Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 64 posts

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

#31

Post by ainiriand »

benj111 wrote: post #29
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…

"I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants" Aren't most cruise ship full board? Plus you seem to suggest that visitor numbers are very lumpy which would make it very difficult to size the local restaurant industry. If average summer visitors are 10000, then the QE2 dumps out 20000 visitors for 2 days out of the month, do you size yourself to accommodate 10000 visitors…

Yes, most of them are full board. But you just don't want to go back to the ship only for lunch, so you have lunch in the city, where you can have a taste of the local cuisine.

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

#32

Post by clort »

Angostura wrote: post #25
maccard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carnival, emitted more than all of Europe's cars last year (by a factor of 10 IIRC). Something is always going to be the worst polluter. If the people who took a carnival cruise flew around the world instead, what would the impact be? (And what would happen to the fuel that those cruise ships are currently burning?) It's still a horriffic stat, but I'd love a nuanced discussion on it!

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 less than that. Lets estimate 300 miles per day, so a 2 week cruise could rack up ~4200 sea miles. => 1806 Kg of CO2

If I flew from Heathrow to Antigua for those 2 weeks, that would be ~8000 air miles. => 2056 Kg of CO2

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

#33

Post by janlaureys »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #11

The Economist seemed to miss the "private island" angle. The MSC cruise line just announced one: https://www.msccruisesusa.com/en-us/Cruise-Destinations/Cari... (video player window pops up)

That video looks like the intro of a Black Mirror episode.

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

#34

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

Angostura wrote: post #25
maccard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carnival, emitted more than all of Europe's cars last year (by a factor of 10 IIRC). Something is always going to be the worst polluter. If the people who took a carnival cruise flew around the world instead, what would the impact be? (And what would happen to the fuel that those cruise ships are currently burning?) It's still a horriffic stat, but I'd love a nuanced discussion on it!

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…

The cruise liner is also doing hotel and restaurant for the traveler, and there's less of the "taxi to town" involved.

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

#35

Post by maccard »

Angostura wrote: post #25
maccard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carnival, emitted more than all of Europe's cars last year (by a factor of 10 IIRC). Something is always going to be the worst polluter. If the people who took a carnival cruise flew around the world instead, what would the impact be? (And what would happen to the fuel that those cruise ships are currently burning?) It's still a horriffic stat, but I'd love a nuanced discussion on it!

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…

Wow, that's so much worse than I thought. The previous example was just NOx and SOx - I suspected it would win out based on CO2 at least.

My question is still though what would happen to the low grade fuel that they're currently burning? If people started to fly, and the low grade fuel was just burned anyway because it's so cheap (thinking long haul freighter etc), the situation would be worse!

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

#36

Post by oh_sigh »

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…

> 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.

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

#37

Post by benj111 »

ainiriand wrote: post #31
benj111 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants" Aren't most cruise ship full board? Plus you seem to suggest that visitor numbers are very lumpy which would make it very difficult to size the local restaurant industry. If average summer visitors are 10000, then the QE2 dumps out 20000 visitors for 2 days out of the month, do you size yourself to accommodate 10000 visitors…

Yes, most of them are full board. But you just don't want to go back to the ship only for lunch, so you have lunch in the city, where you can have a taste of the local cuisine.

Potentially.

I suspect there's a lot of cultural and generational norms wrapped up in that though. A ship full of Swedes may prefer to return to the boat to eat, a ship full of Spaniards may all want 3 course meals on land, that just makes it harder for the host city to predict demand.

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

#38

Post by sokoloff »

mozey wrote: post #19
lopmotr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Instead of asking would you fire them for their own good, rather ask, do you employ them for their own good?

If they voluntarily show up, I think they are judging that I am offering them something better (or at least as good) as their next best option. That’s one formulation of “their own good”.

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

#39

Post by Retric »

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…

Longer trips would take you to different locations. So, sure visiting Australia from Florida would result in more pollution, but that’s not the same experience as a Caribbean cruise.

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

#40

Post by Angostura »

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…

Alternatively, cruises tend to take meandering inefficient routes - comparable flights will always be shorter.
Post reply on HN