Fantasy Island: Royal Caribbean parcels off a piece of Haiti.

• Author: Orenstein, Catherine
• Position: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Labadee, Haiti

An enormous ship rises over the horizon, ten stories high. Fishermen pause to watch from their rafts as the thing they call the "sea monster" sails into the secluded harbor, lets down its dinghies, and deposits 2,000 tourists on the shores of the hemisphere's poorest island.

It's Haiti. but not to the passengers. There is no stamp on their passports and most of them don't know where they are. the Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner's flier said they'd be arriving at "LABADEE" -- which is part of Haiti, say small letters buried in the flier's text. A reservation agent for Royal Caribbean tells tourists that the ships sail to "our private island" (a description echoed by the tape recording potential tourists hear if she places them on hold). When pressed, the agent adds that "the island" is located "off the coast of Hispaniola."

In fact, the beach is part of Haiti's mainland -- a destination hard to market to tourists. Tour groups have booked it as "Magic Island." Caribbean cruise charts routinely leave Haiti unnamed, or erase it from the map altogether. Resort letterhead sometimes fudges geography: Ibo Beach gave its return address as "Cacique Island. The Caribbean" until the resort was burned down a few years ago.

At Labadee, the deception is buttressed by physical barriers. Thick jungle surrounds the beach. Beyond that a ten-foot-high iron wall, watched by armed guards, spans the accessible perimeter.

Access by land is difficult, as I found out. I took a seven-hour ride over a potholed road from the capital; another hour of pummeling turns on a winding, rocky throughway from Cap Haitian, Haiti's second-largest town, finally, I descended a quarter-mile on foot to the ocean to hitch a ride on a rowboat around the bay with a man named Lesevye ("The Savior." in Haitian creole). At the gate, there is an entry fee of thirty dollars, about one-eighth an average Haitian's annual income.

Large engines hum in the background as a Haitian kompa band strikes up a number and passengers meander down the pier. Local waiters form a phalanx on the shore. armed with trays of coco locos. Plastic floaties set off a brief commotion as tourists sort themselves into those who prefer to lie prostrate in the lukewarm, knee-deep surf and those who belly-up on the sand. The sun is gold. The beach shines like silver. Alcohol and suntan oil are flowing.

It's picture-perfect until you look closer. The ship's buffet waiters are neither Haitian nor black, but white and from places like Croatia and Slovakia. They earn minimum wage. one of them tells me. But their attire and duties indicate they are higher up on the ship's food chain than the local staff. (Royal Caribbean spokesman Rich Steck says that the ship hires staff from fifty-two countries. He adds that the ship-deck bar waiters are all West Indian.)

As I'm pondering the staff hierarchy, around the bend comes a sinewy Haitian staffer, panting as he pushes a woman uphill on a neon plastic vehicle with an attached beach umbrella. She wears beetle sunglasses and a muu-muu. She's got an ice-cream bar in one hand. In the other. she's carrying one of those generic wooden black-man-in-a-barrel knick-knacks sold in Caribbean tourist markets. (Pull the man out of the barrel and up pops an erection on a spring.) They arrive under a tree and she stands up. "Oh, this is DEE-lightful!" she says.

By noon the beach is awash with food, reclining foreigners, and genuflecting Haitian waiters, an alarming vision on the shores of a nation...