![]() 07/06/2020 at 15:45 • Filed to: None | ![]() | ![]() |
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These things carry like 6,000 passengers and have enough deck chairs for all but 5,900 of them. I’d have said “Nope” even before COVID-19.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 15:55 |
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![]() 07/06/2020 at 15:57 |
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That’s because everyone on them is stuffing their face, getting hammered, gambling, and shopping.
Hard pass for me as well.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:00 |
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Here is a full list of everything about cruise ships that appeals to me:
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![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:05 |
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Ive never been a fan of those apartment block shopping mall style cruise ships, they’re designed to maximize profit per cubic foot, not to maximize passenger comfort. IMO, Holland America’s 90s era Statendam Class were the perfect size, big enough to have all the amenities you want, small enough to still be intimate and easy to find your way around, with the quality of food and service that you get from not having to pump out 20,000 meals a day assembly line style.
But, Carnival eventually screwed them up too, in the name of more $$$, bolting on more balconies and Lego style extra cabin modules.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:07 |
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My wife keeps talking about taking a cruise but I’m with you. Absolutely nothing about them appeals to me. I might do a river cruise or one of those ones on a big sailboat but cram myself in a tiny room on a ship with 6,000 people? No fucking way.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:09 |
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The only good boat.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:09 |
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With some of these boats it would take the entire cruise just to explore the whole damn thing.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:16 |
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The only cruises I feel like I’d ever be able to enjoy are those small 100-passenger coast al cruises
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:20 |
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Right there with you. My wife is a never-cruiser because of what she calls the “poop cruises” when there are norovirus outbreaks onboard.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:21 |
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I’ve only been on a cruise before. I did it my way, which certainly wasn’t the way most people were doing it, nor the way I think it was designed to be done, but the entire thing sucked. Too many people/crowded, not good for seeing much of anything, etc. It’s basically a shitty mobile hotel for people that can’t live directly out of a suitcase or don’t want to pack up frequently.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:24 |
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I have a married friend who is almost begging me to go on a cruise with the couple - I can’t warm up to being stuck for a week or two in a gigantic hotel probably mostly filled with idiots, and paying handsomely for it (one of the cruises is something like 5K for a single, unless I want a broom closet - the other one has rooms seriously under 100 sq ft) . That open bar better serve absinthe.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:27 |
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They often sail under the flag of convenience so as to pay the crew near the least they can with the least benefits, the staff are often worked incredibly hard with basic sleeping accommodation, etc...
Sometimes the crew leave the ship owing money to the cruise company.
Not for me, thank you. I’d rather fly somewhere and enjoy some history, architecture, culture, etc...
EDIT: five cruise ships have been detained in the U.K. under welfare concern, poor crew conditions, poor treatment of crew, etc... some crew have not left the vessels for 11 months, being paid late, hunger strikes and even one death.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:28 |
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nope nope nope, and nope.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:29 |
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I’ve always wanted to do that. A friend of mine worked a couple summers playing jazz on the American Queen riverboat, he still talks about how much he enjoyed that, best gig he ever had, not the highest paying, but they aren’t always the same thing. The food was supposed to be excellent, much better than the big megaships.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:31 |
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This isn’t inviting to you? Unless you like windows.. those are extra. Bigger windows are extra yet. A door with a window, much more extra.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:35 |
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I’ve seen a few articles, some people live on those damn things...like 11 months out of the year. On a cruise ship. Crazy.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:36 |
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Did a cruise once with a friend when we were 19 it was fun but most of that fun was being able to get hammered and do so with tropical scenery. No way I’d go on another even pre rona. The absolute worst kinds of tourists including underaged drunkards such as ourselves. Hard pass
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:38 |
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My wife really wanted to do a cruise next year for our tenth anniversary. She has done a few and absolutely loved them. It really didn’t appeal to me. Thankfully I think she has changed her mind on that idea.
I like my vacations to involve being away from people. I wanted to pick an area where we could spend 10 days and explore parts of a couple of national parks instead. Sadly she will want a cabin instead of back country camping, but a cabin at a national park beats a broom closet on a ship with 5998 people that I don’t want to talk to.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:50 |
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I’ll respect opinions that many people don’t like cruise ships but be aware that media is decidedly negative narrative
on the industry. A lot of current
knowledge is either simply false, straw man, or outdated facts
.
I have a full overtly dry short detail on the history of IMO MARPOL vessel pollution regulations I can post. Currently a general and one specific to air pollution. It’s not an attempt to change your mind, it’s an explanation by someone who’s not only worked onboard but actually worked with the machinery that are the sources of said pollution. Because most of the stats are formed and spouted off by people who haven’t set foot on a vessel. Are you going to believe a car review by someone that doesn’t have a drivers license and is decidedly for mass transit? No, you wouldn’t, but that’s what many people have decidedly bought into with regards to the cruise industry.
