Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money | Hacker News Reader

Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money

newatlas.com

346 pointspeutetre347 comments

This reminds me of the case a British destroyer from WW1.

This ship started as two Tribal class destroyers, HMS Nubian and HMS Zulu. In 1916, the first lost its bow to a torpedo (and then running aground); the second lost its stern to a mine. The admiralty decided to salvage the remains by joining them together into a new ship, dubbed HMS Zubian.

https://www.twz.com/royal-navy-once-created-a-franken-ship-f...

In 2020 France did the same with an attack submarine. The Perle had a major fire in its forward half, ruining it. The Saphir was a submarine of the same class being about to be decommissioned. They cut both in half then fitted the forward from Saphir onto Perle, which ended up being way cheaper than rebuilding a new half.

(they're from an older class that is not being built anymore, but the Perle should remain in service a few more years until enough of the new class units are delivered)

https://www.naval-group.com/fr/naval-group-livre-le-sous-mar...

https://archives.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/611644/102...

The US did the same for the San Francisco when she struck a seamount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711)

>In June 2006, it was announced that San Francisco's bow section would be replaced at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard with the bow of USS Honolulu, which was soon to be retired. San Francisco is four years older than Honolulu, but she had been refueled and upgraded in 2000–2002. The cost of her bow replacement has been estimated at $79 million, as compared with the estimated $170 million to refuel and overhaul the nuclear reactor of Honolulu.[11]

Another example is the USS Wisconsin, an Iowa-class fast battleship. Its bow was damaged in a collision and replaced with the bow of the never-completed USS Kentucky, which was to have been the last ship in the class.

This is mentioned in the TWZ article.

I used to have a car like that - relative in car business specialized in buying late model cars that had one end (front or back) in good shape, and other end wrecked, and would use the two good halves to make a new car. He used a jig to get the alignment precise, and claimed it was as good as factory. The car seemed fine - there was no way to tell.

Sounds like a salvage title to me

A 'cut and shut'?

Where do you live for that to be legal?

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=cut+and+shut

Most limousines are made like that. The practice is fine in theory but I guess the business is too shady for the vehicles to be fine in practice.

There's a whole Well There's Your Problem (an engineering disasters podcast) about exactly that. I think the conclusion is that it isn't fine in theory or practice...

https://youtu.be/K5sQJB6Jvkw?si=hq8yGx2i9FQy-wAB

Well, this was a while back (90's perhaps) and he was building these in upstate NY. I've no idea if it was legal the time - I was driving plenty of cheap crap cars back then (Ford Pinto, Ford Ltd II ex. cop car with single digit mpg, '78 TransAm), and relative to those this was pretty nice!

This is called a 'cut-and-shut' and is considered to be extremely dangerous. There's no way you'd get insurance for one if you disclosed its origins, which he probably wasn't when he was selling them on.

In the UK at least, passing one of these off as a standard repair is illegal (it's a 'radically altered vehicle' and would need to be registered as such with a special licence plate).

Funny thing is that one can do it properly and it even will be as good as from the factory. For that one must peel off whole car’s body sheet wise and weld/glue the not damaged sheets again. Also add anti corrosive paint in between. However this is not the cheap way. A business doing this will not survive. It just takes too long. So it would be healthy to assume, that such repairs are rolling coffins at the end.

And you’re right - to identify coffin car a mobile x-ray device is needed. Edit: and yes, I was driving a car that wasn’t well repaired and absolutely safe for 5 years.

In Cuba I had a hairy drive from Havana to Vinales driven by the owner’s 12 year old son in a stretch Lada - ⅔ of one and ⅔ of the other

> HMS Zubian.

I prefer Nuzu.

A WW2 Btitish ship, the HMS Porcupine, got hit by a submarine and ultimately was split in two halves, promptly nicknamed HMS Pork and HMS Pine.

I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I swore I would never take a cruise.

Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure you cant leave it for days at a time.

It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

"Prices from $1,000" but shows the picture of the presedential suite to lure people in. "Oh yeah, $1,000 is a room next to the engine room with no window and a single bed" at which point people feel a bit embarrassed and accept that it is another $10K just to get a window.

On the other hand, lots of people are returning customers so maybe there is something to be said for moving slowly across the ocean as your life ebbs away ;-)

I don't much like cruises but I do really enjoy being out at sea and would be more than happy to "raw dog" (in gen z parlance) some trips out at sea.

There are many ways to enjoy seas, cruise ships are by far the worst. As per people who worked on those, they are mostly for people who simply don't know how to enjoy life well but have money, are quiet alcoholics, and/or suffer massive loneliness.

You can do amazing traveling experiences for less, you are in control of your own life and what happens next and you will feel like spending much more time when discovering world, culture, history and people compared to same white box with same things at same places.

But its the same mentality of going to some properly amazing exotic place and then spending 2 weeks in luxury bubble of some 5 star resort. I don't complain - those folks leave interesting places and experiences for rest of us, but respecting that I cannot.

There’s times I want to explore, and there’s times I just want to do nothing.

Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a while.

> Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a while.

Weird way to spend not-insignificant money on but to each their own

I find I get somewhat anxious being at home and not doing anything, whereas it’s just psychologically easier in the middle of the ocean.

I’m happy to pay the cost to be in an environment that I can actually relax in.

Hear me out but maybe spend the cruise money for getting coaching from a psychologist/therapist to help you with feeling anxious at home? That doesn’t sound like a great overall attitude, having stress responses at home and work related

In a less serious way there is the possibility (and therefore a potential expectation) of being 'productive' when at home. Chores, errands, unfinished projects and all the other daily life that surrounds you.

For me, any time off spent away from home has a different timbre of rejuvenation and I say that as someone who loves being at home.

I think that's totally fair. I tend to like fairly active vacations for the most part. But it's also the case that, when I'm at home, I also feel the pull for all sorts of tasks that are pretty much endless.

I think this is overstating the power of psychological treatment and therapy. Getting away from the normal routine for a bit is probably an ancient therapy for restless humans. I'd rather pay the cruise line than the doctors office.

Train rides across the country?

Actually though, road trips scratch that itch for me as well. I don't plan them out except to say — let's wander off to the Great Lakes or lets follow the Mississippi River south — see all the river towns along the way. I've used AI to throw out ideas of things to see while on the road, or the wife and I fall back to looking for antique stores as an excuse to wander through the small downtowns of towns no one has heard of.

That’s still doing something though. On a cruise ship you can wake up, walk out of your room and stop for breakfast on your way to the deck where you sit in a chair and watch the ocean for hours. It can be way more chill.

Driving is very unpleasant for some. Trains in the US are not exactly luxurious by any stretch: compare the food on a nice cruise to the food available on a train.

This was the biggest shock when seeing Europe, their trains are so much better. Considering how sprawling the continental US is, it's a shame we don't have more and better quality trains.

It’s because the US is so sprawling that trains lost out to planes there. Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US. So the US trains don’t have their costs amortized over a large fraction of business travel as well as vacationers.

High speed trains could still help connect a lot more hubs in the US. And more low speed trains and trolleys could reduce local traffic. IMO car culture took root, and we dove in head first with little thought to the long term consequences.

> Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US.

The US isn’t that much larger, I don’t think this argument holds. The geography and locations of population centres seem more of an issue.

Yeah, NYC to Chicago is about 18 hours over a continental divide. You do out west and things get even further. Outside the Northeast corridor and a few other city pairs, train trips are pretty long in the US.

I've been tempted to do at least part of one of the long distance US train routes but I think I'd get pretty bored, I'm guessing the food isn't very good, and I've spent a lot of time out West.

"The US isn’t that much larger"

Just search for one of the many pictures of the state (state!) of Texas superimposed over Europe.

The US is freaking huge compared to Europe.

> The US is freaking huge compared to Europe.

I have compared them, and I don’t see what you’re seeing. Depending on how you measure (do you include European Russia, ie the bit west of the Urals?) Europe is larger.

https://www.worldatlas.com/geography/are-the-usa-and-europe-...

https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/unit...

The EU is 1.5 million square miles of land area. The continental US is 3.1 million square miles of land area. Continental Europe incl. non-EU countries is over 4 million square miles of land area.

And there's very little day-to-day train travel across that area.

Based on what he said he's from the Midwest where driving across a state is a short trip. I assume they are in the Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin tri state area. 2 hours is normal to get to any bigger city.

I think you are mentioning a dichotomy that is more important than most people realize: those who like driving and those who don't.

Driving is relaxing or interesting for me, almost no matter what. Even when it gets stressful I don't mind it. But I feel for those who don't have that same predilection, because everything would be blocked behind a chore.

> Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a while.

I've never been on a cruise, but for me renting a beach house does the same. Sleep, eat, watch the ocean from the beach and do totally nothing.

Camping with friends also does it. Let all the kids play together, just sit and watch, doing nothing.

When I was a bit younger I would have considered "doing nothing" hell on earth, but with a busy life it's good to just do nothing once in a while.

Catering included is big part. No need to cook or to clean up.

I did a trans-Atlantic crossing earlier this year. There were a lot of interesting entertainment options and good food--and I had plenty of time. Not something I would routinely do as a travel option but given flexibility and the need to get across the ocean in some manner as part of another activity definitely something I'd consider again.

Renting a beach house is very similar to cruising. It's literally a beach house with builtin amenities, restaurants, and no weird trips to the local Walmart.

Sounds like a very expensive way to do nothing. I can do nothing at home virtually for free.

I don't get this kind of vitriol toward cruise goers. I like to plan trips as an adventure like you and 6 years ago had zero desire to ever go on a cruise. I ended up going on one because my in-laws wanted to do a European cruise with extended family for their retirement celebration. They don't drink, they enjoy their life and got to celebrate with family so no loneliness. They are just older and don't have the physicality or mental desire to plan and go on adventures anymore. They wanted a more catered experience for their celebration.

I actually enjoyed the cruise way more than I thought I would. The cruise allowed people to do what they want. My in-laws and others with less physical ability could go on bus tours or taxi around. People like me that preferred adventure can spend 8 hours walking through different nooks and crannies of the city. Being on deck in an open sea was nice and peaceful. I had been to Europe a few times before, but the cruise allowed me to go and walk around port cities that I wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise, without substantially more cost. Each with some interesting bits to walk through and good food to eat. It was a good, quick, demo for whether I wanted to plan a future trip to that city.

If I were planning a trip now for my immediate fanily, I wouldn't do a cruise. I do not spew vitriol and insults at those that do though. Most of them aren't as pathetic as you have been led to think.

Look into what life is like for the staff.

A previous commenter mentioned that cruises (paraphrase) “lack the colonial feel of mexican resorts” which is a testament to the power of consumerist illusion.

That’s why you tip generously and often.

Yea, I know the staff can be treated terribly. I can see how the OP I replied to can get the impression that all cruise goers are bitter/terrible people if their anecdotes are mostly staff complaints. I never talked or dealt with staff other than ordering food/drinks. I saw plenty of people talking rudely to staff with petty complaints. I saw one of the entertainers yelling because one woman grabbed his crotch as they passed by. The staff have to deal with the worst/rudest/entitled cruise goers and get paid way too little for it.

Do you apply the same scrutiny to other leisure activities in your life?

If you've ever been to a chinese restaurant or hired a landscaper you are dealing in the same or similar unpleasantness that you attribute to cruise staff. Assuming you are American FWIW.

I am being downvoted, wee:

https://www.dw.com/en/the-truth-about-working-on-a-cruise-sh...

The cruise industry is indeed shitty to staff.

An all inclusive resort in the caribbean is also likely to be shitty to staff. Most people are drinking coffee or eating chocolate that has slavery somewhere along the supply line.

I think you can make the case that cruising is an unethical industry, either because of exploitative labor practices or environmental damage. But almost nobody who is criticizing cruising as a vacation is starting here. Instead, cruises are called trashy and fake in comparison to "authentic" travel experiences.

Same here. My elderly parents love cruises, but I didn't see the allure. Went on one and it was "OK." I spent most of the time in one of the hot tubs where "Tommy From Boston" was a permanent fixture. He had an infinite number of stories in the queue that he had to tell anyone who climbed into the tub, and probably drank over 100 beers a day. It wasn't bad, and I wouldn't go out of my way to plan a cruise, but it wasn't the pure torture and torment that some people are posting here.

I can’t tell, are you Tommy?

Tommy from Boston is the reason I host an open mic and frequent the bar around the corner from my place. Well said.

Yeah agreed. They're quite a solid and easy choice when you need to cater to the lowest common denominator (not meant at all in a derogatory sense!)

If you're planning a holiday for ages spanning 2-75 for 3-5 families. What other holidays will have food that satisfies everyone's particular tastes, has activities for all ages and has a full suite of excursions or equally ringfenced "nothing" time. Its also comparatively safe.

All without putting the onus on someone to organise a huge trip with lots of competing interests and spending habits.

Sure, there are probably alternatives but I can understand the appeal even though I'm still pretty happy planning my own adventures when its me and my wife.

As a person who definitely has big issues with the cruise industry as a whole this was the best pro-cruises comment I read in the whole thread, especially this bit :

> but the cruise allowed me to go and walk around port cities that I wouldn't have been able to go to otherwise, without substantially more cost

However, I still note that it was written by a person who identifies as someone generally uninterested in cruises i.e. not the typical cruise-ship enthusiast.

For some reason cruises bring out a lot of judgment in people. But at the end of the day, some people like cruises, others don't. Some people like exploring cultures, other people enjoy entertainment at sea. Some people like roughing it in an exotic foreign place, others prefer luxury hotels. The same person's preferences might change over time. Why do you think your preferences are better than someone else's?

This kind of judgmental attitude is the thing that's not worthy of respect, imo.

Perhaps but also it has the best metal festivals every year. I even get my own toilet and clean bed.

> "raw dog" (in gen z parlance)

I had to google that......

I'm afraid 'raw dogging' means something very different in Blighty!

Means the same "very different" something here in the US too... Maybe doing it in a cruise ship adds to the excitement ?

The term has been "repurposed" by gen z/alpha to mean having an experience in real life without filters.

Well...... shagging in a car whist a bunch of blokes stand around watching and wanking certainly is an experience in real life without filters!

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dogging

"raw dog" and "dogging" are two different sexual slang terms. "raw dogging" here is to be understood as to raw dog in present tense, not dogging in a manner that is raw.

This is what I love about HN, you can find an expert on anything.

yolo

A supposed expert in anything, yes.

I'm not an expert, just someone who's heard the slang...

Wiktionary agrees with you... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/raw_dog#English

What does one call dogging in a manner that is raw?

"dysphemism": https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P0k3foBDm14

IMO it is a complete bastardization of the phrase.

The genz/alpha version is a noble form of asceticism, while the 'original' meaning is more a hedonistic indulgence without regard for consequences to yourself or others.

I think they both share the "disregarding consequences" part.

I don't see it.

What are the consequences of, for example, staring at the live flight map and only the live flight map for a 7 hour flight [1]? Sounds boring as hell but you're not going to like bore yourself insane

[1] https://www.goal.com/en-us/lists/erling-haaland-raw-dogs-7-h...

Tape an ipad to a wall, loop an ocean scene... Window

Parallax, sunlight intensity, directionality, heat. It's a pity we don't have affordable (or even any?) artificial windows that even emulate the sun. Just think how much more economically buildings could be made if they had effective fake windows.

You can do-it-yourself https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw?si=fWO5-pYa6kPYKLZO

Thanks. I'll watch that. It doesn't seem to have images but maybe you could have the scenery window separately and just look at one thing at a time :P

I've considered setting up mirrors in my garden to redirect sunlight into a shaded room but never quite got it off the ground.

There's also a commercial version:

https://www.coelux.com/

You can also buy this from Alibaba - just the real thing, not the LCD flat panels. (the real ones are 10-20cm deep). I got a few two winters ago, and they are amazing for dark and gloomy Polish winters.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Circle-Artificial-Sun...

That's awesome, but the most powerful one is 9000 lumens from a 1200x600 mm panel, which is 10000 lumen/m^2. I don't think that's good enough for a proper sun effect since sunlight is 100000 lumens/m^2 and even outdoors in the shade is brighter than these devices. But it's certainly a step in the right direction and no doubt much better than natural light for you.

There is an Italian company called Coelux which builds something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ4TJ4-kkDw

That’s pretty neat, thanks for linking to Coelux’s video.

Apparently the video was recorded in 2014 so they’ve been around for at least 10years now.

One step away from a real human factory farm

You know, I co-founded a smart LED lighting company well over a decade ago and we considered this market.

It seems like the potential applications might make this viable now. Cruise ships are a tiny market when compared to all the dead commercial office space in downtown cores that people wish to convert to residential but can’t because of lack of sunlight and similar reasons.

That's cool. How did/would the technology have worked?

