Disney Cruise Line has infused its new private port, Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, with Bahamian flair and junkanoo spirit.
Its location on Eleuthera — a long, thin island in the Bahamas east of Nassau — provided an obvious start, and Disney leaned into the theme with the resort’s architecture, art, music, food, conservation efforts, cultural touchstones and entertainment options — including a raucous, cowbell-heavy celebration on the beach.
“We’re not putting you into a fictitious place. We’re not setting you into a different time. It’s here and now,” said Kevin Thomas, Walt Disney Imagineering creative director on the project.
Lookout Cay opened this month and is being visited primarily by DCL ships sailing out of Port Canaveral, Fort Lauderdale and Galveston, Texas.
“We thought about how many people are going to be experiencing the Bahamas for the first time, coming from around the world, the journey here and what can they take back,” Thomas said. “Not only that group but also those that have experienced the Bahamas and other destinations prior to this visit … We wanted to give a very unique experience to that.”
Central to the planning was a junkanoo — a year-end Bahamian celebration with music, dancing and bright, hand-crafted costumes. The Disney version includes Mickey Mouse and friends in new island wear created by Bahamian designer Theo Elyett.
Performers for “Rush! A Junkanoo Celebration” parade to a beat from near the resort entrance, through the mini marketplace and to the beach-facing Goombay Cultural Center for a bouncy performance before reversing their course.
The space is also a spot where kids can create junkanoo headpieces.
“We had an entire team dedicated to understanding what is junkanoo? What does it mean to the locals? What does it mean to the Bahamian culture?” said Rachel Quinn, vice president entertainment operations.
“The word authenticity is used a lot, but this was our north star,” she said.
“Junkanoo is a celebration of our tradition,” said Warren Andrew Pinder of the National Junkanoo Committee. “Our culture is colorful, is expressed through music, dance, a vibrancy led by the beat — that beat that we really cherish.”
The junkanoo show’s sounds waft across the pinkish sands and piercing blue waters of the beach. The site also includes an adults-only section, water-play areas, a nature trail and clusters of private cabanas.
There are multiple bars and a trio of restaurants with menus that include grilled spiced mahi-mahi with mango and pan-served Bahamian pigeon peas and rice.
An entertainment option on the southern end of the beach is the Fun in the Sun Beach Bash, a character-driven family games session accompanied by Disney music with Caribbean remixes. Music producer Victor Johnson fashioned these renditions.
“I actually watched a lot of the cartoons and put kind of my own Caribbean beat to it just watching cartoons on mute,” he said. “I kind of came up with a few genres, like subgenres, because our original genre of the Bahamas is goombay, and that includes junkanoo, rake and scrape and calypso and stuff like that. I came up with a rake and scrape arrangement for the Chip ‘n’ Dale song as well as a little Soka goombay arrangement.”
The task was daunting at first, because the original versions were classics, Johnson said.
“When I got the project, I was very intimidated because these are amazing songs already. But I went to sleep dreaming ‘Ch-Ch-Ch-Chip and Dale,’” he said.
An original song for the experience — “Everything Cool” — was written and performed by Bahamian musicians and recorded on Eleuthera.
The beach elements of Lookout Cay are connected by a curvy, elevated boardwalk.
“We wanted to minimize our impact on the natural environment and also make it accessible to all of our guests,” Thomas said. They also play off the multilevel terrain of the area, a contrast to Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island that has been in use by the cruise line since 1998.
“Unlike Castaway, which is pretty flat terrain … this offered a little bit of a variety to that,” Thomas said.
Structures along this stretch have a high, curved roofline and provide shade, particularly in dining areas.
“The architecture is not traditional, but it has been inspired by the organic nature of what we can find here. With rooftops, the upper portions of all of these are inspired by shell patterns, shells that are bound along the Bahamian shores. … Once you get underneath that you really start to experience man’s touch on this,” Thomas said.
“I think Disney, in particular, gets more cruisers that aren’t necessarily from Florida than maybe some other cruise lines do and therefore if you’ve never been to the Bahamas, it’s a great introduction,” said Matt Roseboom, editor and publisher of Orlando-based Attractions Magazine. “Most people probably don’t know what junkanoo is.”
Roseboom previewed the destination last week.
“I think Castaway Cay is all about story and you might not know you’re in the Bahamas necessarily or on Disney’s stranded island,” he said.
“With this new island, it’s a little bit different, and they’re going all in on the Bahamas theme. … There’s really no Disney story to it, just the fact that you were in the Bahamas and here’s some information about Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas, where you are.” he said.
Another obvious difference between Lookout Cay and Castaway Cay, which is about 130 miles to the northeast, is seen from the beginning of the visit. As ships approach the new destination, they dock at the end of a long, curved pier.
Passengers leave the ship, then travel the length of that connection — it’s a 10-15 minute walk — to catch a tram that connects to the bulk of Disney’s beach offerings after about 10 more minutes. But Castaway visitors are on that island right off the ship.
“We chose a pier because it had the least impact on the marine habitats in that area between the shore and where the ship had access,” said Bradley Watson, conservation program manager.
“The ship can only dock in a certain depth of water and, alternatively, some people might have dredged and made that so that the ship can come directly into shore. … Logistically, that would have been easier in the long run. But we chose the hard road,” he said.
The pier has an open-trestle design to minimize the effect on sea life, Disney officials said.
“Beyond just building the pier to go over that area, we relocated over 800 coral from that path to another spot on our site to ensure that they would continue to thrive as we put in that pier,” Watson said. “I think that it’s kind of a marvelous way that we put together infrastructure and nature.”
But for human visitors, the bridge to Lookout is “unusually long,” Roseboom said. “It needs shade; it needs seating. Hopefully, those will be added at some point. … They’re going to have issues with thunderstorms and trying to get back to the ship.”
The new destination includes a nature trail that showcases native species and leads to the namesake lighthouse.
“One of the best things we did is everything we didn’t do. We’re at less than 16% [development] of the site. It’s perfect, in my opinion,” Watson said.
“I’m really excited that Lookout Cay is now a gateway for so many other people to understand what it’s like to be a Bahamian,” he said.
![From Amelia Island on the northeast tip of Florida to Alligator Reef in the Keys. From the pink sands of Eleuthera in the Bahamas to the slopes of Mount Scenery on the Dutch island of Saba in the Lesser Antilles. The May issue of our Explore Florida & the Caribbean takes you places – by land, sea and air. The new issue that will appear in digital format on Sunday, May 5, features stories on Florida’s lighthouses, cruise-line dining, a return to ultra-luxe Little Palm Island in the Keys, a camping trip to Peanut Island in Palm Beach County, a […]](https://www.sun-sentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Explore-Florida-cover-May-2024.jpg?w=620 "From Amelia Island on the northeast tip of Florida to Alligator Reef in the Keys. From the pink sands of Eleuthera in the Bahamas to the slopes of Mount Scenery on the Dutch island of Saba in the Lesser Antilles. The May issue of our Explore Florida & the Caribbean takes you places – by land, sea and air. The new issue that will appear in digital format on Sunday, May 5, features stories on Florida’s lighthouses, cruise-line dining, a return to ultra-luxe Little Palm Island in the Keys, a camping trip to Peanut Island in Palm Beach County, a […]")
