Cycling UK Forum

Cyril Haearn wrote:Some liners have libraries, culture, live music, expert lectures
I love the ocean too, go to bed by Lerwick, wake up by Kirkwall..

I do rather fancy a cruise, might do one in a couple of years, I am pregnant with the idea now, as we say
..
@kwackers
The food is included in the price, not 'free'
Whatabout cabins, are the cheapest cabins ok? The lowest price is for a pot-luck cabin, one might be lucky and get a good one

Nothing is "free"...

I get the impression cabins are a mixed bag. Never had a problem with any but there are a few vids around on choosing cabins to avoid noise from the noisy bits of the ship.
Timing seems to be everything when booking, time it right and you'll get a low price with a choice of cabins. Towards the sailing date you're taking pot luck and often you have no choice.
YouTube often has videos of individual cabins on a ship so worth a poke around.

The UK cruise I booked had an offer on a "luxury cabin with balcony" which had a "restricted view" but was £150 cheaper than an internal cabin whose view was definitely more restricted as well as being twice the size and having a large balcony.
A quick search on YouTube showed the exact cabin and the restricted view was a lifeboat a deck down which meant you couldn't see directly down into the sea - hardly a deal breaker.

Saw a Despatches on C$ featuring cruise ships.Many seem to throw rubbish overboard.The people seem to like dressing for dinner,donning tuxedos and aping the privileged of a bygone era.I have travelled down Dalmatian coast on a car ferry,and travelled from Rhodes to many lesser islands in Greece,but no-one wore smart clothes,and even the crew would not eat with captain.I imagine many passengers are small C conservatives,older rather than younger and drawn from a narrow (minded) demographic.I await correction.

The law of the sea does or did permit chucking a lot of rubbish in the water if one is far enough away from the coast

mumbojumbo wrote:Saw a Despatches on C$ featuring cruise ships.Many seem to throw rubbish overboard.The people seem to like dressing for dinner,donning tuxedos and aping the privileged of a bygone era.I have travelled down Dalmatian coast on a car ferry,and travelled from Rhodes to many lesser islands in Greece,but no-one wore smart clothes,and even the crew would not eat with captain.I imagine many passengers are small C conservatives,older rather than younger and drawn from a narrow (minded) demographic.I await correction.

I suspect a lot of the stuff on Despatches is also from a bygone era.
Most things change except our desire to cling to things that confirm our beliefs.

The cruise industry is a bit of a polished tard like a lot of things in life, but they're also aware things can't continue as they were, the "conservative" types are a reducing part of their audience so they have to pitch at the younger generation - a generation more likely to espouse the "green way".

As a criticism I'm not sure I see what's wrong with dressing for dinner. I personally don't do it but I'm a bit of a scruff - usually because I forget I'm wearing my "best" jeans when walking past my workshop.
But as something to try and ridicule I'm struggling to see what the problem actually is...

Right again utility, dressing up for dinner looks fun to me, still got a tie from my employer c 1987
I fear there is a caste system on cruises, only Gold Class guests get to dine with the captain

Pebble wrote:It is probably the most environmentally destructive holiday you can possibly take - it is something like 4x as much co2 per passenger mile than a airliner, they're a total nightmare.

This BBC report suggests flying and cruising are in the same ballpark.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49349566

irc wrote:

Pebble wrote:It is probably the most environmentally destructive holiday you can possibly take - it is something like 4x as much co2 per passenger mile than a airliner, they're a total nightmare.

This BBC report suggests flying and cruising are in the same ballpark.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49349566

I think one of the problems with trying to "environmentally quantify" stuff like this is you can always find a survey that will confirm whatever belief system you have.

For example the general examples are something along the lines of "emissions per km" which is fine but it assumes that cruises and planes are doing the same thing - transporting you to your destination.
Except of course they're not.

A cruise is a complete holiday, so when you fly somewhere - what do you do for the time you spend at your destination? What about the emissions of your hotel? Its sanitary practices? What does it do with your rubbish? Effluent? How do you travel around?
Plus there's how and where you pollute, pollution at 38,000 feet is somewhat less desirable than at sea level.

In theory a cruise could be pretty clean indeed and they're certainly sitting up and taking notice - their main problem is those billion pound ships aren't about to get discarded any time soon.

kwackers wrote:... - their main problem is those billion pound ships aren't about to get discarded any time soon.

I've read something recently suggesting that they might be used as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers / OR spinning the idea that they would make good prison hulks for refugees. (Delete as appropriate depending on POV.)

How does a cruise ship keep everything going whilst docked?

Three or four years ago I was camping on the Knoydart peninsula. A cruise ship came to the jetty for the night: they never even lowered the gangway.

Keeps the dirty diesel engines running of course
There are plans at some ports to supply moored vessels with electricity using cables from land to the moorings

kwackers wrote:I think one of the problems with trying to "environmentally quantify" stuff like this is you can always find a survey that will confirm whatever belief system you have.

For example the general examples are something along the lines of "emissions per km" which is fine but it assumes that cruises and planes are doing the same thing - transporting you to your destination.
Except of course they're not.

A cruise is a complete holiday, so when you fly somewhere - what do you do for the time you spend at your destination?What about the emissions of your hotel? Its sanitary practices? What does it do with your rubbish? Effluent? How do you travel around?
Plus there's how and where you pollute, pollution at 38,000 feet is somewhat less desirable than at sea level.

In theory a cruise could be pretty clean indeed and they're certainly sitting up and taking notice - their main problem is those billion pound ships aren't about to get discarded any time soon.

I would've thought many, probably most, cruise holidays involve flights too. My brother worked on a Caribbean cruise ship and pretty well all the passengers flew from somewhere to embark and return home.

In pre-Covid days l met an American tourist who was on a round-the-UK cruise. He'd flown from California to do it, so what could be advertised as a 'no fly' cruise to the domestic market definitely wasn't for him.

Each to their own but even if you paid me I'd not go on a cruise.
Being stuck on a posh floating block of flats with thousands of others isn't a holiday, it's a sentence!
Wasted food on these cruises is massive. Buffets where some people load their plates and leave most of it.
When in port they are massively polluting to the area.

Maybe they have a place for those who want a holiday that is not taxing in anyway.

We have three close friends who cruise every year and nothing they have told me about their holidays has made me want to go.

Pebble wrote:It is probably the most environmentally destructive holiday you can possibly take - it is something like 4x as much co2 per passenger mile than a airliner, they're a total nightmare.

We point this out to our resident preachy environmentalist at work every year when he goes on one.His response?He off-sets it the rest of the year.So that's alright then

I can think of nothing worse than a cruise personally.OK so you wake in a different Port or Country every day but you get so little time to see the place.The Ferry from Dover to Calais is long enough for me!
I might change my mind if I'm still here in 20 or so years.

Sea cruise = floating prison with ocasional shore leave to me.No thanks.

francovendee wrote:Wasted food on these cruises is massive. Buffets where some people load their plates and leave most of it.

You ever been to the pub for food - particular the "Sunday buffet".

There are a lot more pubs than cruises.

People are wasteful, IMO the real problem isn't the cruise or the pub, it's how do you stop that behaviour in the first place.