Cruise Ships

[Lewis McColl]

Agree John not for me. But I would enjoy a walk around one from top to bottom. Maybe it is because I am from an era when I first sailed ships looked like ships, not my later years though LNG carriers are ugly as sin especially the ones with 4 domes or more on deck. Regardless these cruise ships of today are still an amazing fete of engineering/

[Keith at Tregenna]

Best well avoided for a fair while.

K.

[j.sabourn]

I see cruise ships as a backdrop to a Hollywood movie, mostly all pretence , and a millionaires world as imagined. I’m afraid I would see it for what it was , and what went on behind the backdrop of so called luxury . The average passenger sees what he is supposed to see and gets what he pays for, he doesn’t see the occasional cockroach scurrying behind the cooks chopping block, or the overflowing toilet bowl in the crews messroom. On his big day on an inspection of the bridge he sees a hive of industry and efficiency, if it was mistimed and he arrived too early he would probably see a different scene altogether than people listed down with gold braid and waving parallel rulers and dividers around in the middle of the ocean which today are very rarely used . It’s a case of what the eye doesn’t see that I would be thinking about , my biggest thoughts would probably be how do you get 2000 elderly people into lifeboats with people who hardly speak a common word of understanding between them.. not for me either cruising, done my term of imprisonment , and got no time off for good behaviour, probably because I never had any. JS

[Keith Tindell]

I read on todays news that the two cruise ships Marco Polo , and the Magellan have been scrapped in India. Apparently we are not allowed to export these ships to 3rd world countries as they are hazardous waste. The story of these two ships is that they were auctioned to a company from outside Uk who assured the home company they would be used for cruises, price of buying £2million, 3 months later sold for scrap in India for £4 million, not a bad profit.Apparently 13 cruise ship have found their way to India by some devious means. It looks like channel 4 will be showing a program on this subject, kt

- - - Updated - - -

Meant to put the link,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56196069

[happy daze john in oz]

A large number of ships have gone to Alang grave yard over the last 12 months.

Most were old or had been unprofitable to run.
One the Dawn Princess owned by P&O should have gone ten years ago.
We did one cruise on her and she was well past it then in 2009.
So much rust, enough to build a new ship with.

Like all businesses, and that is what they are, times come when you must upgrade if you want to keep going, the new ships are far more efficient and many now running on LPG rather than diesel electric.

John galley tours are on most ships and I know having been around a few the galleys there would put many top hotels to shame.
The cleaning is an on going parade all day long.

Yes they are what you want them to be, but that can be said of so many other aspects of tourism and indeed life.