Be aware that there are millions of crew, their families, as well as people and businesses across the globe that are now enduring uncertainties and hardships as the industry has ground to the halt and likely to suffer recession for the next few years.
This is what set me off against a certain author on FP and why I rarely engage there anymore.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:52 |
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I agree. I don’t know if it was the same size ship, but my wife and went on a HA cruise back in ‘07 and enjoyed it. Of course even if it wasn’t the same it still was much smaller than most cruise ships and it was going up the west coast of Canada to Alaska and a cruise ship made sense for enjoying Glacier Bay.. this was the cruise where I learned what a Beef Wellington was.. (it's been too many years)
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:53 |
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I’ve been on one cruise and it was not a particularly pleasant experience. In highschool our Jazz band and Show choir had setup an arrangement (no idea how) for us to perform a handful of shows as on-ship entertainment in exchange for free room and board (and I think the school got paid).
I was in both the choir and band, 17, a senior and it seemed like a reasonably fun idea. The ship left from New Orleans and was supposed to spend a day at sea, 2 days in Cozumel and 1 day across the sea back to New Orleans.
About 10 or so the first night the boat hit a sandbar in the Mississippi river. I remember a small group of us (5 or 6 friends) were in a hottub on the deck and the lights on the boat shuddered to a halt and the lights went out for a minute. The captain came over the PA a few minutes later saying we got beached on a sandbar and had to wait for a tug to pull us loose and then for the Coast Guard to release us.
The boat didn’t start moving again until the morning. That afternoon while we we’re in rehearsal for our show gale force winds hit. The boat took on what felt like a 25 degree lean. This literally happened while we were dancing so we all fell all over the damn place. It is extremely disorienting for this to happen to you...
At this point all the glass falls in the bar and chairs and tables start falling over. We’re 1 level below the deck and you can hear the deck chairs tumbling off the deck above us. I was now sitting on the dance floor and literally picked up my feet and slid down the floor on my ass like it was a slide.
The worst lasted like 10 minutes until the boat changed direction into the wind but there was a lean all day. The next morning they said with the delays between the wind and the beaching we couldn’t make cozumel so we were going to key west. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Key West, but it’s not Cozumel.
The rest of the trip was relatively boring but left me with a complete lack of desire to ever get on a cruise ship again.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:54 |
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The other floating McDonalds (at the same plaza as the car spike in Wayne’s World) :
https://davidbermantfoundation.org/project/floating-mcdonalds-model/
![]() 07/06/2020 at 16:58 |
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Theres a good chance it was an S-Class, (Statendam, Ryndam, Maasdam, Veendam), or the slightly larger Rotterdam class which are based on it. You might have been real lucky and gotten on the Prinsendam, 38,000 tons and less than 90 0 passengers. That’s been one of the top rated in the world since the late ‘80s, sad to see it left their fleet.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:14 |
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I’ve never been on a cruise. I think I still want to do it at some point.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:18 |
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Yeah. That’s what I would expect.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:19 |
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Some of those small cruises are educational as well.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:19 |
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Remember when we thought the Pacific Princess was a big ship? My wife keeps making noise about wanting to go on a cruise, particularly a Disney cruise. I have zero interest.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:20 |
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Yep.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:21 |
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What about renting an RV? It’s expensive, but can be lots of fun and might be cheaper than a cruise would have been.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:21 |
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Five Guys > McDonald’s
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:23 |
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{ø}
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:24 |
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Not to mention STDs amongst the crew...
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:25 |
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You’re half truthing this:
How much money do you need to live middle class in the Philippines? It’s what the blue man crew was paid. Hard work is relative; most of the Filipino crew members I interacted daily with were happy to do 12mo straight on day work, some even sneaking past the IMO/ILO mandate in extension when I was onboard last decade (they cracked down on it though), then they’d come back after 2-3mo to do another year. They told me this was a good job compared to what they find locally and enjoyed being onboard with their countrymen and making that amount of money.
If they left owing the company, then they must have rung up a HELL of a bar tab.
This is true (I know what you’re referring to), and I don’t agree with what’s going on with that company. They should be punished for the conditions. Remember that’s a smaller line and doesn’t represent the majority of the industry and that the industry is currently dealing with the aftermath that unforeseen Covid has caused. Ships want to make port to exchange crew but it’s the countries that are denying them making port. The Captains are screaming, the companies are screaming, and they aren’t accommodating or facilitating change and repatriation based on the various governments quarantine acts.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:25 |
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W e took an Alaskan cruise a few years ago and I really did enjoy it, not because of the boat but because all the stuff you can do and see. We never did any of the galas or went gambling when we were on ship , rather hung out on the lido deck (which was usually mostly empty,) and drank beer and watched bear and whales and gorgeous scenery . What did surprise me was that the vast majority of patrons never left the ship to do anything - just hung out at the buffet, gambled or just did nothing. I don’t get that...
