans include this long pier in the place it is today, dating back to 2019 when the agreement was signed. Well before the EIA had been performed. They had been doing their own assessment for years prior and I'm sure had been in negotiations with the government during that time. They knew this pier was the environmentally sustainable solution.

In 2021, once the EIA had been completed, DCL held a public meeting, the transcript of which can be found online here
And the meeting can be viewed on YouTube here:



Here is a quoted section from Dr, Mark Penning that touches on why they chose the pier they chose, and how they decided where to place it. (Emphasis mine):

I want everyone to know that, on the very first conversation we had about Lighthouse Point, we said that we as Disney would not move forward Unless we could do so in an environmentally responsible way, and this [Environmental Impact Assessment] conducted by a team of experts shows us that we can do that. This project is not expected to result in the loss of marine or terrestrial biodiversity. The points you see on this page are highlights, and I’ll go through them in detail in just a moment, but just to call out there are no unique marine habitats or species in the development footprint. And there are no coral reefs in the footprint, they are no patch reefs either. When you add on a 75 foot buffer on either side of the pier. And you think about the extent of the pier itself that total space will result in around about 1/10 of an acre of coral that we will mitigate. We intentionally placed the pier in such a way that it would have the least harm possible and it's designed as an open trestle pier so that we will not have to dredge at all. On land, all the species that were observed are found in the approximately 80% or even more of the property that is not going to be developed. There are some ruins, we'll talk a little about that in just a moment. We first looked at Lighthouse Point and the space around Lighthouse Point to see what is there, we wanted to know what we had to deal with. And there, we did this over a period of three years, so we studied extensively the benthic habitat types looking at what corals were there, what species of fish, we found sea turtles, no sign of sea turtle nesting but we're still looking, and then spawning aggregations that we've heard about, we did not see but we're continuing to study. Talking about the impacts that space covered by the pier is approximately five acres. If you think of shading underneath the pier structure, so that's about three and a half acres of hard bottom habitat and then about one and a half acres of sand. When you look at corals and coral reefs, we do not have coral reefs in that space. What do you see there reflects that habitat that we have chosen and again. when you add a 75 foot barrier, a buffer zone, on either side of that Pier we're still looking at 1/10 of an acre of coral that we will mitigate. We also know that there's a small proportion of those that are endangered, but we feel comfortable, knowing that the patch reefs and fore reefs are at least 500 feet away from the structure. We did an engineering analysis to make sure that the pier is not going to cause backup of sand. We wanted sediment to be able to move through, and also the same for fish and benthic species. The small marina the same, we do not expect any significant long term sand accumulation. And then, just to be clear, the cruise vessel will come in from the deepwater offshore to the east coast and we'll cross over between Half Moon Cay and Lighthouse Point over the bridge. Which is no shallower than 80 feet and the cruise ship’s draft is 27 feet, so there's more than enough space and that place is used already for privately owned cruise ships. So the mitigation and our team is focused on moving coral species that are the larger stony corals that have a high rate of success being relocated. We know this because we already do it, we have a coral nursery and a rehabilitation program in Abaco. And we have a 90% success rate with those over a decade it's a very comprehensive program and we feel very confident about it. We've not seen sea turtle nesting on the beaches there, but if nesting does occur, we are very lucky in being able to manage an existing sea turtle nesting beach here in Florida associated with our Vero Beach Resort, which is the most most used loggerhead sea turtle nesting beach in the world and we manage that. And have done so for a decade already and we feel very confident about being able to mitigate should they be using the beach. As far as marine mammals are concerned, we will implement Best Management Practices, visual monitoring of course scaled noise intensity. And things like that and, most importantly, an education program on Best Management Practices that we can share with our guests crew and of course vendors as well. We've heard about fish migration corridors and specifically talking about bonefish with bonefish experts, and of course we're going to continue the work that we’ve already started as we go through the construction phase and into operation. Looking on land and also over a three year period, we had experts study the spaces, there we looked at the vegetation types very carefully. We know that the broad leaf evergreen forest or the coppice covers approximately half of that property. Just under 30% is the sand strand. We found those four species listed there the Blolly, Lignum Vitae, Mahogany and Horseflesh on the protective tree order, we found those there. Interestingly a lot of those in the Northwest quadrant and so again that made us change our plans completely and we relocated what had been allocated to that space. There are two invasive plant species of real interest the Casuarina, there's about 22 acres of it. We will mechanically remove much of that, and we can't promise to remove all of it it's really difficult but, but we will certainly use that then for mulching and various other things, and you know potentially. charcoal use or something like that, but we want to manage the Casuarina and then of course the scavola white inkberry on the dunes. The avian surveys more than 100 species of birds found, of course, White Pond has got a lot of diversity there. The birds that we focused on and, most importantly, were a small little group of piping plovers on the Bottle Bay Beach and we redesigned how we were thinking of using that space to accommodate those little birds, and we also looked at the Great Lizard Cuckoos and the Kirtland’s Warbler that have generated a lot of interest in that space. Other fauna as well as listed there. What the specialist team told us really is that that the species that we've found, they've got more than enough space to move out into the rest of the undeveloped area, remember that we are looking at an approximately 16%. of that area that will be developed and there is a lot of space remaining for those birds to retreat to and, in fact, some of the species like Kirtland’s Warbler will probably benefit from the more broken up land in those spaces that are developed. And the keystone around any program like this is of course monitoring, monitoring, monitoring, so we've already started that and we plan to continue throughout the construction and into the operations phase and using very talented Bahamians to help us with this work, of course. And we will work with the government agencies on anything like the removal of trees, or you know anything else that needs to be to be done in that respect, and we just plan to work with all relevant government parties and agencies and do the best we can, with that side.