There are some other implemenations listed on this page. The trick is to make sure the light rays are parallel as if coming from an infinite distance like the sun. To create the blue sky effect the easiest way is to pass the light through soapy water like in this video posted above https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw?si=fWO5-pYa6kPYKLZO

actually, some interior cabins really do this - big lcd screen showing camera views from outside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKgX8mKjmxU

I want to do this one day inside an apartment using one of those thin flat TV's, put two in a corner and make a city skyline view

The TV would give you the ability to change the view. Have a couple of different 24 hour video loops so that it shows sunrise/sunset, clouds, storms (only if you had a good subwoofer to rumble with thunder) and then sync it to your clock.

However, I would be really impressed with a lenticular screen so that you get the 6-DoF type of view that would change the paralax view as you moved around the room a bit.

> lots of people are returning customers so maybe there is something to be said for moving slowly across the ocean as your life ebbs away ;-)

It's a sort of floating Las Vegas, with casinos and other passivities such as (from TFA):

"buffet food, all-inclusive child supervision, shuffleboard, plentiful liquor and winking entertainers"

Of course the scale of the operation could produce significant unhappiness if the cattle are forced to fight for food and live in their own filth, as in the case of the notorious Poop Cruise:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stranded-c...

Ehh your life “ebbs away” no matter what you are doing. I’m neutral on cruises. I went on one with my family and had a good time but I don’t seek them out. There is something to be said for the “almost everything is included” nature of cruises. Not having to think about food and just relaxing or doing one of the many activities available is attractive.

The various excursions or stops can be fun as well. It’s not for everyone but I see the appeal. Also, it doesn’t cost $10K to get a window.

EDIT: I just price checked a cruise of the Caribbean on the Princess line (didn’t spend time checking the specific ship) but for a 7-day cruise for 2 people, a mini-suite (balcony and more room), and the premier package (unlimited drinks and other stuff) it came out to $3,800 total. If you drop the drinks it comes down about $1K. Now you have to get to the port and back home so factor in flights but that’s not absurd pricing IMHO. And you can get a balcony-only for cheaper as well.

The “ebbs away” comment made me think of the perma-cruisers. Elderly people who cruise non-stop for years at a time. It can be less expensive and more interesting than a nice retirement home.

You could get under a 1000 if you go the inside cabin, you are only in your room to sleep anyway.

More than sleep for me. I need to decompress.

Ocean view cabins on the bottom floor are often cheap. experienced crusiers know those are the best locations and the rich wish their sueit was there as the window near the water is a better view and worth more than a balcony - but there are so few that cruise lines can't afford to make suiets there vs the larger number who think higher is better.

Does it mean that you pay 2800 for two people to drink for 7 days?

I read it as drinks for two cost $1000, or $500/person, or $70/day, which if you drink 7 drinks is only $10 a drink. depending on where you're from that's not that far out of the picture.

A lot of responses from people who have never taken a cruise, how typical. There is a lot of nickel and diming but floor plans and room views tend to be shown when you're buying. Even the interior windowless rooms are extremely well designed for space. The lack of windows does not really matter (for budget conscious travellers) since you're going to be only in there for sleeping and using the bathroom. Of course, no room is close to an engine.

Yeah, I went on a cruise once, and the whole idea is that you don't spend time in your cabin. It's not a train. You have cinema screens, live performances, restaurants and bars, libraries, quiet lounge areas, pools, and so on.

Plus, there are sightseeing opportunities on land, and the neat thing about cruise ships is that they dock where the action is. Airports are always on the outskirts; ports tend to be situated pretty centrally in most cities.

Honestly, it's probably the nicest way to travel to faraway places, short of a private jet. It's not for everyone, but it's not a dystopian experience. The ships carry insane numbers of passengers, but they are also pretty darn spacious.

I've only been on one cruise, but I'd semi agree. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, but the time on shore was too short for my liking, I prefer to stay the same place for several days and get immersed - I think of it as a better all inclusive resort (and sometimes that's what you need)

Generally speaking, I wouldn't do a cruise except somewhere like the Galapagos where it's pretty much the option.

But I did do an Atlantic crossing after semi-retiring. I paid for a minor cabin upgrade and it wasn't really worth it. I'm not sitting on a balcony crossing the Atlantic anyway and I'm not spending time in my cabin.

Huh. Maybe these things change with age or I misunderstand the premise but sitting on a balcony over the Atlantic and just reading and writing for days on end sounds like a dream vacation for me. What made it unpleasant?

It's pretty chilly and windy for at least much of the year. There's plenty of outdoor space you don't need to pay a premium for if you do want to sit outside--probably with a sweater on. There is a nice promenade deck that I used daily but, in general, I didn't spend a huge amount of time outside. I found it very pleasant with lots of interesting activities and good food. I just didn't really sit around outside. (And actually didn't do as much reading as I planned with everything going on.)

I'll probably do again next time schedules align.

Transatlantic cruises tend to be re-positioning cruises. The cruise companies are moving the ships to or from the European market at the beginning or end of the European cruising season. This usually means April, early May, late October or early November. These are also times when the Atlantic tends to be chilly and the seas rough. Sitting on a balcony is often not comfortable. When I have done a couple of transatlantic cruises. On one I did have a balcony but it was only useful the first and last couple of days.

Transatlantic cruises tend to be mostly child free and most cruise lines cap capacity at about 2/3rds of a normal cruise, so there are plenty of quiet indoor places with a view of the ocean that you can use for reading.

Queen Mary 2 in particular does have its share of real crossings but I agree with your comments in general. It's not especially kid-friendly, doesn't have a lot of the accoutrements that many people expect on regular cruises, is pretty formal in terms of dress, is mostly an inside experience with a walk now and then, and is really for someone with time to burn, especially is their alternative is a business-class flight.

Some of these exist. For instance Bermuda cruises from NYC & Boston will stop there for a few days.

My buddy's wife like cruises. He tolerates them. What he does is packs one full suitcase with books and spends the entire time catching up on reading, either in his suite or the boat library (which some have). He does disembark at ports for tours.

He is a college professor so utilizing this time to catch up on reading is very important to him. His wife gets to drink, gamble, and spend money which makes her happy.

> On the other hand, lots of people are returning customers so maybe there is something to be said for moving slowly across the ocean as your life ebbs away ;-)

This is incredibly mean spirited. Besides perhaps the cruise ship emissions issue, how do you distinguish leisure time on a cruise from leisure time setting in front of the TV at home, or road tripping, or a ski trip, etc.? I'm aghast at the tone of this comment.

It seems that those three hours gave you insight into one particular operators' practices, but obviously not the industry as a whole.

Well I spent ~3 years working portside it was just the one time I got to go into the ship that repulsed me.

Well that and seeing the dead woman rolled out + (much) later learning that she had died of a drug overdose during an orgy.

Cruises hit a spot of:

* All the fun and "not thinking" of an all-inclusive resort (though obviously only if you pay for the drink packages) on land

* Generally cheaper than all inclusive resorts on mainland USA (I'm not as familiar with Europe)

* Competitive on pricing with all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean/Mexico

* Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico

* Get to skip out out of the overt semi-colonial feel of like... a Caribbean/Mexican all inclusive resort. If nothing else, while the crew (ie the people running the ship) are almost certainly going to be mostly south/south-east asian, the staff (ie the people actually supposed to interact with the passengers) are going to be sufficiently multi-culturally mixed to help make all those thoughts fade away...

And let's be real about most Caribbean/Mexican all-inclusive resorts... they aren't always the cleanest, and most people don't leave them except on tightly planned excursions anyways.

The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work.

Peers had a habit of calling me for non-critical, non-production problems. The worst was Mardi Gras, where I'm on Bourbon Street for Fat Tuesday, and my operations head calls me with an analyst on the line and burns fifteen minutes with a problem that turned out to be development coding.

My phone did occasionally explode with voicemails and texts when I got back to port.

Some of my peers have been forced to take a corporate credit card to pay for internet access on their ship.

Why not just not answer your phone while on vacation?

Presumably because of pressure from superiors. If they know you're in cell range and ignoring them, they'll be pissy. If you're simply unable to receive communications, that's just the way it is. It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

> If they know you're in cell range and ignoring them, they'll be pissy.

Frankly, I'd be "pissy" if my superiors tried calling me when I'm on holiday and I would have no qualms informing them of that fact.

But then I'm not American.

This is not an "American" thing. I'm American, and I would never, ever, ever in any known universe within the multiverse, bring my work phone with me on a vacation, let alone answer it or do work stuff. And, I would never give anyone at work my personal phone number. Strict separation of work and personal, and never the twain shall meet. We should not accept jobs that keep you on the leash even during your vacation and after working hours, unless on-call is agreed-to part of your official duties.

