The SCOTIA PRINCE sails in perpetual roundtrips from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia this summer. And after a recent $2 million renovation this 23-hour, up-and-back experience is now being billed as a cruise sensation: two new hot tubs, a Tiki bar (minus the Polynesian torches) and a spanking new sunning area. People eat and drink and have good clean fun watching the nightclub act. There’s Pictionary, yoga, Karaoke, and five cabaret performers. And the entire staff pitches in to make the experience most entertaining; on some nights the cruise director even performs his close-up magic act. Also, people gamble.
“But we’re not a casino,” explains Mark Hudson, son of the ship’s owner and director of marketing and communications. “We don’t depend on the gambling business – it’s just another form of entertainment.”
Furthermore: “People do not come to our ship because of our casino – they come for the experience of sailing,” asserts Hudson.
Most of the $2 million renovation went towards transforming the SCOTIA PRINCE into what ship hotel manager Alain Chabot gleefully calls “a mini cruise!”
The cabins sport new carpets, bedspreads and curtains. In the new salon, you can have your hair washed in a basin with an ocean view. For $90 you can have an hour-and-a half treatment of hot-stone reflexology. (Roundtrip passage in July starts at $149.) And then right outside the new salon are a couple of slot machines that are so modern that you don’t have to pull the old-style lever anymore – just press “Spin.”
Upon boarding in Portland, passengers are greeted by pleasant waitstaff carrying huge platters of “Bahama Mamas,” pink rum drinks served in curvy souvenir glasses. The shiny new souvenir shop boasts T-shirts and post-cards and $10 costume jewelry. And in the casino, which has a new midnight-blue rug of stars and half-moons, the card tables and a new Wheel of Fortune await.
Now for some numbers: the economic impact of the SCOTIA PRINCE on the Port of Portland is as elusive as the mystery of the night cruise. In 2002, Jeff Monroe, the city’s director of transportation, put the economic impact number at $40 million. But Hudson has an Excel spreadsheet that comes up with $53,117,071. Last year, Hudson counted 32,372 vehicles and 161,166 passengers. So: “If the average person spends $71.36 in Portland – which is a conservative number because a lot of the SCOTIA PRINCE passengers hang around Portland overnight – and then you use a multiplier of 2.0, which we use to determine how much money recirculates, you come up with a total of $23,002,901 for passenger spending alone,” explains Hudson.
“And about 75 percent of the approximately 175 crew members took time off in the course of 26 weeks, meaning, after you multiply by $38/per crew member [the estimated crew spending number] and then multiply by two [the circulating-money number] you have $274,170,” continues Hudson.
Finally, in 2002, privately held Scotia Prince Cruises tabulates its corporate spending at $14,929,000, which after being hit with the Magic Multiplier of 2, comes out to be a whopping $29,840,000, according to Hudson’s spreadsheet.
Last year was a big one for the SCOTIA PRINCE. Not only did the ship enjoy a $2 million facelift, but also it saw Mexico for the winter. In the winter of 2002-2003, the ship made its first roundtrip voyages from Tampa to the Port of Morelos, in Cancun, serving as a convenient shuttle for cars and people traveling between Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula. There was a minor glitch: the port of Cancun proved unreliable, so often passengers found themselves disappointed, just staring at this Mexican Shangri-La from the deck of the ship, waiting for the tide to change so the vessel could dock. (Recently negotiations were underway between management and the Port of Morelos regarding the necessary dredging of the port before the SCOTIA PRINCE attempts to sail there again this fall.)
Meanwhile, there’s the impact of the sluggish economy: early bookings were off by as much as 40 percent, according to Hudson. However, in mid-June, as the sun started to shine more brightly, explains John Hamill, chief operating officer, “We’ve seen a resurgence of passengers making their summer plans – we’ve had many more phone calls and frequent web activity, indicating that things will pick up.”