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Carnival Corporation announced that it has entered into an agreement to build and operate a cruise ship terminal on Roatan, a 165-square-mile island located 40 miles north of Honduras in the southwestern Caribbean Sea

Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises, and P&O Cruises currently visit Roatan, but anchor offshore and tender passengers into the tropical island with its beautiful white-sand beaches and colorful coral reefs.

Development of the two-berth cruise terminal -- to be called "Mahogany Bay - Roatan" -- is expected to start in fall 2007 and be completed by summer 2009 at a cost of $50 million.

The terminal will be able to handle up to 7,000 passengers a day.Within five years of operation, "Mahogany Bay - Roatan" is expected to host 225 cruise ship calls and 500,000 passengers annually, a Carnival spokesperson said..

Adjacent to the facility will be a 35,000-square-foot Welcome Center including retail shops, restaurants and bars, along with a 60-foot-high lighthouse, a lagoon with cascading waterfalls, and a nature trail.

The new Roatan project continues Carnival Corporation's efforts at developing Caribbean ports which include the new Grand Turk Cruise Center, which in its first year in operation hosted nearly 300,000 passengers.