Britain’s Cruise Line, P&O Cruis­es, will on Thurs­day cel­e­brate the nam­ing of its new ship, Arvia, here which Tourism and In­ter­na­tion­al Trans­port Min­is­ter, Ian Good­ing-Edghill, says pro­vides “an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Bar­ba­dos to be fea­tured” in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“You can’t pay for that,” said Good­ing-Edghill, adding “we have been part­ner­ing with P&O over a num­ber of years in Bar­ba­dos.

“It has been a very long, very sat­is­fy­ing busi­ness re­la­tion­ship … and I would en­cour­age every­body to view it (the cer­e­mo­ny) when it is be­ing tele­cast be­cause it’s a won­der­ful ac­com­plish­ment for Bar­ba­dos and the Caribbean,” he added.

The first-ever nam­ing of a cruise ship in the Caribbean will fea­ture the world’s largest bot­tle of rum for the tra­di­tion­al bot­tle smash.

Arvia will be of­fi­cial­ly named by in­ter­na­tion­al per­former Nicole Scherzinger in a beach­side cer­e­mo­ny. With the well-known words “I name this ship Arvia, may God bless her and all who sail in her” a lever will re­lease the spe­cial­ly com­mis­sioned bot­tle, which will hold 15 liters of the Bar­ba­dos pro­duced Mount Gay Black Bar­rel.

“Our nam­ing par­ty in Bar­ba­dos is a world first and so it had to be rum. Rum is the very essence of Bar­ba­dos and as the world’s old­est ocean cruise line we sim­ply had to pair with the world’s old­est run­ning rum dis­tillery and cre­ate what we be­lieve to be the world’s largest bot­tle of rum. Mount Gay has a long and dis­tin­guished his­to­ry and af­fil­i­a­tion with the sea – it is a per­fect mix,” said P&O Cruis­es pres­i­dent, Paul Lud­low.

Mount Gay man­ag­ing di­rec­tor An­toine Cou­vreur said Mount Gay has had a long his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tion with sail­ing.

“At the heart of this shared sto­ry is Bar­ba­dos, the birth­place of rum. Since 1703, hon­or­ing our au­then­tic her­itage has made Mount Gay the drink of choice for sailors and the mar­itime in­dus­try as a whole. We are de­light­ed to part­ner with P&O Cruis­es for this his­toric bot­tle smash as we cel­e­brate our 320th an­niver­sary this year,” he added.