20 decks, 40 restaurants, and a waterfall
Bloomberg on the cruise ship question:
When Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas embarks on its first official voyage on Jan. 27, the journey is sure to make waves. The world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon is over 1,000 feet long (360 meters) and weighs in around 250,000 gross registered tons. It boasts 20 different decks; 40 restaurants, bars and lounges; seven pools; six waterslides and a 55-foot waterfall. Royal Caribbean says its boat will usher in “a new era of vacations.”
Maybe so. But the Icon is also a doubling down on a negative aspect of cruising’s current era: greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2022, Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Program at the International Council on Clean Transportation examined the carbon footprint of cruising as compared to a hotel stay plus air travel — since cruises are effectively floating hotels. His analysis found that a person taking a US cruise for 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) on the most efficient cruise line would be responsible for roughly 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of CO2, compared with 518 pounds (235 kilograms) for a round-trip flight and a stay in a four-star hotel. In other words: Taking a cruise generates “about double the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions” as flying, Comer says.
Also, Bloomberg goes on to say, people usually fly to get to the cruise ship.
People are also going on cruises in bigger numbers than ever.
Cruise ships’ climate impact isn’t limited to emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere. The enormous vessels also spew a soot-like substance known as black carbon, which absorbs sunlight and traps heat on the ground. In the Arctic, which is playing host to a growing number of cruises, black carbon can settle on snow and ice, speeding up the rate at which glaciers melt. Bartolini Cavicchi says that while cruise ships account for around 1% of the global fleet, they’re responsible for 6% of black carbon emissions.
Well maybe once Alaska is covered in soot people won’t want to take cruises there any more.
Just kidding. By that time people will be killing each other for a loaf of bread.
But liquid natural gas! Better!
LNG-powered ships do emit 25% less CO2 than those running on conventional marine fuels, but one 2023 investigation by environmental activists found that cruise ships running on LNG often leak some of it directly into the atmosphere as methane, a greenhouse gas that in the short term is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. For three out of four engine types, the investigation determined that LNG was worse for the climate in the short term than conventional fuels.
Ok ok ok but long term it will be great. Somehow.
Ugh, cruises look like one awful thing after another. On top of the CO2 emissions there’s the direct food and plastic waste they create, the terrible labour conditions, disruption of small communities via overtourism and marine environment pollution…
And for what? I hear all the time that they’re not as cheap or as relaxing as they’re billed to be: you’re trapped in international waters at the mercy of the waves, the weather, seasickness, all kinds of diseases thanks to the cramped quarters, and salespeople at every turn hawking everything from Pina Coladas to kitchy Thomas Kincade paintings.
And I wonder: the bigger and taller the boats get, doesn’t that leave less sunny upper deck space for each person packed into the dozens of decks below? These things are basically giant hotel towers, but the only place to go outside is the roof. I imagine the deck up there must get awfully packed. What’s relaxing or fun about that?
I can see their appeal in theory: the transatlantic cruises of the movies always look so romantic. I’m thinking of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or The Talented Mr. Ripley. (Or, well, Titanic!) But I suspect the reality is more like Las Vegas: they lure you with an illusory idea. I spent a day in Vegas once. I went in expecting charming retro kitch Americana like in the old Rat Pack movies — Elvis impersonators, neon signs, be-feathered showgirls — but in reality it was nothing but a plastic, air conditioned, cigarette stained shopping mall. And cruise ships, like Vegas, lure you with low prices but are designed to drain your bank account every second they’ve got you. At least I could flee Vegas after the first night for the beauty of the desert. I wouldn’t enjoy being trapped in a mall for a week.
If you’re gonna drain your bank account for a vacation, it actually is possible to relax, be pampered, see interesting and beautiful sights, and feel a little bit of cinematic glamour, all without destroying the environment or exploiting workers: Take a train!
The transatlantic trips in those movies weren’t cruises but transportation…although like cruises in providing meals etc, in ascending luxury according to class. I did it once as a teenager (long story) and only wish I could remember more about it. One thing I do remember though is being on deck at night leaning on the rail watching the Atlantic pass by, in complete solitude. Not at all like a cruise thank fuck.
One you forgot is Sabrina.
Actually I remember the deck chairs too, and sitting in them, and walking around the deck.
Ah, Sabrina!
I took a kind-of cruise once: an overnight boat from the south of France to a port in Italy not far from Rome.
But it was actually a cargo ship which had been configured with a small section for human passengers. I loved it. The deck was just the ship’s helipad strewn with a few deck chairs. I watched the sun set over the Mediterranean, and then in the almost-pitch-black of night I could see various hilly coastlines, strewn with the lights of settlements, just far enough that you couldn’t make out the details, and I tried to guess what they were. Monaco? Corsica? Maybe little villages on nameless little islands…
It was, like you say, transportation first and foremost. But I’ll never forget it.
I can’t imagine the solitude of the open sea at night, though. Sounds magical.
INot for me! They sound like hell on earth. I
I don’t really like commercial “fun” anyway. So forced, so fake. I find adults addicted to Disney pathetic. If you have kids, maybe? But to pay that much money for treacly FUN FUN. Ugh. Shoot me!
I think this is somewhat misleading. They are closer to floating amusement parks or floating resorts than floating hotels. You would have to take into account the carbon footprint of restaurants, clubs, swimming pools, shows, and (to some extent) rides. Hotels have some of these things, but people are usually expected to get the bulk of their entertainment and dining outside of the hotel. I still suspect cruises would come out on top in this comparison, but by a bit of a smaller factor.