I mean, vacation is vacation. I've also agreed to do interviews and such if I'm on vacation and it's convenient. I may also have glanced at email from time to time and sent a quick response to something with the proviso that I'm on vacation.

Not intending this to be snarky, but do you not have friends you meet at work? Is it a case of your friends knowing not to call your for work reasons?

A few from past jobs, and they're welcome to call if they want to do personal/social stuff together, but they are not welcome to call because the build is broken or they need me to do a database roll back because production is down.

The implication that it's typical for one's friends to call them on vacation for work reasons is bonkers to me. What kind of friends are those?

It was a question related to the GP saying they never handed their personal phone number out to people they worked with, which seemed rather limiting to me.

> But then I'm not American.

Europeans being smug about how much better their society is than Americans’ is such an annoying cliche at this point. We get it, Europe is a paradise.

Btw, I’m American and I would simply not answer if my work tried to contact me while on vacation. Conversely, I know multiple Europeans with terribly unhealthy work/life balance who work constantly while on vacation.

> Americans’ is such an annoying cliche at this point. We get it, Europe is a paradise.

I get it, for Americans this is an unusual experience but the rest of the planet putting up with American Chiche’s about us is Tuesday

I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that they make 1/3rd of what an American does while simultaneously working harder than the average rest and vest engineer at a tech retirement home like Microsoft.

Everyone I think about how bad American WLB is, I take a look at the supposed utopias of Europe and find that they’re whole nations of crabs in a bucket.

> I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that they make 1/3rd of what an American does

Including healthcare and public facilities? Or does this only apply to tech workers?

PP is bragging that USA 2%ers do better financially than the European 2%ers, as long as their kids don't get murdered at school, because they can watch their investment portfolio grow while playing video games at the office all summer instead of going on vacation.

Yeah above a certain income threshold, healthcare is actually rather cheap here. Like ~$700/month total cost for the employer and mostly $0 for employees. For excellent care. Annually that’s 4.2% of a 200k salary. That’s significantly less than what you would pay in your social contributions in Europe. but of course it sucks for people who don’t make good money, which is the whole point of complaints.

In one of the Carlos Goshen documentaries, in his time at Renault he required so much overtime that one salaried employee threw himself off a balcony at the Renault technical center in France.

I guess that Renault employees are American, even if they are French.

I think this is described in Apple's documentary, not the one from Netflix.

There are plenty of jobs where it’s not like that.

Of course it depends on the job, so this isn’t 100% guaranteed to be the case, but I find people who think they always have to be online are often just imagining that they have to because of anxiety, and if they just didn’t respond, nothing bad would happen to them.

I sort of agree. Like who is so important that their peer or superior can't handle issues if they're out? How do leaders see their business surviving if the person they're calling gets hit by a bus?

But at the same time, it does seem that most tech jobs expect you to be available after hours for calls and extend that to vacation by default.

I'm Germany HR should be punishing managers for doing that, as a single call is basically directly an entire day of new vacation time, plus punitive damages for disturbing the employee. Of course employees who can't afford to bankroll the lawsuit tend to get shafted.

> it does seem that most tech jobs expect you to be available after hours for calls and extend that to vacation by default

Not any tech job I’ve ever had, except very occasionally after hours if unavoidable due to working with people in Asia, and planned well in advance. Never during vacation, that would be crazy.

But there have probably been people on my same teams who thought it was expected, due to them being workaholics or just bad at sticking to boundaries.

You have a separate team for on-call? Never need to do off-hours elevations? That sounds wild.

Obviously on-call is an exception. That would fall under “rare and planned in advance”.

Except for my very first job when I was running shipyard jobs, no one has ever expected that they'd be able to reach me off-hours though they may have left messages of various types.

Back in the day, I took some month-long vacations to places like Nepal that were really off the grid at the time. Some people I knew were incredulous that I did so. My actual managers didn't care because I did my best to pick "good" times to do so and did my best to inform people and make arrangements. It was never a problem.

I do think, over time, being more or less continuously in-touch became more normed.

Just tell them you’ll be out of range?

So tell them you're on a cruise, then just turn the phone off..

How does someone know you are in cell range?

Why do you care what that wage thief thinks?

"Bring work to your whole self."

Because I was enjoying myself on Bourbon Street.

That is time that I paid for that they took from me. I will never get it back.

You should reread the comment you replied to.

Airplane mode exists, as much as people don't pay attention to the security briefings anymore

Someday, I hope the FAA will catch on that it's a safety issue that the incessant droning on about shit-tier credit card programs is training people to ignore cabin crew announcements.

Separate your work and personal phone? It seems not the healthiest of companies to work for. If you can’t set boundaries, might need help by using. A second phone

My colleagues and I put the work line on an eSIM so we can turn the work “phone” off completely with a toggle in the Settings app.

(If anyone from Apple is reading this, would be great to be able to schedule DND on a eSIM line.)

Should be able to do that through shortcuts and automation?

Here someone disables it entirely, but should be able to do something less intense than that too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/16hoo4h/automati...

Or is the issue that there is no way to set DND on a particular SIM on the front end?

That certainly sounds like an express lane to burnout.

Please take care of yourself, and consider the implications of peers who think it's OK to call you at these times. There are a lot of ways to say "no" without saying it.

I am within three years of retirement, so the problem will soon solve itself.

As we age, we start to think about legacy.

Yours could include teaching your company to respect vacation time.

This is a fading benefit. The ship I took this summer had free Starlink connections powering their WiFi. It wasn’t great for calls and they blocked video, but texting was possible. (You had to be careful though because they also exploitatively ran a mobile cellular microcell that charged insane data roaming fees, which meant you had to be very careful about when you turned on roaming.)

Never tried doing a Zoom call, but the trans-Atlantic crossing I did in the the spring, I didn't pay for video streaming but Starlink at $20/day was pretty good for Internet generally. Was tempted to unplug but I didn't. Kept my phone on airplane mode the whole time.

We used to run an exploitative cruise ship terminal internet cafe where people would pay dollars for access to minutes of like, yahoo and msn messengers so really nothings changed.

"The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work."

There isn't really a shortage of other options with that feature (though it's shrinking); granted they mostly don't have people waiting on you.

Personally I'm a fan of "I'm on vacation, my phone is at home" though I understand that doesn't work for everyone. If there is an actual emergency, there are people who know how/where to reach me.

Tell me you live in the US without telling me you live in the US...

My sister in law brings her work phone everywhere and then finds the spot in the house with no signal and just leaves it there for hours on end. I can see it.

Show her the Airplane Mode button?

> Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico

This is a strange comment, as most people still have to fly to a port city. So maybe that flight is shorter and a domestic flight, but it's still requires a flight.

There are many Americans who are terrified of flying into a foreign city. With a cruise out of Miami, they never have to step on foreign soil.

It can provide many benefits beyond people who are terrified. All sorts of barriers and annoyances can be avoided, such as managing passports, bringing medications, language barriers, differences in legal rights, dealing with customs, etc. This is even more impactful if you're traveling with kids or the elderly.

You still need a passport for most cruises. All the big cruises are non-US flagged with non-US crews and make a stop, if briefly, in a non-US port.

When you finish your journey, you have to go through customs and show your passport. And your passport will usually be checked before you embark as well.

Yes,for most cruises. There are some domestic ones.

US Customs and Border only require a birth certificate and government issued id for US citizens re-entering the US on closed-loop cruises. A closed-loop cruise is defined as a cruise leaving and returning from the same port in the US. This is the vast majority of cruises from the US.

Also many western hemisphere countries including almost all of those in the Carribean have agreements in place which allow US citizens arriving and departing via a cruise ship to need only a birth certificate and government id.

Traveling with a passport is best practice, you for instance are in trouble if miss your ship for some reason, but is not required for the vast majority of cruises from the US.

This is incorrect. Most cruises from the US are closed loop cruises meaning they depart and arrive back at the same port. CBP only requires a birth certificate and government issued id in these circumstances. In addition almost all countries in the western hemisphere which US originating cruises regularly visit allow US citizens arriving and departing via the cruise ship to enter with only a birth certificate and goverment id. In the Carribean the only exception which comes to mind immediately is Martinique. They used to not require a passport but changed this requirement during covid and have not gone back. Although US originating cruises do visit Martinique, I did so on a cruise in February, it is not a common destination.

Every cruise I've been on (US Citizen) required a passport. There are customs getting on the boat and off at the home port.

