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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

#351
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> The US is freaking huge compared to Europe.

I have compared them, and I don’t see what you’re seeing. Depending on how you measure (do you include European Russia, ie the bit west of the Urals?) Europe is larger.

https://www.worldatlas.com/geography/are-the-usa-and-europe-...

https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/unit...

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you being so skeptical? I know dozens of people that have gone cruising and I don't exactly belong to the stereotypical cruising crowd. Assuming and a accusing a commenter is lying directly breaks HN guidelines.

I think you've got it 100% backwards, so don't be quoting Scripture at me like it means anything. I know three people who've come home sick. He's the one being skeptical and quoting a well-known meme: https://tenor.com/search/there-are-dozens-of-us-gifs

I was not referencing Arrested Development. Dozens is a term that was used to describe groups of people well before AD and the context here doesn't fit the meme at all.

I am not skeptical at all that you know three people who got sick on a cruise, but out of the 30+ million people who cruise in a year it's completely meaningless. A CDC study showed that only about 0.18% of cruisers get a stomach bug

I could easily come up with a list of 24+ people who have gone on a cruise and not gotten sick. Why are my dozens less valid than your 3? You can post your anecdata but don't get mad when someone counters it with their own.

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Did you notify staff? This would almost certainly get remediated or result in reimbursement.

It wasn't possible to identify the source. Now that you mention it, though, I wonder what they would have done. Late at night before bed, when you want to hang out and look at the ocean, isn't the time you want to call the steward and wait for someone to come up into your room.

Yea I mean the best they can do is reassign your room but it's the same situation as if this happened in a elevator. My point being that "smells like human shit in my room" is just as unacceptable on a boat as it is in a hotel.

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't possible to identify the source. Now that you mention it, though, I wonder what they would have done. Late at night before bed, when you want to hang out and look at the ocean, isn't the time you want to call the steward and wait for someone to come up into your room.

Yea I mean the best they can do is reassign your room but it's the same situation as if this happened in a elevator. My point being that "smells like human shit in my room" is just as unacceptable on a boat as it is in a hotel.

Hahaha, well it wasn't in the room; only outside on the side of the ship. And appeared to be widely dispersed. Thus it didn't seem as though a solution would be forthcoming anyway.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that they make 1/3rd of what an American does while simultaneously working harder than the average rest and vest engineer at a tech retirement home like Microsoft. Everyone I think about how bad American WLB is, I take a look at the supposed utopias of Europe and find that they’re whole nations of crabs in a bucket.

> I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that they make 1/3rd of what an American does Including healthcare and public facilities? Or does this only apply to tech workers?

Yeah above a certain income threshold, healthcare is actually rather cheap here. Like ~$700/month total cost for the employer and mostly $0 for employees. For excellent care. Annually that’s 4.2% of a 200k salary. That’s significantly less than what you would pay in your social contributions in Europe. but of course it sucks for people who don’t make good money, which is the whole point of complaints.

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

#356
post #304
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Welds are quite strong -- it just extends the metal. This is especially true when the baseline quality of the metal is not high. This is not the case at all. A weld almost always weakens the base material. And you don't just use whatever steel is the cheapest to build a ship. You use what is appropriate to the use case. There are cheaper and more expensive options within that category, but you make it sound like you…

Welds weakening the base metal is a myth that is disproven literally day 1 of any welding course. There are metals that don't like the heating and will weaken, but if the weld breaks before the base metal, someone fucked up real bad. Of course shit welding can cause weakening of the material but thats true of everything. Anything that is worth welding that also is important will use metals that have strong welding pr…

This is misleading or wrong. In general, the weakest part of a steel weld is the heat-affected zone. Not the rest of the base metal. Not the weld.

The heat-affected zone is caused by the weld. Ergo, welds to weaken the base metal.

In most cases, this also doesn't matter. I think all but one of the things I've welded, even a bad weld would have been way more than strong enough, and for many, even the tack weld would have held fine. Welds are very, very strong, and it's usually cheap and easy to use sufficiently strong materials that all of this is moot.

But for something like an ultralight bike frame, racing car, or airplane, it is something you do need to worry about.

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

#357
post #160

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.

>It interests me that demand is increasing I admire your embrace of the “curiosity, not disparagement” principle.

Well I could go that route too.

I remember a bunch of cruise ships got sold off during covid.

And we have had some market consolidation in Aus, I think P&O might have pulled a merger and then kept the incoming brand. I think one ship is leaving.

But my anecdotal evidence is weak and region specific.

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

#358

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.

It seems that those three hours gave you insight into one particular operators' practices, but obviously not the industry as a whole.

Well I spent ~3 years working portside it was just the one time I got to go into the ship that repulsed me.

Well that and seeing the dead woman rolled out + (much) later learning that she had died of a drug overdose during an orgy.

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

#359

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

I literally went inside a place and found it disgusting.

But yeah also, as above, I worked portside for years too. Its just the memories of going aboard that still haunt me.

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

#360
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He was greatly exaggerating or has an incredibly sensitive nose

When they shut down Wharf 8 in sydney, where I was working, they moved the ships to a temporary location without an onshore power connection for the ships.

Diesel exhaust fume complaints came from suburbs around the wharf.

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