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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

#291

Post by DidYaWipe »

protocolture wrote: post #4

I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I swore I would never take a cruise. Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure you cant leave it for days at a time. It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

For my girlfriend's family's sake, I've taken cruises the last two years. One Royal Caribbean, and one Norwegian.

Decades ago I took a couple of Carnival cruises.

Things are not better now. What a shitshow. Royal Caribbean sucked, but Norwegian was a new low. The only word that describes both the en-route experience and the destinations is DISMAL.

At least Royal Caribbean had a pleasant food-court type of dining area, with stations of verious kinds in a dispersed layout that was navigable. Norwegian had only a narrow "racetrack" going around a central core, with serving stations in the wall. It was only a few feet wide, which meant you couldn't move because it was blocked by scooters (a totally predictable situation given the demographics of cruise ships).

Then there was the smoke. WTF. We had an upper cabin with a balcony. Doing 20 knots on the open ocean, we couldn't hang out out there because it was continually inundated with cigarette smoke... and not even from the immediate neighbor. It was mind-boggling. There was also a smoking area right next to a sushi restaurant. And you had to walk through the smoke-ridden casino area on every deck to get anywhere on the boat. At least Royal Caribbean kept that whole giant ashtray confined to a central area on the lower level. Totally fine.

Cruises are absolute shit. You're way better off just going to an all-inclusive resort somewhere, even somewhere cheap.

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

#292

Post by jesterson »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #291
protocolture wrote: post #4

I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I swore I would never take a cruise. Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure you cant leave it for days at a time. It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

For my girlfriend's family's sake, I've taken cruises the last two years. One Royal Caribbean, and one Norwegian. Decades ago I took a couple of Carnival cruises. Things are not better now. What a shitshow. Royal Caribbean sucked, but Norwegian was a new low. The only word that describes both the en-route experience and the destinations is DISMAL. At least Royal Caribbean had a pleasant food-court type of dining area…

Not sure where you have gotten your experience from. If there is a smoke just complain and it will be taken care of.

Been cruising for many years and loving it.

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

#293

Post by jesterson »

protocolture wrote: post #4

I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I swore I would never take a cruise. Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure you cant leave it for days at a time. It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

You been for 3 hours somewhere and making subjective generalizations on all industry? that's interesting

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

#294

Post by jesterson »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go. They burn colossal amounts of fuel, they produce lots of toxic exhaust, sewage, etc. A lot of destinations for these things don't exactly have a lot of regulations for any of this either. Just flying to your destination and staying in some nice place is arguably both better for the environment and probably a lot more enjoyable depending on your tastes. No…

Arguably indeed. You have some support for your emotional claims or it is what it is - emotional claims?

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

#295

Post by hgomersall »

smrq wrote: post #285
hgomersall wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not intending this to be snarky, but do you not have friends you meet at work? Is it a case of your friends knowing not to call your for work reasons?

The implication that it's typical for one's friends to call them on vacation for work reasons is bonkers to me. What kind of friends are those?

It was a question related to the GP saying they never handed their personal phone number out to people they worked with, which seemed rather limiting to me.

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

#296

Post by kqr »

ghaff wrote: post #161
mnahkies wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only been on one cruise, but I'd semi agree. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, but the time on shore was too short for my liking, I prefer to stay the same place for several days and get immersed - I think of it as a better all inclusive resort (and sometimes that's what you need)

Generally speaking, I wouldn't do a cruise except somewhere like the Galapagos where it's pretty much the option. But I did do an Atlantic crossing after semi-retiring. I paid for a minor cabin upgrade and it wasn't really worth it. I'm not sitting on a balcony crossing the Atlantic anyway and I'm not spending time in my cabin.

Huh. Maybe these things change with age or I misunderstand the premise but sitting on a balcony over the Atlantic and just reading and writing for days on end sounds like a dream vacation for me. What made it unpleasant?

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

#297

Post by fuzzfactor »

oska wrote: post #286
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Without 'moral righteousness' we have a degenerate society

>we have a degenerate society

I knew there had to be some reason . . .

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

#298

Post by jillesvangurp »

raldi wrote: post #142
jillesvangurp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't normally dump our sewage straight in the ocean.

Nor do cruise ships.

Actually they do. This is all well documented. There have been some failed attempts to change this. But dumping in international waters is cheaper and without (financial) consequences. They dump sewage hundreds of tons of sewage on a typical journey.

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

#299

Post by robbiep »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #89
pfdietz wrote: post #33

This reminds me of the case a British destroyer from WW1. This ship started as two Tribal class destroyers, HMS Nubian and HMS Zulu. In 1916, the first lost its bow to a torpedo (and then running aground); the second lost its stern to a mine. The admiralty decided to salvage the remains by joining them together into a new ship, dubbed HMS Zubian. https://www.twz.com/royal-navy-once-created-a-franken-ship-f...

I used to have a car like that - relative in car business specialized in buying late model cars that had one end (front or back) in good shape, and other end wrecked, and would use the two good halves to make a new car. He used a jig to get the alignment precise, and claimed it was as good as factory. The car seemed fine - there was no way to tell.

In Cuba I had a hairy drive from Havana to Vinales driven by the owner’s 12 year old son in a stretch Lada - ⅔ of one and ⅔ of the other

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

#300

Post by protocolture »

SoftTalker wrote: post #213
protocolture wrote: post #4

I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I swore I would never take a cruise. Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure you cant leave it for days at a time. It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

Yeah I cannot imagine the attraction. It's almost literally one of the last things I'd ever want to spend vacation time on. I talked to a guy who took a week-long cruise that he described as being locked in a prison breathing diesel exhaust. He said there was no place on the ship were you could not smell the exhaust.

My issue wasnt the exhaust it was rotten food / human waste smell.

Also the ship I was on used seacreatures instead of level numbers. Felt like walking around an app designed with security by obscurity.

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