I have never been on a cruise from the US which required clearing customs individually at a port in the western hemisphere. The ships are usually cleared as a whole by customs upon arrival and most countries that cruise ships visit in the western hemisphere have agreements in place only requiring birth certificates and a government id for US citizens arriving and departing via the ship. Re-entering the US does require clearing customs but for closed-loop cruises from the US, the vast majority of cruises from the US, you can do so using a broth certificate and goverment issued id.

International flights are uncomfortable in several different ways.

In a cruise you can always just go back to the ship, and avoid any random issue.

I would guess that over half of all Americans are within driving distance to a cruise terminal, and that this group is overrepresented in the cruise company clientele.

> all-inclusive resorts...

And these have zero appeal to me as well.

As someone who road trips all across the U.S. with the wife, the highlights have of course been the serendipitous ones.

There’s a different kind of serendipity that comes with Cruise vacations as opposed to road tripping, but it’s still very much there. Furthermore, I can’t really have a road trip experience with 16 people in my travel group; If we want to be together, we’ll be stuck, packed into a van. I can have a great cruise experience with a group that size on a cruise or at a resort.

I say this is someone who had taken multiple motorcycle trips across the US. Coast to coast on one of them and another down Baja.

"I can’t really have a road trip experience with 16 people in my travel group"

Convoys work for this. Perhaps even more fun if they're fun cars with a lower car to passenger ratio.

Convoys have become shit shows more often than not in my experience, but point taken. So many ways to skin the vacation-cat.

Yeah, depends on the people and the quality of the vehicles. Motorcycle trips tend to work well as convoys.

Riding a motorcycle is not a substitute for sitting at a pool or restaurant. It's different.

We're talking about road trips. What are you talking about?

Serendipity on cruises, eh?

The axiom of cruises is: You will never see these people again.

Do people go cruising to make long term friends?

I have plenty of long term friends, but I have never done any activity with the explicit goal of gainng them.

That being said I have made long term friends on cruises.

Love to do the motorcycle road trip some day.

But I don't even have 16 friends so that will never be a problem. As the kids left the nest it has become just thew wife and I. We're a duprass.

That's the beautiful thing, different people enjoy different things, and on vacation, people get to pick and do the thing they enjoy, rather than the thing someone else enjoys.

Except with cruise ships, morally righteous people are declaring this specific thing wrong and trying to keep people from being allowed to do this.

The Guardian claims that "At full power the Harmony of the Seas’ two 16-cylinder engines would each burn 1,377 US gallons an hour" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-worl..., which would be 5.2 cubic meters per hour, or 125 cubic meters per day, so something between 100 and 125 tons. Other sources I've seen claim "up to 250 tons" (https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/2016/07/25/how-much-fuel...). A ton of diesel-like fuel produces around 2.6 tons of CO2 (the O2 comes from the air).

So let's say 750 tons. Split across 5000 passengers, a 7-day cruise would be 750 / 5000 * 7 = roughly one ton of CO2 per passenger per cruise.

Myclimate estimates the total footprint of a 7-day cruise, standard double cabin on a >4000 passenger ship, one day in port, as 2.1 t (this presumably also covers food etc. so it's not surprising that it's higher). They also estimate just the flight (one passenger, round trip, economy class) of a trip from New York to Maui as 3 tons.

Most of the people getting on the cruise are also taking round trip flights to and from the port, so tack that on top of the flights.

You are cherry-picking only one of the environmental issues that cruise ships cause. Even that aside, you are also ignoring a large part of the discussion in the first article you cite, which focuses on all of the other, acute, air pollution cruise travel causes in the port cities. Focusing on CO2 is a strawman.

I focused on CO2 because it's often cited and one of the more comparable metrics, and I used those articles only as sources for my estimates. Between the date of the article and today, significant new regulation for maritime fuels came out.

But the kind of environmentalists I am talking about aren't suggesting to regulate cruise ship emissions, they demand banning cruise ships, because they're a visible symbol of loosely-defined luxury/"excess", and thus any impact is seen as unjustifiable.

Without 'moral righteousness' we have a degenerate society

>we have a degenerate society

I knew there had to be some reason . . .

Except, everyone is flying to Miami instead which isn't cheap. Also, until only recently, drinking was ala carte which was a massive, not included, expense.

Porting in most Caribbean islands is a depressing experience as well - you get to see the predatory cruise influence on shops right at the port and are also bombarded with locals trying to exploit you (no offense to them, they're trying to make a living).

If you never leave the ship, it's as you describe it - the all-inclusive vacation without any work, but leaving the boat is by far the worst part and almost negates any perceived benefit imo.

Again, no offense to the locals and I'm sure if they had to choose between no tourism and tourism to help the economy, they'd choose tourism but it's a very strange and usually sad synergy between the cruise industry and the participating islands.

While some of that rings true, I'd say it was still worth it to get off the boat and enjoy the islands. They are beautiful places with their own rich culture and history, despite the over tourism.

No mention yet of "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again?" by David Foster Wallace?

Okay, so this. Read it if you haven't. Probably the best essay on a generally "unheavy" topic I've ever read, and so iconic that "Cruise Essay" is dang near becoming its own genre, e.g. Gary Shteyngart's "A Meatball At Sea."

Behold, I have found the source! Original title was “Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise” but then it was given a new title when it was included in the short story collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazi...

You're missing an important intersection: you can get on a closed-loop cruise from the US without a passport and with a criminal record.

Cruises fill the "cheap Caribbean getaway" segment for the sizable American population where getting a passport or not having a criminal history would otherwise be a blocker.

Arguably it's also a motivator in why Cruises have the reputation they do, but that's beside the point.

I don't understand it either. Ted (friend of mine) called them "floating malls" and that has stuck with me.

Sounds about right, but I guess some people like malls.

> It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising.

And presumably numbers bouncing back after the pandemic - and as memories of the pandemic fade.

There was a long period where they couldn't run cruises at all due to social distancing. And a load of ships where the infection spread like wildfire and there was barely any medical care available. And a load of people getting trapped on board ships that weren't allowed into ports, so they couldn't get repatriation flights, and so on.

Measure against those catastrophic years, and I've no doubt demand is increasing!

My wife had expressed interest in taking a cruise until COVID and the cruise ship debacle when passengers were forced to stay on the ship, in their cabins for 2 weeks. Though the likelihood of something like that happening again feels pretty low, it has forever put her off the idea.

>It interests me that demand is increasing

I admire your embrace of the “curiosity, not disparagement” principle.

Well I could go that route too.

I remember a bunch of cruise ships got sold off during covid.

And we have had some market consolidation in Aus, I think P&O might have pulled a merger and then kept the incoming brand. I think one ship is leaving.

But my anecdotal evidence is weak and region specific.

"It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats just good advertising."

How do explain that so many cruise passengers are repeat customers?

This is anecdata:

I know three people who've come back sick from cruises. The most interesting one was just last week: someone who had Mal de Débarquement Syndrome for six months. She was dizzy all the time. There is no cure.

This might be a good one to try on your boss if you want to avoid business travel: say you suffer from Mal de Débarquement Syndrome!

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24796-mal-de-...

Isn't that just vertigo?

But it's got its own name, and in French! Much better.

Land sickness. I owned / lived on a 41 foot sailboat for a decade. One of my semi-secret amusements was taking people to a tavern and buying a pitcher of beer after we'd been out all day. Idly drinking beers and having a pleasant conversation, and then watching them try to stand up to go use the restroom.

I know dozens who have come back completely healthy

that's what "anecdata" means

And you can reasonably apply the same grace to the person you're replying to...

"dozens"?? is that one dozen? Two? More?

how do you know all these patients? Or you just made them up?

Why are you being so skeptical? I know dozens of people that have gone cruising and I don't exactly belong to the stereotypical cruising crowd.

Assuming and a accusing a commenter is lying directly breaks HN guidelines.

I think you've got it 100% backwards, so don't be quoting Scripture at me like it means anything.

I know three people who've come home sick. He's the one being skeptical and quoting a well-known meme:

https://tenor.com/search/there-are-dozens-of-us-gifs

I was not referencing Arrested Development. Dozens is a term that was used to describe groups of people well before AD and the context here doesn't fit the meme at all.

I am not skeptical at all that you know three people who got sick on a cruise, but out of the 30+ million people who cruise in a year it's completely meaningless. A CDC study showed that only about 0.18% of cruisers get a stomach bug

I could easily come up with a list of 24+ people who have gone on a cruise and not gotten sick. Why are my dozens less valid than your 3? You can post your anecdata but don't get mad when someone counters it with their own.

