Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Fathoming the impacts of do-gooder cruises to the Caribbean

New cruise line Fathom will sail weekly from Miami to the Dominican Republic or Cuba

Considering the hard labor required to pour concrete over dirt floors in rural Dominican Republic houses or to haul heavy bags for reforesting the hills, I will make other choices if I book an “impact tourism” week on the new Fathom cruise line.

Women at Chocal in the Dominican Republic prepare cacao beans for making chocolate for sale.(Photo by Len Kaufman.com)

Volunteering to make a difference during vacation appeals to my better nature, but I don’t want to work that hard.

How about making chocolate, building water filters, or helping teach basic English phrases in local schools?

All of these projects are among the volunteer activities that will highlight a cruise with Fathom, starting in April, when its only ship, the 700-passenger Adonia, begins one-week voyages from Miami into the Caribbean.

New cruise port, Amber Cove, to open on the north coast of Dominican Republic

 Tours planned to an untapped region 

Carnival Corp.'s Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic

In the mountains near the north coast of the Dominican Republic, our canopied tour bus stopped on a shady country road for a visit to a four-room, wood house of a family of five. A fifth room, the kitchen for making beans, chicken and rice, was in a separate building so as not to spread cooking smoke to the sleeping quarters.

A cruise excursion operator, Outback Adventures, pays this family, and several others nearby, an occasional stipend so that small groups of travelers can poke around their house and backyard garden for a look at an authentic Dominican home where people live off the land.

This tour is one of more than 30 available to passengers who will begin arriving Oct. 6 at Carnival Corp.’s new cruise port at Amber Cove.

SATW Phoenix awards honor New York, Canada

Five tourism projects -- two in New York City and three in Canada -- are winners in the 2010 Phoenix Awards from the the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW).

Phoenix Awards recognize conservation, preservation, beautification and anti-pollution accomplishments.

In New York,  SATW honored the High Line, a vertical public park, and the Central Park Conservancy.

In Canada, Phoenix Award winners were Miscou Island in New Brunswick, the Trans Canada Trail, and Dr. Mary Majka and Mary’s Point Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve in Harvey, New Brunswick.

For the Phoenix Awards video, click Phoenix Awards 2010 from SATW Video on Vimeo.

Give a day, get a free day at Disney

Volunteering to help people in your community is its own reward. People who perform volunteer service are nearly unanimous about one thing -- how good they feel about their contributions and how much fun they have making a difference in someone else's life.

This year, the folks at Disney are offering a further reward. One million people who perform volunteer service for a participating organization will get a free one-day admission ticket to a Disney World (Florida) or Disneyland (California) theme park.

You can learn more about the program by visiting disneyparks.com.