MSC’s New Private Destination: The Cruise Industry’s Private Island Boom

MSC’s latest Caribbean destination is part of a much bigger transformation: cruise lines no longer want to control just your vacation at sea. Increasingly, they want to design the experience on land, too.

One of the peculiar pleasures of cruising has always been the abrupt change of scenery.

You go to sleep in one port and wake up in another. Walk down the gangway and the carefully controlled environment of the ship gives way to Nassau, Cozumel, Barcelona, Mykonos, or St. Thomas—with all the pleasures, annoyances and unpredictability of an actual place.

Increasingly, cruise lines have another idea: What if you never really left the ship at all?

MSC Group’s latest investment is Catalina Island, off La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Through a joint venture with Casa de Campo Resort & Villas, MSC is redeveloping the beach destination with upgraded infrastructure and amenities. MSC Cruises and Explora Journeys guests will be among its visitors, alongside guests from other cruise lines and Casa de Campo.

MSC says Catalina Sugar Beach will combine the island’s natural setting with “new experiences and elevated amenities” to create what it calls “the ultimate beach escape.” Catalina follows the far more ambitious Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve in the Bahamas. Once an industrial site, Ocean Cay was transformed into MSC’s private-island experience and opened in 2019. Now MSC is expanding it again, adding restaurants, an adults-only beach and family lagoon while extending its pier to accommodate two ships simultaneously.

But MSC is hardly alone.

Welcome to the Bubble
Cruise lines have operated private destinations since Norwegian Cruise Line opened Great Stirrup Cay in 1977. But what began as essentially a beach day has evolved into something closer to a land-based extension of the ship.

Disney has Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay. Carnival opened Celebration Key in 2025 and is redeveloping Half Moon Cay. Norwegian is pouring money into Great Stirrup Cay. Royal Caribbean transformed CocoCay into Perfect Day—a destination with beaches, pools, restaurants, bars and a sprawling waterpark. Its ambitions to export the concept to Mexico, however, recently ran into a significant obstacle: Mexican environmental authorities rejected the proposed Perfect Day Mexico development in Mahahual amid concerns about its impact on the surrounding ecosystem.

The private "island" is becoming the private destination "portfolio"
And economically, the appeal isn't difficult to understand. Cruise lines spend billions designing ships where nearly every element of the guest experience can be controlled...and monetized. A conventional port breaks that ecosystem. Passengers leave the ship and spend money with taxi drivers, restaurants, tour operators and beach clubs that the cruise company doesn't own. A proprietary destination keeps more of the vacation inside the bubble.

Your drink package may work. Lunch may be included. The loungers are waiting. The excursion is sold through the cruise line. The service standards are familiar. Your ship is visible from the beach. It's frictionless. That's both the attraction and the problem.

Is the Destination Still the Destination?
I've experienced this bubble myself, and there's something undeniably seductive about it. A well-designed private destination can eliminate much of what makes a port day irritating: transportation negotiations, overcrowded tourist districts, questionable beach facilities and the low-level anxiety of getting back to the ship on time.

But cruising has traditionally offered something else: travel and engagement with locals. A day at CocoCay can be fantastic. So can Castaway Cay or Ocean Cay. But spending a week moving between a cruise line's ship and its branded destinations is less like traveling through the Caribbean than inhabiting an exceptionally sophisticated resort whose rooms happen to move overnight.

MSC's Catalina project isn't the most extreme example. In fact, its shared ownership and access may allow it to retain more connection to the Dominican Republic than a wholly controlled private island. But it points toward the same future. Cruise lines are no longer simply building bigger and better ships. They're building entire vacation ecosystems—and the gangway is becoming less an exit from the bubble than a doorway into its next room.

Sources: MSC press materials on Catalina Island and Ocean Cay