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:26 |
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One word, one syllable: Yucky.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:26 |
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We don't have that here
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:30 |
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I found it all fairly hilarious at the time - but if I was an adult paying for a vacation I would have been seriously pissed. The cruise line (I think it was carnival) gave everyone back most of their money and a coupon for a few hundred off another cruise but I doubt many took them up on it.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:49 |
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Hi. Thank you for the reply. No, I’ve never set foot on a cruise ship, though I’ve watched a number of documentaries seeing them constructed, new engines installed, crankshafts replaced, et cetera. My wife and I watched a documentary once about life aboard ship, and I read a memoir written by a guy who did the life for a couple of years. And I am shocked and offended that you would accuse the media of having a bias about anything! Not really...
If I filter out all of that, I look at those floating skyscrapers and how little deck space there is, and humanity packed around the edges of the pools and consider how many meals they must have to produce and it’s hard pass.
This is my idea of a cruise ship. It gets a little crowded sometimes, but you can always just jump in the lake.
Sometimes we have to man the lifeboat.
And sleeping accommodations are primitive.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:49 |
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Wear your N95 mask and wash your hands a lot.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:50 |
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That would be my expectation.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:51 |
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What Ops say on Oppo stays on Oppo. Your secret is safe with me.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:51 |
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You forgot the LOL part.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:52 |
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Wear your N95 mask and wash your hands. Frequently.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:56 |
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That sounds actually okay. I’d hate being packed in with a bunch of incurious people.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:57 |
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One of these years I want to have a proper dish of poutine.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:58 |
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me too
![]() 07/06/2020 at 17:58 |
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How can this not now be a dead industry?
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:08 |
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My wife was angling for one - convenient way to “get away” with a toddler who hates being in the car. One silver lining to come out of COVID is that she would likely never consider such an activity ever again, thanks I guess?
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:14 |
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It definitely should be dead. Not particularly good in its heyday anyway.
It won’t get any substantial bailouts from the US governments as they’re all headquartered offshores for tax and regulation purposes so that should help kill it.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:19 |
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I just don’t see any positives.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:24 |
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To be fair, I said often, not always.
And by crew I mean, catering staff, entertainers, etc...as well as the ships engineering crew.
There has been many undercover documentaries done be various TV stations here in the U.K. and a colleague left and was an entertainer on a Disney cruise ship, she is British, because not all crew are fron Thailand or the Philippines.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:27 |
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Too much nope for lol, lol
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:31 |
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Yeah, I’m sure the employees are going to complain about their job while you’re on a cruise...
![]() 07/06/2020 at 18:43 |
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I was thinking of going on a cruise and limiting my social interactions to face-licking...
![]() 07/06/2020 at 19:45 |
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Not to the passengers, but I’m not a passenger.
We had a Romanian who was absolutely miserable and complained everyday because he had a back issue and was the only Caucasian in blue, thus had to endure tagalog all day. He’d request my assistance for any job he could, I think so he could talk to someone and vent.
At this expense he was probably the most amusing person I’ve ever worked with. I’d say over 95% of the total crew was happy to be onboard on the vessel I was on. I did 4 and half months straight through 2 crew rotations as apprentice.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 20:10 |
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And make sure my expensive by real world standards ‘Murkan style healthcare plan is paid up.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 20:29 |
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And yet people still worked those jobs. Why? Perhaps money wasn’t their primary motivator for being onboard.
Maybe they wanted to travel . This was the primary motivator such staff that I found were typically younger from the more developed countries like myself . T hey didn’t own property or have dependents. M any weren’t paying for property taxes or rent. Generally crew chosen in those positions are decent looking so there’s the loose diverse crew mingling aspect that can be attractive to young people.
Crew don’t pay for room and board and the supplied crew meals onboard. So 2 of life’s major necessity expenses are eliminated if they are in the case above .
A s soon as the vessel gets into port, much of the onboard guest services like shops and entertainment shut down and the respective crew would also go ashore and do whatever and enjoy life .
You look at it like they make no money, I look at it as though they had a mixture of working and vacationing . It’s because you look more towards hard data that is presented and compare it to the average shore job, it’s very much apples and oranges .
The media narrative for decades has been to paint these like some sort of slave ships and pre-Covid they just weren’t . O r else no one would have been working on them in their given capacities.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 20:37 |
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Some youngsters do it to see the world, some do it for the experience, few even get noticed and get an entertainer career off ship from it.
