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Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

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Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#191

Post by robotresearcher »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #105
__float wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is very unpleasant for some. Trains in the US are not exactly luxurious by any stretch: compare the food on a nice cruise to the food available on a train.

This was the biggest shock when seeing Europe, their trains are so much better. Considering how sprawling the continental US is, it's a shame we don't have more and better quality trains.

It’s because the US is so sprawling that trains lost out to planes there. Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US. So the US trains don’t have their costs amortized over a large fraction of business travel as well as vacationers.

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#192

Post by jkestner »

School-Cotton wrote: post #52
chasil wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work. Peers had a habit of calling me for non-critical, non-production problems. The worst was Mardi Gras, where I'm on Bourbon Street for Fat Tuesday, and my operations head calls me with an analyst on the line and burns fifteen minutes with a problem that turned out to be development coding. My phone did occasionally explode with voicemails and texts when I got back to…

Why not just not answer your phone while on vacation?

"Bring work to your whole self."

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#193

Post by ska »

chasil wrote: post #47
icegreentea2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruises hit a spot of: * All the fun and "not thinking" of an all-inclusive resort (though obviously only if you pay for the drink packages) on land * Generally cheaper than all inclusive resorts on mainland USA (I'm not as familiar with Europe) * Competitive on pricing with all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean/Mexico * Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico * Get to skip out out of the overt semi-coloni…

The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work. Peers had a habit of calling me for non-critical, non-production problems. The worst was Mardi Gras, where I'm on Bourbon Street for Fat Tuesday, and my operations head calls me with an analyst on the line and burns fifteen minutes with a problem that turned out to be development coding. My phone did occasionally explode with voicemails and texts when I got back to…

"The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work."

There isn't really a shortage of other options with that feature (though it's shrinking); granted they mostly don't have people waiting on you.

Personally I'm a fan of "I'm on vacation, my phone is at home" though I understand that doesn't work for everyone. If there is an actual emergency, there are people who know how/where to reach me.

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#194

Post by seized »

rightbyte wrote: post #135
GJim wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'cut and shut'? Where do you live for that to be legal? https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=cut+and+shut

Most limousines are made like that. The practice is fine in theory but I guess the business is too shady for the vehicles to be fine in practice.

There's a whole Well There's Your Problem (an engineering disasters podcast) about exactly that. I think the conclusion is that it isn't fine in theory or practice...

https://youtu.be/K5sQJB6Jvkw?si=hq8yGx2i9FQy-wAB

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#195

Post by fhsm »

cyanydeez wrote: post #172
Neil44 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my understanding that bunker fuel is only used out at sea.

Yes, it only destroys the environment from afar

Of course, outside the environment -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#196

Post by eightysixfour »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #171
JKCalhoun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all-inclusive resorts... And these have zero appeal to me as well. As someone who road trips all across the U.S. with the wife, the highlights have of course been the serendipitous ones.

That's the beautiful thing, different people enjoy different things, and on vacation, people get to pick and do the thing they enjoy, rather than the thing someone else enjoys. Except with cruise ships, morally righteous people are declaring this specific thing wrong and trying to keep people from being allowed to do this. The Guardian claims that "At full power the Harmony of the Seas’ two 16-cylinder engines would…

Most of the people getting on the cruise are also taking round trip flights to and from the port, so tack that on top of the flights.

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#197

Post by consumer451 »

raldi wrote: post #146
consumer451 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago, Key West built enough extra sewage treatment capacity to process sewage from the many cruise ships which visit the city. There was a plan to require all ships to discharge and pay for treatment so that sewage was not dumped 12 miles off-shore, which is only 3 miles past the reef. Captains get a bonus for fuel savings, so they tend to dump as soon as it is legal. The cruise industry threatened to remove Key…

What do you think happens to land-based sewage?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#198

Post by aj7 »

nullstyle wrote: post #84
JKCalhoun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all-inclusive resorts... And these have zero appeal to me as well. As someone who road trips all across the U.S. with the wife, the highlights have of course been the serendipitous ones.

There’s a different kind of serendipity that comes with Cruise vacations as opposed to road tripping, but it’s still very much there. Furthermore, I can’t really have a road trip experience with 16 people in my travel group; If we want to be together, we’ll be stuck, packed into a van. I can have a great cruise experience with a group that size on a cruise or at a resort. I say this is someone who had taken multiple…

Serendipity on cruises, eh?

The axiom of cruises is: You will never see these people again.

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#199

Post by toast0 »

giantg2 wrote: post #139
watsocd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many Americans who are terrified of flying into a foreign city. With a cruise out of Miami, they never have to step on foreign soil.

It can provide many benefits beyond people who are terrified. All sorts of barriers and annoyances can be avoided, such as managing passports, bringing medications, language barriers, differences in legal rights, dealing with customs, etc. This is even more impactful if you're traveling with kids or the elderly.

You still need a passport for most cruises. All the big cruises are non-US flagged with non-US crews and make a stop, if briefly, in a non-US port.

When you finish your journey, you have to go through customs and show your passport. And your passport will usually be checked before you embark as well.

Re: Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

#200

Post by jghn »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #70
icegreentea2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruises hit a spot of: * All the fun and "not thinking" of an all-inclusive resort (though obviously only if you pay for the drink packages) on land * Generally cheaper than all inclusive resorts on mainland USA (I'm not as familiar with Europe) * Competitive on pricing with all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean/Mexico * Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico * Get to skip out out of the overt semi-coloni…

[flagged]

> This is a projection

Somewhat. It depends on where you are and who you talk to. As with everything, it turns out that people aren't homogenous with their opinions. I've found on a lot of islands that you can find people exactly like you describe, people who actually like the tourism, and people who view it as quasi-colonialism. YMMV as they say.

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