The Sandwich That Went to Sea

In my storied 30-year career in cruise line public relations, there were only a few times when I made an actual creative contribution of an idea for what turned out to be a highly effective PR stunt. That wasn’t for lack of trying — we spitballed events and ideas all the time — but this time all the elements lined up perfectly for an event aboard Carnival Paradise at Port of Tampa.

When discussing what we could do while the ship was docked at Port of Tampa to highlight Carnival Cruise Line’s new service to Havana, Cuba, starting in 2017, I suggested we have the ship create the world’s longest Cuban sandwich. That notion was met with derision by my colleagues, but I argued that the sandwich would tie together Miami — home to Carnival’s headquarters — with Tampa and Havana as well as exploit history, rivalry and an exciting and exotic new destination for the cruise line.

Of course, we had to avoid any conflict with the Guinness World Record folks because this was definitely an off-books “world’s largest,” not to mention that Tampa and Miami spar annually to make the official, sanctioned “World’s Largest Cuban Sandwich,” which runs to hundreds of feet long, so we added the “at Sea” bit to avoid any potential conflict.

By the day of the inaugural voyage, the event had grown to include Cuban music, food, libations (Cuba Libre anyone?), culture, a donation to the Ybor City Museum Society and cigar-rolling demonstrations — not to mention one big-ass sandwich.

The 10-foot-long sandwich contained the traditional ingredients of all Cuban sandwiches: a light white bread, five pounds of sliced ham, 50 pounds of marinated roasted pork, six pounds of Swiss cheese, a gallon of dill pickles and generous gobs of mustard and mayonnaise. But this sandwich had a twist.

There is a long-standing rivalry between Tampa and Miami about which city can claim the most authentic Cuban sandwich recipe. Tampa’s Cuban community predates Miami’s by over a half-century and in Tampa they included an extra ingredient — Genoa salami — to appeal to the city’s Italian population, which started arriving about the same time as the Cubans. In a spirit of solidarity and cooperation, the “World’s Largest Cuban Sandwich at Sea” was created to be half Miami-style and half Tampa-style with the addition of eight pounds of salami.

As is typical at these functions, there were speeches by Carnival execs, port officials, local politicians, the obligatory charity big-check presentation and a major effort by the culinary crew and cruise staff to make the whole thing a success.

Of course, without my original zany spitball idea, none of it would have happened.