Some go into it not knowing everything as it’s painted out to be magical.
My former colleague on the Disney ship was always having to practice, whether in port or not.
She had food and lodging deducted from her paycheck.
If she took I'll, she was quarantined and each day she didn't work, she didn't get paid.
![]() 07/06/2020 at 22:07 |
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Oh I’d rather be on that too for a vacation. :)
If I’m honest for the vast majority of us the typical large cruise vessels and voyages aren’t really suitable with because we’re more able bodied. Hence why the demographic is typically older or less healthy. Which why I can completely understand why people are opposed to them and why they get painted that way. Really it’s not our bag however I think it’s disingenuous in how one sided it’s always portrayed.
In a way it’s a shame that a lot of the large lines have made it commercialized and unauthentic experience. M any port stays are 12-14h (there are some overnights but not prevalent ) and it’s simply not enough time to go and explore the local area especially infested with multiple vessels . Venice has wanted to ban
It’s why many people tend to have a better time on something smaller like a river cruise.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 00:12 |
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Those are pictures from my brother-in-law’s houseboat and we can’t go this year because COVID-19 and there are two new grandbabies in the extended family and Mrs. Vandura and I are very sad that we cannot all gather.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 01:42 |
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two syllables
![]() 07/07/2020 at 02:05 |
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these things are begging to tip over aren’t they? how can they not? when these things have a few years on them the gyroscope is going to go out and make the Titanic look like a small wreck, hope i’m wrong but, hell to the no for me
![]() 07/07/2020 at 02:37 |
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It looks like an awesome get away for the family !
Yeah, this whole Covid deal sucks. BC where myself , CoFL, GMCTavish, CDD and some other BC oppos live have managed to keep it suppressed.
I was lucky to go visit my father today for his B-Day.
In a way, you bringing this up made me realize why I’m kind of sensitive about this. I look a lot more at the human element than most people do because I was integral to the crew during a few months of my life. I was responsible for supplying fresh water for 3500 people. I helped make sure the sewage plant for said people performed to spec . P ropulsion system checks , safe vessel fueling, and many many other tasks.
Where people have been fed information on faceless corps, incidents , and unhealthy and annoying people. I saw a mostly happy and hardworking diverse crew with considerate passengers going about life and visiting beautiful places. There are bumps and mishaps in the industry and 9/10 times that’s what’s reported mainstream but you can find dirt any and every where.
At some point I’ll run an Op-Ed info piece like a confessions of a cruise ship engineer with interesting narrative and clarification . I know I’m up against 20 odd years of hit piece media though.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 02:41 |
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Crew are tested before joining. I had bloodwork done as well as immunization records . I don’t think I got shots but that’s probably because I’d gotten 3 or 4 needles the year before while in the military.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 06:59 |
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each day she didn’t work, she didn’t get paid.
Is that even legal? It probably is due to that ‘flag of convenience’ you mentioned. It’s a nasty loophole.
I’m not sure about other parts of the world, but in Europe these floating cities are a plague that need to be dealt with. Just read up on how they are literally destroying places like Venice. In multiple ways; they ships themselves physically destroy the region and the sudden and short influx of a huge number of tourists do not benefit the economy of the city at all . Those huge cruise ships are the ugly side of mass tourism.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 08:47 |
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She said it was an experience, glad she did it and met some great people, but would never do it again. She went onto Disneyland in the U.S. after that which she enjoyed more.
Ye’, Venice has been trying to ban them for years. The Mayor has been saying he’ll do something about it, yet has been slow to do anything because of the tourist money coming in, even if limited.
It hasn’t helped the cruise liners standing in that they’ve had at least two incidents recently where the liner has crashed into harbour walls.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 08:55 |
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I suspect that relative to the density of the hull and what not, the top part is like a milk carton on its side.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 08:58 |
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I think if you had a job aboard one of those behemoths, and a tolerable living arrangement, then why not enjoy your job? I just draw a gasp of claustrophobia to think of being packed into one of those warrens with 5,000 other passengers.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 09:03 |
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Venice. Place is doomed.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 15:03 |
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I paid all the extra on mine, which included a large deck, windows down two walls , and a number of servants that catered to a small number of cabins. One day I asked for breakfast to be served in my cabin before an early excursion day and my request for 3 slices of bacon became 3 dozen slices of bacon, which was among the more memorable events onboard . Overall, i t sucked, but I couldn’t even fathom how much it would have sucked to be in an inside cabin with no windows or special service. It also kind of reminded me of my trip to Saudi Arabia for a lot of the same disturbing reasons.
![]() 07/07/2020 at 19:00 |
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Im not sure how fair of a comparison it is, as I can think of many events where bacon was the highlight.