And, while it is wholly unrelated to this discussion, I'm going to add in a quote about those ruins he mentioned in case anyone found it interesting and wanted to hear more. From Kim Prunty

From a cultural resources perspective, the surveys were completed in February 2019 in January 2020. We also did a site visit with the AMMC. There were nine ruins and several ancillary features on site predominantly in the northern area of the property and the vicinity of Old Bannerman Town. We've talked about moving development away from these areas so there's no anticipated impacts to these structures and no plans to develop where any of these structures are located.

AMMC = Antiquities Monuments and Museum Corporation, a non-profit entity that promotes the historic cultural resources of The Bahamas.


Earlier in the same Public Meeting they also talk about why they chose Lighthouse Point, Eluthera noting that they looked at several other locations nearby, including Egg Island in Eluthera and Morgan's Bluff in Andros and some locations in the Berry Islands - and after initial EIA they didn't want to move forward with those because they would all require dredging and destruction of coral reefs.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I honestly thinks the flies are the bigger issue. Of course nature is gonna nature, but how does this get better? I think this will disturb people far more than a large pier.

 

[DisneyHead123]

I honestly thinks the flies are the bigger issue. Of course nature is gonna nature, but how does this get better? I think this will disturb people far more than a large pier.

Hats off to the vloggers, who were absolutely earning their paychecks eating that food. I noticed a few cheerily say something like "Oh, would loooove to have more of this delicious food but um... you know the heat! Heat just kills my appetite." At least one just straight up did a closeup of the buffet line and said he wouldn't be eating. It looked like every single dish literally had flies crawling all over it on the buffet line.

I get that being eco friendly is important, but I feel like Disney has a special division that will discreetly arrive and disappear those flies real quick. That is just an absolute no-go at a tourist destination.

 

[HauntedPirate]

That pier isn’t much longer than the one in Cozumel (without even including the shopping mall portion)

The pier in Cozumel is, at its longest (back gangplank of the ship to the escalators), .28 miles long. This is .42-ish miles.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Hats off to the vloggers, who were absolutely earning their paychecks eating that food. I noticed a few cheerily say something like "Oh, would loooove to have more of this delicious food but um... you know the heat! Heat just kills my appetite." At least one just straight up did a closeup of the buffet line and said he wouldn't be eating. It looked like every single dish literally had flies crawling all over it on the buffet line.

I get that being eco friendly is important, but I feel like Disney has a special division that will discreetly arrive and disappear those flies real quick. That is just an absolute no-go at a tourist destination.

Princess Cay, Princess and Carnival cruise lines private resort, is just a few miles north on the same island and I haven’t seen any bugs on any of their review videos, maybe Disney needs to make a few calls and see what their secret is.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Princess Cay, Princess and Carnival cruise lines private resort, is just a few miles north on the same island and I haven’t seen any bugs on any of their review videos, maybe Disney needs to make a few calls and see what their secret is.

Yeah I’m sure there’s some way to deal with the flies! And to be fair I bet this is the kind of snafu that has always happened with new openings - it’s more that social media and first impressions enshrined on YouTube change the landscape a bit.

 

[Disney Analyst]

No ma’am.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Got some additional clarification: the bike trails and additional nature trails are actively under construction and will open soon.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Wagons were added so you can pull little kids. Golf carts for those with disabilities need to be arranged on board the ship.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

No ma’am.

Woof! That's nasty. I feel bad for people who planned to spend their whole day on the island and couldn't even eat because of that.

 

[donaldtoo]

Yea, that’s pretty gross when you can’t tell whether that’s black pepper or fly specs on your food…

 

[durangojim]

It seems that this may be an example of Disney not listening to guests but rather wanting to show them an "authentic Bahamian" experience especially with Joe Rhode leading this. Unfortunately I think Disney really missed the mark with this. From the video's I've seen it does not look inspired or interesting. It looks like a thousand other beaches with some buildings that appear interesting from above look quite bland and dull from ground level. The issue to me with the pier is not the length but the lack of theming and any sense of excitement about what a guest is about to experience. I can't stand Nassau but at this point Lookout Cay looks very boring to me and my family.

 

[durangojim]

Yea, that’s pretty gross when you can’t tell whether that’s black pepper or fly specs on your food…

Do we know what kind of flies they are. Also are there birds on the island that could eat the flies? I didn't see any birds in any of the videos I watched.

 

[donaldtoo]

Do we know what kind of flies they are. Also are there birds on the island that could eat the flies? I didn't see any birds in any of the videos I watched.

No clue as to what kind of flies they are.
There are over 260 bird species in and around Eleuthera. I have no info on how many eat flies.
Hatchet Bay Cave up in the northern part of Eleuthera even has a bat colony, but I have no info on what species and how large the colony is.