Yeah I cannot imagine the attraction. It's almost literally one of the last things I'd ever want to spend vacation time on.

I talked to a guy who took a week-long cruise that he described as being locked in a prison breathing diesel exhaust. He said there was no place on the ship were you could not smell the exhaust.

He was greatly exaggerating or has an incredibly sensitive nose

When they shut down Wharf 8 in sydney, where I was working, they moved the ships to a temporary location without an onshore power connection for the ships.

Diesel exhaust fume complaints came from suburbs around the wharf.

My issue wasnt the exhaust it was rotten food / human waste smell.

Also the ship I was on used seacreatures instead of level numbers. Felt like walking around an app designed with security by obscurity.

That is terrible and as someone that likes cruises (but only rarely goes on a cruise) you can safely assume that folks who like cruising and go often do not put up with rotten food or the smell of shit. Decent food and reasonably clean spaces are part of the appeal, in fact.

Ever worked in the back of a packed and popular restaurant? It's always hype/advertising hiding the reality of it all.

For my girlfriend's family's sake, I've taken cruises the last two years. One Royal Caribbean, and one Norwegian.

Decades ago I took a couple of Carnival cruises.

Things are not better now. What a shitshow. Royal Caribbean sucked, but Norwegian was a new low. The only word that describes both the en-route experience and the destinations is DISMAL.

At least Royal Caribbean had a pleasant food-court type of dining area, with stations of verious kinds in a dispersed layout that was navigable. Norwegian had only a narrow "racetrack" going around a central core, with serving stations in the wall. It was only a few feet wide, which meant you couldn't move because it was blocked by scooters (a totally predictable situation given the demographics of cruise ships).

Then there was the smoke. WTF. We had an upper cabin with a balcony. Doing 20 knots on the open ocean, we couldn't hang out out there because it was continually inundated with cigarette smoke... and not even from the immediate neighbor. It was mind-boggling. There was also a smoking area right next to a sushi restaurant. And you had to walk through the smoke-ridden casino area on every deck to get anywhere on the boat. At least Royal Caribbean kept that whole giant ashtray confined to a central area on the lower level. Totally fine.

Cruises are absolute shit. You're way better off just going to an all-inclusive resort somewhere, even somewhere cheap.

Not sure where you have gotten your experience from. If there is a smoke just complain and it will be taken care of.

Been cruising for many years and loving it.

On Norwegian, the casino straddles the entire width of the ship on multiple decks.

Which line do you prefer?

> Then there was the smoke. WTF. We had an upper cabin with a balcony. Doing 20 knots on the open ocean, we couldn't hang out out there because it was continually inundated with cigarette smoke... and not even from the immediate neighbor.

Did you notify staff? This would almost certainly get remediated or result in reimbursement.

It wasn't possible to identify the source.

Now that you mention it, though, I wonder what they would have done. Late at night before bed, when you want to hang out and look at the ocean, isn't the time you want to call the steward and wait for someone to come up into your room.

Yea I mean the best they can do is reassign your room but it's the same situation as if this happened in a elevator. My point being that "smells like human shit in my room" is just as unacceptable on a boat as it is in a hotel.

Hahaha, well it wasn't in the room; only outside on the side of the ship. And appeared to be widely dispersed. Thus it didn't seem as though a solution would be forthcoming anyway.

You been for 3 hours somewhere and making subjective generalizations on all industry? that's interesting

I literally went inside a place and found it disgusting.

But yeah also, as above, I worked portside for years too. Its just the memories of going aboard that still haunt me.

I used to live near a cruise ship port in San Diego and I can't believe people roll the dice on cruises either. Ships would have mass disease breakouts ALL the time. Not to mention how many people just go missing. Our collective memories must be really short and everybody forgot what happened on cruise ships when COVID broke out.

Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go. They burn colossal amounts of fuel, they produce lots of toxic exhaust, sewage, etc. A lot of destinations for these things don't exactly have a lot of regulations for any of this either.

Just flying to your destination and staying in some nice place is arguably both better for the environment and probably a lot more enjoyable depending on your tastes. Not that flying is particularly good for the environment of course. Or that enjoyable these days. But I wanted to put in context just how nasty cruise ships can be.

They produce sewage that would otherwise not have existed?

I assume they mean that sewage at home is treated.

We don't normally dump our sewage straight in the ocean.

No, sometimes it goes directly into Lake Ontario and the river.

    Plans put in place by previous administrations over the years said that by 2038, waste water dumped into the lake would finally be as close to zero.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-storm-water-w...

Nor do cruise ships.

Actually they do. This is all well documented. There have been some failed attempts to change this. But dumping in international waters is cheaper and without (financial) consequences. They dump sewage hundreds of tons of sewage on a typical journey.

Years ago, Key West built enough extra sewage treatment capacity to process sewage from the many cruise ships which visit the city. There was a plan to require all ships to discharge and pay for treatment so that sewage was not dumped 12 miles off-shore, which is only 3 miles past the reef. Captains get a bonus for fuel savings, so they tend to dump as soon as it is legal.

The cruise industry threatened to remove Key West from their list of stops, wrote some checks to the various non-profits, and the status quo was preserved.

The cruise ship industry is an ecological disaster, by choice.

What do you think happens to land-based sewage?

It's treated in huge facilities. We don't just flush it raw into the water

Nor do cruise ships.

I just looked it up, and it does appear that cruise ships now treat their black water instead of just macerating it like they used to. I would love to know: is that all cruise ships, in all areas?

Sure they do. Not every cruise ship does wastewater treatment.

Google MARPOL Annex IV

Ok, I read that and it explains circumstances in which it is ok to discharge raw sewage?

Ahahah the waters of the third world cities like London and Paris invite you for a bath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

Big economic blocks like the EU and the US should force the cruise ships to operate sustainably and not pollute the literal sh*t out of the port cities they stop at.

"We should properly tax/negate negative externalities" in accordance with microeconomics. It's at the core of basic economics and both conservative and liberal economists would agree with this statement. It's a well studied field. The problem is policy. I often post this, but I really wish microeconomics was a required course in high school or primary. I find it to be one of the least understood of the well-established fields, and one that matters when we get older and vote or debate on these topics.

And the consequence of that would be?

Please elaborate.

Fish and birds poop in the water, all day. It's just fertilizer.

And animals poop in your yard. Do you? It's just fertilizer.

Sewage that would be treated, not pumped raw into the ocean.

Just like on a cruise ship.

> Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go.

The sheer size of these things is hard to comprehend. I'm on vacation at the fancy french riviera and the billionaire's superyachts, when on a bay next to a cruise ship, look like tiny miniature toys. It's just wild. The cruise ships are not just three to five times longer, they're also, way, way, way taller than the superyachts.

You see a cruise ships and it screams "I'm here to destroy the environment".

My wife wanted to try a vacation on a cruise ship but to me it's a big no-no.

It's a boat - is it really worse than flying?

Arguably indeed. You have some support for your emotional claims or it is what it is - emotional claims?

I've told the story before on HN, but maybe it fits here too...

A great-uncle of mine lived in Eastern Germany. He bought a pleasure cruiser, about 28 meters length. For everything longer than 25m, he would have needed a captain's patent to operate, so he cut out a bit more than 3m at the rear, fixed up all the wires, pipes and shafts, and then had nice (even if imbalanced-looking) boat.

So he did the opposite of what the article is about :-)

He spent most of his vacations on that boat, cruised up and down the rivers with his family. https://www.ddr-binnenschifffahrt.de/fotogalerie-gross/Passa... you can see that it ends pretty abruptly at the rear.

Here in Alaska some fisheries and permits have historical length restrictions on vessels. In order to carry the gear, ice, and catch they wanted they would cut boats in half longitudinally and widen them.

The point is gluing a chunk of cruise ship in the middle to make it bigger. Not selling half a cruise ship to somebody twice. It's the stretch limo business model with norovirus.

> with norovirus.

Chuckle.

I'm amazed that these welds can hold ship sections like that. I wonder if this is regulated in any way? E.g. class and quality of welds required etc.

On another note, a 2 billion investment to build a ship seems absolutely crazy. How long does it take to make that kind of money back, and how long does a ship need to sail to pay itself back?

A weld doesn't have to be weaker than the parent metal. I assume these people might inspect their welds before painting them over. Same process as when they make new ships

It’s the same way the ship is built to start with

How to build a ship:

Step 1: cut a ship in half…

For the most part, it doesn't matter how long it takes to pay this back. They borrow the money, pay installments, and still end up with a 10-15% profit per passenger from day one (and that's after deducting deprecation).

