SAN­TO DOMIN­GO, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic - Car­ni­val Cor­po­ra­tion said Tues­day that it is build­ing a US$65 mil­lion cruise ship cen­ter in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to draw ships to the Puer­to Pla­ta re­gion for the first time in near­ly 30 years. The Am­ber Cove Cruise Cen­ter at Bay of Mai­mon is sched­uled to open in 2014 and is ex­pect­ed to ac­com­mo­date as many as 8,000 cruise ship pas­sen­gers dai­ly.

The cen­tre is be­ing built on 30 acres (12 hectares) of wa­ter­front prop­er­ty with help from lo­cal ship­ping com­pa­ny Grupo B&R. It will fea­ture a mar­ket­place, restau­rants, bars and a wa­ter at­trac­tion, Car­ni­val said. More than 350,000 cruise ship pas­sen­gers vis­it­ed the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic last year, a 1 per cent drop from the pre­vi­ous year.

Al­so on Tues­day, of­fi­cials in Puer­to Ri­co an­nounced that the US Caribbean ter­ri­to­ry would be the home port for a Roy­al Caribbean cruise ship next year.