Is cruising tacky?
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Anonymous
This doesn’t sound like any of the dozen or so cruises I’ve been on, which tells me you’ve probably never cruised yourself. I don’t think your data on the environmental impact is up to date either. |
Anonymous
While I haven't been on a cruise myself, my in-laws go on cruises every year and describe exactly what I posted. As for the pollution, here's a study that shows Carnival alone was responsible for more sulphur oxide emissions in 2017 than all the cars in Europe combined: https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/luxury-cruise-giant-emits-10-times-more-air-pollution-sox-all-europe%E2%80%99s-cars-%E2%80%93-study |
Anonymous
Bye. |
Anonymous
Oh so I can't evaluate the impact of cruises on the environment because I haven't been on one myself? I can read scholarly articles like this one: https://daily.jstor.org/the-high-environmental-costs-of-cruise-ships/ I can listen to my MIL rave about the unlimited food and what the port stops are like. People are actually able to evaluate things, even if they don't have personal experience with them. |
Anonymous
| She says “unlimited food” and you translate that as “crass consumption?” You know they don’t actually FORCE you to eat anything, right? |
Anonymous
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Not any more so than going to a theme park. And the really high end ones (like QE II) are probably not tacky at all.
But don’t worry about it. Anybody who judges the tackiness of your vacation is not someone you want to impress, or be around at all. It’s a VACATION. |
Anonymous
How would going on a cruise help someone evaluate the environmental impacts of crusing? |
Anonymous
It's much tackier than a theme park because it's tacky to destroy the environment, and cruise ships are much worse for the environment than a theme park. The high end ones are just as tacky as the low end ones, because they destroy the environment all the same. |
Anonymous
| I don’t think you know what tacky means. |
Anonymous
That wasn’t really what anyone was talking about. |
Anonymous
So what were they talking about? Do you have to have been on a cruise to know the port calls are usually short and the way cruise ships interact with local economies is exploitative? Do you have to have been on a cruise to know one of the major draws is unlimited food and gambling? |
Anonymous
Well these ports absolutely beg these ships to come and “exploit” their local economies. I don’t know what “unlimited gambling” is. Maybe you can enlighten me on how that works. And if you had been on a cruise lately, you would have a better sense of the specialty dining options on just about all cruise lines. “Unlimited” isn’t why people cruise. |
Anonymous
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We went on Disney Cruise with my kids then ages almost 2, almost 5, and 7 in Dec. 2016. We had a good time.
I just booked our second cruise on Royal Caribbean for spring break 2021 - when the kids will be 11, 9, and 6 at the time of travel. They still talk about the Disney Cruise and I think they’ll have fun on this next cruise. In general, I think you can make almost anything including the beach educational but I am having a little bit of trouble making the cruise not just total entertainment only, haha!! The specific cruise we’re going on, will stop at Labadee (beach day for us), Jamaica (likely beach day for us, but I am considering Blue Hole excursion which would be different / nature exploration but I think we are less likely to do this), and Cozumel (where maybe we will do an excursion to Punta Sur Eco beach park instead of just a regular beach club and get a little more nature type stuff). I feel like the Cruise uniquely doesn’t allow too much time for culture or nature - though if that’s how you want to focus your excursions you could do that. For my group I think that would involve too much travel on the excursions. For example, if we went to a beach resort for a week in Mexico, I think I could fit in a visit to Chichen Itza and other cultural or nature things in addition to relaxing at the beach / pool, but for me, most of these type of things seem too far to travel for one day cruise stop. Maybe I am doing it wrong, idk!! Overall my husband and I have fun when our kids are entertained and happy. I don’t care what other people think about my vacation though. If they think it’s tacky, ok good for you. |
Anonymous
That's because there's nothing educational about 99% of cruises (so excluding something like going to Alaska). And no, the stops are usually too short to allow for any real exploration of the destination, which is another problem with cruise vacations. Here's an academic study that evaluates the economic, social, and environmental impact of cruise ships on the local economies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261517717302418 Here's the abstract: We use a unique multi-method natural experiment to measure economic, social, and environmental impacts of cruise tourism on a local community. Through the measurement of multidimensional indicators before and after the opening of a cruise ship port, and using control groups, we compare community impacts with greater detail and control than previous studies. Although theory and industry multiplier estimates predict gains in employment, income, and related measures, we find little evidence of improvement. The ability of the local population to provide for necessities and obtain sufficient food worsened, corruption increased, and there were substantial negative environmental impacts. One observed benefit to communities was a decrease in crime due to an increase in government expenditure on policing. Our results show that in low taxation and regulation environments with an absence of community development and involvement initiatives, large cruise tourism projects can fail to provide benefits for local populations. So the one benefit they found was a decrease in crime. No other benefit came from cruise ships docking at low taxation/low regulation ports (which is many of these places). |
Anonymous
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OP here! I’m not worried people will think we are tacky. Our friends wouldn’t think that. We are all in the same place in life where we have little kids and the trips are centered around them if they are going.
To the weird PP .. we speak a few languages and have lived abroad and traveled to most continents, I am pretty sure we quality as “cultured” by the definition of it alone. A cruise doesn’t change that. I’m mostly wondering if it’s going to feel really tacky, crowded, low quality and be a bad experience since we haven’t been before. I know for a fact my young children would love the experience of it but it’s also a pretty expensive trip. We could do a lot of different exciting options with the budget for a family of four to go on one. What appeals to me is that everything is geared towards children without the lines and hustle of a Disney trip. My kids have traveled quite a bit but they are typical kids with a lot of energy that need to be busy and entertained. |