There are parts of Disney that are much more tailored to adults. Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios have a lot of attractions that are aimed that way. Disney is extremely good at catering to a wide audience. If you want to camp out, or sit in a grove of trees to read a book, or play golf or tennis, or go see a movie, or take in a concert, they’ve got you covered. For a fee, and often requiring reservations, but they’ve got it.
I’d like to go again, maybe even a couple of times, but I don’t think I’d want to go every year, even if I lived nearby and could afford it. But I know people (adults without children) who do go every year. I would personally avoid Magic Kingdom, but my wife wants to go there, so we’ll go there at least once in our anticipated trip one of these days. Epcot, with its many science exhibits, international cultural exhibits, ethnic restaurants, and top-notch farm and seafood restaurants, is easily my favorite of their Florida parks.
@Sackbut
I see your point. And I guess I can see the appeal to people — comfort and predictablility: you know exactly what you’re going to get going into it. That has huge appeal to some people. I can see that.
But it’s sooo not for me. It reminds me of Philip K. Dick, via Arnold Schwartzenegger. Dick’s sci-fi short story I Can Remember It For You Wholesale, in which a suburban office worker buys a memory implant of a perfect vacation instead of actually going on one. It’s so anodyne, what’s the difference? What’s the point? In the Hollywood film version, Total Recall, that premise is the setup for something more exciting & interesting: that to even consider an off-the-shelf vacation package is so pointless to someone who wants a true adventure, that the sales team instead concocts a scenario so real and unpredictable — so off the safety rails — that even us the audience are left unsure in the end if the whole thing we saw was just a scripted part of the customer’s vacation package, or a truly off-script adventure.
I digress, but I guess what I mean is that the climate-controlled scriptedness of the Magic Kingdom just doesn’t do it for me. I’d rather try my luck in an uncontrolled environment, where the risk of disappointment is counterbalanced many times over by the chance of unexpected novelty. To me, the true joys of vacations are the things we didn’t expect going into them.
The best parts of life are always the things we least expect. Sometimes it seems like the point of Disney is to eliminate such variables.
I guess that works for some people. Busy people with kids to raise and bills to pay. I get that. But to me all I think is: I could find more relaxation and authenticity by simply taking a long walk in my own neighbourhood.
I’ve long wanted to take a ship across the Atlantic on my trips to Europe. At the very least it seems like a way to avoid the worst of jet lag. My sister used to make annual trips to collect samples in the Pacific on the Alvin boat, and even went down in the submersible a couple of times. From her descriptions it sounds magical.
And on somewhat of a tangent brought on by the talk of “Sabrina”: if I had to limit myself to the films of just one director, it would have to be Billy Wilder. He created classics in just about every genre except Western. Even our (grown) kids enjoyed a New Year’s Day showing of “The Apartment”.
Living in a small university-centered city in the Midwest, with lots of culture about and nature close at hand, I could never understand the appeal of a cruise. Spend a ton of hard-earned money to sit amid phony luxury, waiting for it to be over? But then I had a job in Chicago, in November — and driving into the city, in the gathering gloom, on a cold, drizzly late afternoon, through the deepening urban canyons, past mile after mile of drab apartment buildings… There loomed a giant illuminated billboard advertising cruises, and I understood the possible appeal of escaping that dismal world, however briefly.
Frankly, a vacation doesn’t appeal to me at all. I can relax for free, any time, and sleep in my own bed. What I like to do is go to interesting places and accomplish something. If you’re actually working somewhere exotic, you get to see things that the casual tourist never could. I record classical music, so I’ve been in the chapel of a 19th-century insane asylum in Rio (great acoustics!), a village church in Mexico (amazing antique organ!), Josef Haydn’s concert hall in Austria, opulent private homes, and many museums — with access to off-limits spaces and having great conversations with the staff and locals. And in the end, I have been able to accomplish something useful, and get paid for it!
Being greeted by a giant, grinning mouse, not so much.
“The Apartment” is an absolute classic.
Artymorty @ 6
Disney is fake and expensive and decidedly not everyone’s cup of tea. It is, however, extremely varied, with many things that appeal to adults, not just children or parents. Disney is extremely good at what they do, which is to draw people of all ages and a wide variety of interests to the parks. For a lot of money, and in the company of a lot of other people, but draw they do.
Mostly I’m replying here, though, to share an amusing story. In the time before the euro, a friend (American) told of his mother, who was much displeased by a trip to Europe. “You have to travel so far to get to each country, and they rarely speak English, and you have to cross borders, and they each have different money, and they all dress just like us! Much better to go to Epcot, where they dress in traditional clothing, and everyone speaks English, and you can pay for everything in dollars, and you can get to all the different country pavilions, even Japan and China, in an afternoon’s walk.”
My husband and I did take one cruise; neither of us enjoyed it, and it wasn’t the big, overblown cruise ship. It was small, and cruised the Elbe, not the ocean. It might not be indicative of the norm. One thing I do remember is we would go up on deck, and have it to ourselves. No one was outside. Most the tourists seemed to prefer being in their stateroom, shut off from the real environment.
That may also be one of the appeals of cruises for people. You can see the environment outside your window, but don’t have to actually be in it. Camping, hiking, and doing biological surveys are more my style.
Re: flying and cruise ships
The bottom of this web page and the next compare the energy costs of crossing an ocean by aircraft vs ship. It turns out to be less by air.
https://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_132.shtml
I do strongly recommend the whole book for anyone interested in how to run the world on less or preferably no fossil fuels.
“Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air”
https://www.withouthotair.com/