But because they live on credit, they were pretty badly hosed during COVID-19.

* Regulation is non-existent in the cruise industry. You shop for the venue with the most lax regulations of the ≈200 countries in the world.

* The equivalent is insurance. Insuring a $2B ship carries pretty good due diligence. A ship simply failing is rare. Of course, ship insurance doesn't care about employee rights, safe food, medical care, or other things one might expect to keep people safe. It's about protecting the capital expense. If everyone on the ship dies, but the ship survives, that's okay!

* Welds are quite strong -- it just extends the metal. This is especially true when the baseline quality of the metal is not high.

On something heat-treated SAE AISI 4130 steel (what e.g. fancy steel bicycles are made of), you see significant weakening. There is a heat-affected zone where the normal tempering is taken off, and the joining material isn't the fancy CrMo of the baseline material.

I'm not a nautical engineer, but I doubt cruise ships are made of overly fancy steel. When you're making a 180,000 ton ship, your best bet is to use cheap steel, and if you need more strength, to simply use more of it. A good weld should be every bit as strong as the cheap steel around it, and the heat-affected zone is a lot less important if the steel isn't heat-treated or tempered in any way in the first place. It will harden the steel a bit, of course, but it shouldn't be the same level of impact.

It's also worth noting you already have welds, and things need to be engineered for welds. It's not hard to reinforce the welds. Indeed, on a bike frame, the welds are where the stresses are highest, and you get around that by making the tubes a bit thicker (or, for fancier bikes, thicker just near the welds -- that's what a butted bike tube does).

I think cruises are horrible, horrible things for a whole slew of reasons, but none having to do with the ship sinking Titanic-style.

This comment was very useful and informative! Thank you.

And the original hull wasn't made of a single piece of steel in the first place, it is already a patchwork of steel plates welded together, isn't it? And I think it is assembled as vertical sections like the one being added.

Yeah, exactly how a ship is built will differ, but generally you build up fairly large structural blocks, and then assemble (uh, a lot of welding) them together.

Example time lapse of another cruise ship being built about a decade ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk_JIHel7To

Depending on the ship, shipyard, and I imagine a host of other factors, you might assemble a ship directly out of the order of ~50-100 blocks, or you might pre-assemble into order of ~10 "mega-blocks" which then get assembled together.

Not exactly full sections, but very large sections. For example the crane in shipyard building the largest cruise ships can lift 1200 tonnes to 90 metres height...

> SAE AISI 4130 steel (what e.g. fancy steel bicycles are made of)

Wouldn't a fancy bicycle use Reynolds 853 steel? /s

Very informative, thanks.

"none having to do with the ship sinking Titanic-style."

It's rare, but not nonexistent. The Costa Concordia springs to mind. Schettino ended up with all the blame, but it did seem to be that there was some degree of institutional incompetence as well. But not with the construction AFAIK

The Costa Concordia ship was basically beached and turned. It did not sink, rather it collided with some rocks near the coast.

This is very different from "sinking Titanic-style".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster

EDIT: oh hm, maybe you're right; like the Titanic it collided with something and water began to pour in, unlike the Titanic it was close to shore so the whole ship did not sink.

If nothing else there's the MS Estonia disaster[1]. Structural failure due to a wave impact leading the car deck to flood and the ship to sink.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_MS_Estonia

IIRC when watching documentary about the second to last gen nuclear submarines - engineers figured out that welds themselves were stronger than the steel plates themselves.

>Welds are quite strong -- it just extends the metal. This is especially true when the baseline quality of the metal is not high.

This is not the case at all. A weld almost always weakens the base material. And you don't just use whatever steel is the cheapest to build a ship. You use what is appropriate to the use case. There are cheaper and more expensive options within that category, but you make it sound like you can just grab whatever is cheapest in the yard that day.

There's so much that goes into material selection and handling that this comment confidently hand waves away.

Welds weakening the base metal is a myth that is disproven literally day 1 of any welding course. There are metals that don't like the heating and will weaken, but if the weld breaks before the base metal, someone fucked up real bad.

Of course shit welding can cause weakening of the material but thats true of everything. Anything that is worth welding that also is important will use metals that have strong welding properties that make the weld stronger than the base material.

This is misleading or wrong. In general, the weakest part of a steel weld is the heat-affected zone. Not the rest of the base metal. Not the weld.

The heat-affected zone is caused by the weld. Ergo, welds to weaken the base metal.

In most cases, this also doesn't matter. I think all but one of the things I've welded, even a bad weld would have been way more than strong enough, and for many, even the tack weld would have held fine. Welds are very, very strong, and it's usually cheap and easy to use sufficiently strong materials that all of this is moot.

But for something like an ultralight bike frame, racing car, or airplane, it is something you do need to worry about.

Icon of the seas, back of the envelop calculation:

Revenue: 52 weeks of sailing x 5.6k passengers [1] x 1.8k $/week [2] ~= 525m $/year

Costs: Interest [3] 160m $/year + Crew [4] 118m $/year + Hospitality [6] 200m $/year = 478m $/year

Profit ~= 47m $/year or ~9%

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cruise_ships [2] https://www.cruzely.com/heres-how-much-money-cruise-ships-ma... [3] 8% on 2b$ [4] Crew: 50k $/year * 2350 crew [5], just guessing the costs here, including all accomodation + living costs, probably still to high? [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_of_the_Seas [6] Hospitality: 100 $/guest/day? = 52 * 7 * 100 * 5.6k = 200m $/year

You've got to factor in deprecation. If the vessel cost $2b and lasts 20 years you need to repay $200m a year to repay the amount over 20 years.

However I suspect 8% would be far higher that the rate they'd get.

You'd also have to include maintenence costs, and also the reduction in revenue as it gets older (people will presumably not pay as much to travel on an older ship than a newer one), or the refurb costs you'll need to offset.

On the other hand inflation has to be factored in. At 2% that debt will reduce 30% over the period.

I feel like it’s just easier to use the existing cruise companies’ public financials. It looks like 10% to 15% are the real world profit margins, but with quite a bit of volatility.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/RCL/royal-caribbea...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CCL/carnival/profi...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NCLH/norwegian-cru...

A cruise company is incentivised to say things like depreciation are less than they are, so the company's numbers look better than they actually are.

Additionally, it's very rare for a company to own a ship for its entire lifetime.

The way they calculate depreciation now is based on resale value.

I wonder what happens to that in a world where interest rates AREN'T negative in real terms anymore...

How long does this supposed fraud take to show up? Carnival and Caribbean have been doing business for decades, and Norwegian has been public since 2011.

Surely, it would have impacted the bottom line by now at at least one of those 3 businesses.

> How long does this supposed fraud take to show up?

Estimating things is non-trivial.

It's not fraud for your depreciation estimate to be off by a few percentage points.

Banks regularly set their loss provisions artificially low or high to smooth earnings.

I don't understand the point you are trying to make. If the estimates are incorrect, then they will show up after decades of operating as a business, being realized via the sale price of the ships or repair costs or whatever. The profit margins reported in the 10-Ks seem like an an accurate estimate of what a big cruise company can expect to earn, based on the current best management practices and technology.

Taking a boat to go on vacation seems like a stronger industry than you're making it out to be. These are huge companies with highly scrutinized finances and obvious capital expenses.

The CEO of Royal Caribbean has stated that the new large ships such as Icon are cash flow positive at 35% occupancy vs 50% occupancy for previous generations. The larger ships also have additional revenue generating experiences onboard so it is likely the average revenue per passenger is higher than the current industry average.

Don't forget it's not just the welds on the outside, but also the welds on all decks and walls on the inside. The resilience of modern vessels mainly comes from the internal structure rather than the hull. The hull is just the skin and needs to be strong enough to withstand the impact of water and tugboats etc but it's not responsible for holding the ship together.

Tonight's on-board movie will be The Finest Hours....

Ha! I just read that book because of a different HN thread. It was excellent. As I read about this process, I thought of the same thing.

For those not familiar, "The Finest Hours" by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman recounts the 1952 rescue mission off Cape Cod. In a tragic coincidence, a storm split two different oil tankers in half. Both tankers split as a result of a construction process, at least superficially, similar to the one in TFA.

how long does a ship need to sail to pay itself back?

Some uninformed guessing:

A operational net of $100/passenger/day is 10,000,000 passenger days per billion dollars. That’s 27,000 passenger years.

With an average load of 5000 passengers that’s about five years per billion dollars.

