Our Caribbean Cruise Aboard
The Directors of the National Liquor Stores Association admiring a Heine-
ken's Beer barrel carved out of ice by the ship's Chef, on the occasion of
the Cocktail-Dance.
ON Saturday, January 18th, we boarded
the Flagship NIEUW AMSTERDAM
of the Holland America Line to begin our
fourteen day Caribbean cruise scheduled
to call at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, Fort
d. France, Martinique, Curacao, Dutch An
tilles, Kingston, Jamaica and Havana,
Cuba before returning to New York on
February 1st.
It was no coincident that a large group
of members of the National Liquor Stores
Association were on board, many of whom
I have known personally from previous
trips and calling on their retail stores. It
was a real pleasure to meet the President
of the Association, Mr. Ralph Maisano of
New Haven, Conn., as well as Mr. Benja
min Josephs of Worcester, Mass. Exec.
Director, Mr. Max Dorfman, Treasurer
and Mr. Hilliard Schulberg, Director, of
Washington, D. C. It was quite a large
group of members and in addition, It was
a pleasure again to meet our good friend,
Bill Lewis of Schenley while there were
also representatives on board of the Hi-
riam Walker organization and the Bal-
lantine Brewery.
The weather during the entire cruise
was most favorable and now that the
NIEUW AMSTERDAM has been equip
ped with stabilizers, the rolling was com
pletely eliminated, making it a most en
joyable sea voyage. At the first port of
call, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, the local
wine merchants had a very busy time
taking orders for liquor in bond from al
most all of the 800 passengers on board!
I am partial to the Island since we are in
the stage of building a small home and
have many friends there whom we visited.
Our next port of call was Martinique,
a haven for buying French perfumes at
real bargain prices We tasted some of the
Martinique Rum and indeed, it has a real
kick.
Then came the next stop, Curacao, Ne
therlands West Indies, and I think most
of us, if not all, paid our respects to the
fabulous stores of the Island, especially
to Spritzer Fuhrman where many gifts
were purchased. At the next evening's
show, the Master of Ceremonies referred
to it as "generous contributions to the wel
fare plan of this firm!" We had the
Congenial Bill Lewis of Schenley
fame with his charming wife
opportunity to visit the new Inter-Con
tinental Hotel, Curacao, quite an improve
ment to this interesting and quaint Dutch
Island.
The next stop we made was Kingston,
Jamaica, quite different from the other
places, renowned not only for its Rum
but also for its beautiful flowers and shrub
bery. Unfortunately, there was not enough
time to go to Montego Bay but I am sure
everyone had a good time visiting the
beautiful parks and shops.
Last but not least, we arrived in Havana
and here I think many of us made a fur
ther contribution to the operators of the
gambling tables but a good time was had
by all and rather worn out, we came back
to the steamer and sailed towards New
York.
During the voyage the sun decks were
the busiest places during the day, with ah
