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Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

economist.com

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Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#41

Post by LeonB »

clort wrote: post #32
Angostura wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These figures are from 2006 - so you need to factor in improvements in engineering since then - but The Guardian crunched some figures and said “According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere” So the answer would appear to be…

There might be a nuance missing, in that if you compare a plane journey vs a cruise you are of course not comparing like to like if you only consider 'CO2 per passenger mile' as aeroplanes are used to travel further than a cruise ship. I don't know the mileage that they actually cover on a cruise, but at 20kts they could cover 480 miles in 24 hours and bearing in mind that they are spending time in port it will be le…

Agreed. It is very far from an apples to apples comparison.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#42

Post by mrighele »

Swizec wrote: post #30
fasicle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How bad this form of travel is for... the visited cities" I was holidaying in Split, Croatia when the MS Queen Elizabeth [1] docked and thousands of people descended onto the city from it. The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not th…

As we all know: Building for spiky traffic is the hardest. Unlike with cloud computing where you can spin up more servers to meet demand, you can't just spin up more city, more streets, more restaurants, more sights, more everything at the drop of a hat when demand spikes. I wonder how much of that traffic spike from a big cruise ship the city is actually able to capture. If the city was built for peak demand, maybe,…

> I'm in Venice right now and the difference between 1pm when it's jam packed with tourists and a total hellhole on earth, and a nice 7am run when it's empty and gorgeous ... yeah it does not even begin to compare.

In the case of Venice often you just to avoid the streets that connect turistic POIs. Take a parallel calle 50 metres on the right or left and suddenly you are in a oasis with few tourists and peaceful silence.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#43

Post by jasonkester »

This seems like a net win for the rest of us.

If you've ever been on Roatan or someplace similar when a big cruise ship comes in, you'll know the feeling: Most of the time it's a sleepy little beach town with cheap accommodation and beers, and friendly local folk going about their business. Then one day you wake up and it's "Welcome To Jamaica, Mon!!!"

All the colorful townspeople are out in their Traditional Island Dress, doing their Traditional Island Dance to the Traditional Island Music in the streets. Everybody suddenly has piles of overpriced tourist junk to sell you, and those cheap beers are now $8 each.

Giant flotillas of inflated red kayaks bob around in the bay, carrying inflated pink tourists in inflated orange life vests. Lots of pictures are taken of another Island Paradise.

Then things pack up, heaps of garbage are swept aside, and the place goes back to its old, pleasant, self again.

Life is so good on the "backpacker" side of that experience, and so bad on the "cruiser" side, that it's good to hear that they're finally just sequestering them all away in a single place. If any of them ever want to experience the Carribbean in its actual form, it'll hopefully be waiting there unspoiled.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

fasicle wrote: post #22
sdoering wrote: post #14

I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there. Back then I had no idea how bad this form of travel is for the environment, for the visited cities, for the people working below deck, and so on. The people I worked with in the main office of the company were really energetic, loved their product, had a great time launching ship afte…

"How bad this form of travel is for... the visited cities" I was holidaying in Split, Croatia when the MS Queen Elizabeth [1] docked and thousands of people descended onto the city from it. The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not th…

> I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not that much of a negative for the locals.

"Locals" aren't a homogenous group. The city budget does benefit, and so do people working in businesses serving tourists directly - restaurants, gift shops, hotels, ticket offices, etc. Everyone else hates it. Tourism, especially of intermittent kind, disrupts regular life of regular people.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#45

Post by fasicle »

oh_sigh wrote: post #36
fasicle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How bad this form of travel is for... the visited cities" I was holidaying in Split, Croatia when the MS Queen Elizabeth [1] docked and thousands of people descended onto the city from it. The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not th…

> The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere Did you ask the locals what they thought of it? Their city isn't your private quiet getaway. Maybe they wanted the ship there. Or maybe they didn't. But that is their choice and their local government is free to prevent the ship from docking if that's the kind of policy they want to institute.

I talked to some of the locals, very mixed opinions although many saw the benefits to the economy of these big groups. Also governments will not always do what locals want as they might stand more to benefit from ships than the locals.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#46

Post by AznHisoka »

chrisco255 wrote: post #6

Going on a cruise is like a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean as it is. You get, like 6 hours to try to cram in as much of Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, etc as you can and then it's back to the boat and on to the next stop. If you really want to get to know a country it's not the best way to travel.

For some people that’s OK. They don’t want just a short tour of the Caribbean, they want a diverse recreationally holiday. a day doing all the cruise activities, a day in the Caribbean, a day just taking it easy in the ship, etc.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#48

Post by radicalbyte »

godid wrote: post #27
radicalbyte wrote: post #16

A cruise ship always strikes me as being a slightly more upscale caravan holiday. You're stuck in a metal box with either a lot of old middle class people or a load of drunk lower class yobs. Only unlike a caravan you're stuck on it.

Perhaps, if you shared a single caravan with hundreds of other people. But other than that I do not think it’s alike at all as you are not dependant on a crew for subsistence nor is your freedom to move/explore restricted in a caravan. Either way both can be very fun holidays if you are willing to see past class prejudices.

It's not so much the class prejudices, it's the booze prejudice. I don't socialize with my wifes upper-middle-class colleagues because they like their wine a little too much.

My worst ever holiday memories are being stuck in a caravan in the late 1980s in wet Wales with way too little room and way too many loud drunk people who kept going until 4am every single night.

Cruise ships are like that only you're completely at the whim of the cruise line. You have 0 freedom and you have to deal with all the tax-evading fake-flag BS which seems to rule the sea.

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#49

Post by noonespecial »

lopmotr wrote: post #15
sdoering wrote: post #14

I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there. Back then I had no idea how bad this form of travel is for the environment, for the visited cities, for the people working below deck, and so on. The people I worked with in the main office of the company were really energetic, loved their product, had a great time launching ship afte…

If you had the power, would you fire them and be the one to give them their notice in person? If they asked why, what would you tell them? "For your own good"?

Or could you use that power to pay them more even though you didn't have to?

Re: Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

#50

Post by Nursie »

Nokinside wrote: post #28
Nursie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries around the world seem to slowly be waking up to this - Cruise ships pollute like hell, make destinations crowded and less pleasant for residents and 'regular' tourists, and also attempt to capture all of the spending of their passengers anyway, limiting any economic benefits. European cities they frequent are some of the worst for SOx and NOx pollution on the continent and a single line, Carnival, emitted m…

The Baltic Sea and the North Sea are Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECA) and Nitrogen Oxide Emission Control Areas (NECAs). Ships in these areas required to use SOx scrubbers and NOx, reducing devices in new ships. Limits have been gradually tightened. I think they are now as low as 0.10% m/m. Carnival Cruise Lines has ships outfitted with scrubbers and they operate in these Emission Control Areas. Lower emissions…

Sounds good, and can't come soon enough!

Personally I'd like it if my home city (Southampton, UK currently) would stop them idling their engines in port for power.

Apparently we don't have the power infrastructure for them to plug in and run their systems from the local grid, so they just sit there churning this stuff out.

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