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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

#331

Post by EricE »

lostlogin wrote: post #233
robotresearcher wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US. The US isn’t that much larger, I don’t think this argument holds. The geography and locations of population centres seem more of an issue.

"The US isn’t that much larger"

Just search for one of the many pictures of the state (state!) of Texas superimposed over Europe.

The US is freaking huge compared to Europe.

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

#332

Post by EricE »

dmd wrote: post #86
mark_l_watson wrote: post #78

After owning small cruising sailboats for about twenty years my wife and I did the calculation that we could sell our last boat and go on two of three cruises a year. The big cost of cruising, by the way, is not so much the ship but expensive shore excursions that sometimes take you away from the ship overnight. I get all the complaints people have against cruising but for us we have seen so much of the world in rela…

It's also possible to do this on "cruise ships" that aren't "cruise ships". My wife and I toured the Dalmation coast (Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece) on the https://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/luxury-charter-yacht-48957... ten years ago - a cruise, but a cruise with ~30 other people, not ~6000. It's a big difference! The ship itself was, as you say, really just the way to get there; everything happened on-shore.

Yes, smaller boats are definitely of higher appeal to me. Went on a Galapagos cruise years ago and the max amount of passengers was 83 - we had 80 on our cruise. Sadly the dynamics of that trip have changed and I don't know if I would as enthusiastically recommend it (it's become way more commercialized and you don't get to see nearly as much as we did). The big ships have zero appeal to me.

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

#333

Post by lotsofpulp »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #306
lotsofpulp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long does this supposed fraud take to show up? Carnival and Caribbean have been doing business for decades, and Norwegian has been public since 2011. Surely, it would have impacted the bottom line by now at at least one of those 3 businesses.

> How long does this supposed fraud take to show up? Estimating things is non-trivial. It's not fraud for your depreciation estimate to be off by a few percentage points. Banks regularly set their loss provisions artificially low or high to smooth earnings.

I don't understand the point you are trying to make. If the estimates are incorrect, then they will show up after decades of operating as a business, being realized via the sale price of the ships or repair costs or whatever. The profit margins reported in the 10-Ks seem like an an accurate estimate of what a big cruise company can expect to earn, based on the current best management practices and technology.

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

#334

Post by tssva »

toast0 wrote: post #199
giantg2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

US Customs and Border only require a birth certificate and government issued id for US citizens re-entering the US on closed-loop cruises. A closed-loop cruise is defined as a cruise leaving and returning from the same port in the US. This is the vast majority of cruises from the US.

Also many western hemisphere countries including almost all of those in the Carribean have agreements in place which allow US citizens arriving and departing via a cruise ship to need only a birth certificate and government id.

Traveling with a passport is best practice, you for instance are in trouble if miss your ship for some reason, but is not required for the vast majority of cruises from the US.

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

#335

Post by tssva »

hypercube33 wrote: post #238
giantg2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every cruise I've been on (US Citizen) required a passport. There are customs getting on the boat and off at the home port.

I have never been on a cruise from the US which required clearing customs individually at a port in the western hemisphere. The ships are usually cleared as a whole by customs upon arrival and most countries that cruise ships visit in the western hemisphere have agreements in place only requiring birth certificates and a government id for US citizens arriving and departing via the ship. Re-entering the US does require clearing customs but for closed-loop cruises from the US, the vast majority of cruises from the US, you can do so using a broth certificate and goverment issued id.

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

#336

Post by teqsun »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #40
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.

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…

You're missing an important intersection: you can get on a closed-loop cruise from the US without a passport and with a criminal record.

Cruises fill the "cheap Caribbean getaway" segment for the sizable American population where getting a passport or not having a criminal history would otherwise be a blocker.

Arguably it's also a motivator in why Cruises have the reputation they do, but that's beside the point.

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

#337

Post by tssva »

toast0 wrote: post #199
giantg2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is incorrect. Most cruises from the US are closed loop cruises meaning they depart and arrive back at the same port. CBP only requires a birth certificate and government issued id in these circumstances. In addition almost all countries in the western hemisphere which US originating cruises regularly visit allow US citizens arriving and departing via the cruise ship to enter with only a birth certificate and goverment id. In the Carribean the only exception which comes to mind immediately is Martinique. They used to not require a passport but changed this requirement during covid and have not gone back. Although US originating cruises do visit Martinique, I did so on a cruise in February, it is not a common destination.

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

#338

Post by ghaff »

reaperman wrote: post #258
robotresearcher wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The EU is 1.5 million square miles of land area. The continental US is 3.1 million square miles of land area. Continental Europe incl. non-EU countries is over 4 million square miles of land area.

And there's very little day-to-day train travel across that area.

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

#339

Post by tssva »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #318
aj7 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serendipity on cruises, eh? The axiom of cruises is: You will never see these people again.

Do people go cruising to make long term friends?

I have plenty of long term friends, but I have never done any activity with the explicit goal of gainng them.

That being said I have made long term friends on cruises.

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

#340

Post by ghaff »

zenoprax wrote: post #90
bosie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear me out but maybe spend the cruise money for getting coaching from a psychologist/therapist to help you with feeling anxious at home? That doesn’t sound like a great overall attitude, having stress responses at home and work related

In a less serious way there is the possibility (and therefore a potential expectation) of being 'productive' when at home. Chores, errands, unfinished projects and all the other daily life that surrounds you. For me, any time off spent away from home has a different timbre of rejuvenation and I say that as someone who loves being at home.

I think that's totally fair. I tend to like fairly active vacations for the most part. But it's also the case that, when I'm at home, I also feel the pull for all sorts of tasks that are pretty much endless.
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