My guess is that average operational net is well above $100/passenger/day because cruising caters to luxury market segments; the scale is vast; people expect to be up sold; and gambling. All with little regulatory oversight.

I'd guess the average revenue per passenger to be on the order of $200 / day so for that 10k passenger ship that's about $700M of revenue per year. If they can put $200M of that toward the cost of the ship that'd pay for itself in a decade.

They are regulated by regional professional boards with reciprocity. For example, the American Bureau of Shipping in North America. This concept is called a Classification Society

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_classification_society

They are unlikely to skimp on this due to the insurance implications.

Great - more air pollution from bunker fuel fumes at port cities!

Big economic blocks like the EU and the US should force the cruise ships to operate sustainably and not pollute the literal sh*t out of the port cities they stop at.

It's my understanding that bunker fuel is only used out at sea.

Yes most nations require cruise ships (sometimes even cargo ships) switch to a refined fuel once they're a certain distance from shore. Nobody wants their pier covered in soot.

Yes, it only destroys the environment from afar

Of course, outside the environment -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

I like to sort comments by new whenever I see this linked. Doing this today, seems most ppl now are return viewers in on the joke and only a few asking "Is this real?". Used to be a lot more of the latter.

The new "Icon of the Seas" mentioned in the article runs on LNG (propane), but it's definitely the exception. I saw it this winter and it doesn't have any of the black/brown exhaust other cruise ships have. Hopefully all new ships go that way, and old ones are refit.

Reminds me of the limo industry in the '80s, when [stretch limos](https://www.oldtimer-auktionen.at/auktionen/wp-content/uploa...) just kept getting longer and longer.

I watched the videos embedded in the article, annoyingly they don't show the cutting process just the splitting part but still.

One thing I always appreciate about watching these sort ofs things is how much work and people goes into it, like the people repainting the hull and sides of the ship, looks like real hard but honest work and probably comes with a great sense of satisfaction to boot seeing the results of your graft materialize over time.

The "Silver Spirit Lengthening Video" video in the article has a big segment on cutting, with both the matchine-assisted cutting and the human-cutting.

https://youtu.be/bhZHhDrVQ2Q

None showed any shots from the cutting or the joining from the inside though. That would be the most interesting to see.

The cutting apart of ships at their end of life in salvage shipbreaker junkyards is fascinating, terrifying, and sad in equal parts. This (and similar) documentaries of the salvage beaches in India show a lot of interior cutting: https://youtu.be/5jdEG_ACXLw?si=Jx7STIHrAEX0Hq6F

It’s a stark juxtaposition from these shots of clean, carefully planned and engineered operations in high-tech ports. Shipbreaking is often done freehand, based on experience and intuition, without much in the way of reference documents or safety gear.

As the author notes, this isn't a concept that was invented by the cruise companies.

My grandfather worked as a welder for a shipyard. I remember him telling me about how they would cut a barge in half, and he and a few other guys would weld in a new chunk that would make the thing longer. This would have been 60ish years ago.

While I have no love for cruise ships, this type of engineering absolutely blows my mind. Same with mega skyscrapers or any other huge engineering project with exacting requirements. In web dev I'm lucky if I even get a complete spec to work from, so millimeter precision over the scale of a ship is far outside of my experience.

The article made several mentions of requiring additional trained crew. Where is the gap in getting staff? I expect there is a tiny fraction of specialists (engineers, medical, ship command) and a boat load of low skill jobs (cooks, cleaning, waiters, pool boys, bar tenders, etc) who could do on the job training if required.

This makes me feel uneasy. Wouldn't a longer ship but the same beam (width) mean it's less stable?

After owning small cruising sailboats for about twenty years my wife and I did the calculation that we could sell our last boat and go on two of three cruises a year. The big cost of cruising, by the way, is not so much the ship but expensive shore excursions that sometimes take you away from the ship overnight.

I get all the complaints people have against cruising but for us we have seen so much of the world in relative comfort. The trick is to plan trips around the shore excursions and what experiences you want to have. The ship is just the means to get to those experiences without having to hop on and off airplanes frequently.

We went on a river cruise last year (Viking, on the Danube). I thought of it like a bus tour of that part of Europe, except the hotel moves along with you.

It's also possible to do this on "cruise ships" that aren't "cruise ships". My wife and I toured the Dalmation coast (Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece) on the https://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/luxury-charter-yacht-48957... ten years ago - a cruise, but a cruise with ~30 other people, not ~6000. It's a big difference! The ship itself was, as you say, really just the way to get there; everything happened on-shore.

> a cruise, but a cruise with ~30 other people, not ~6000.

This is the sort of thing that tempts me - an enchanting vision, like something out of "Death on the Nile", only minus the death. Just a small floating hotel that takes you to interesting places, not a floating amusement park combined with buffet.

Yes, smaller boats are definitely of higher appeal to me. Went on a Galapagos cruise years ago and the max amount of passengers was 83 - we had 80 on our cruise. Sadly the dynamics of that trip have changed and I don't know if I would as enthusiastically recommend it (it's become way more commercialized and you don't get to see nearly as much as we did). The big ships have zero appeal to me.

Sailing in a sailboat and being in a floating hotel are so diametrically opposed experiences that it's not even worth comparing.

It's like the difference between back-country camping and going to Animal Kingdom.

Try an alaska cruise. You are there for the views that cannot be seen from land and not the tourist traps.

This is a point, I think. Is it great with cruise traffic to Svalbard? Maybe not. Is it better than having all those people fly to Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on guided tours in the wilderness? Definitively.

> Is it better than having all those people fly to Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on guided tours in the wilderness? Definitively.

Don't see how you can make that determination. All those people are flying to Tromso or whatever anyway to get on the boat. And the boat is an ecological disaster. Plus the boat belching out 1000s of people into Longyearbyen is a mess for the people there. They don't stay in the hotels or go on the tours provided by local tour operators, hurting the local economy.

There's a reason why Svalbard is currently imposing sweeping regulation on cruise ships. They are not a plus for the archipelago or the community. Just like everywhere else cruise ships operate, they serve mostly to capture as much as the financial upside from tourism as possible while leaving as little on the plate for the locals as possible, while dumping them with externalities.

Honestly the reason I am "against" cruising is because they are usually floating environmental travesties

They often are. Still, the question is always how bad they are per tourist, and I suspect that the solo sailing folks aren't much better in that regard.

Crew/passengers on a small sailboat will use less fresh water in a day than a cruise ship passenger uses to flush the toilet once.

They will know exactly how much water they used down to the quart, same with diesel. They will have very tight energy budgets as well and track it by the watt hour. Their energy will likely come from renewable sources.

Instead of daily hot showers, on a small boat you get a cold salt water shower every few days with a pint of fresh water at the end to rinse.

So, in conclusion, doubtful.

I agree. Also, there is one cruise ship line I won’t use now because in my opinion they don’t treat their employees well at all. Also, it is really tough work on any cruise line.

You might think, welding a ship together: what could possibly go wrong?

The first ships that were welded would suddenly break in two. These were the liberty ships used in WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship

If you're ever looking for inspiration, consider that your own foul-ups could launch an entire new field:

These incidents are what led to the creation of the field of materials science.

(Wikipedia link above.)

This video shows such an expansion, increasing passengers from 212 to 312

https://youtu.be/OTpVxCOjmPY?si=FK5qR-Tvf027WZKM

How big can you make these things before they fall apart from natural forces?

What's the impact on ship strength, stability, handling, etc? I assume that's considered at the design stage? Any cons to a patchjob like this vs. building it bigger from scratch?

The cruise industry is very fascinating to me. I think in the medium term we could see significant populations of people living long-term on cruise ships; it seems like the economic model is long-run more efficient (assuming the shipbuilding industry is very good at building these structures). You avoid the property tax, zoning, and regulatory burdens that go with living on land. It's likely safer because you're not driving cars and you don't let criminals onboard. And Starlink solves the internet access problem.

It's already begun with some news articles noting that retirees find back-to-back cruise voyages less expensive than nursing home care:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/is-living-on-a-cruise-...

Is their nursing care on cruise ships though? Not exactly the same

Don't people disappear (fall overboard) all the time?

Also I would think diseases spread pretty easily on ships.

Every day we move closer to WALL-E becoming reality.

"'B' is for Buy N Large, your very best friend."

> you don't let criminals onboard

Plenty of crimes happen at sea. Cruise companies expend effort to sweep these crimes under the carpet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nCT8h8gO1g

Criminals are people who've been convicted of a crime. These people are either:

- allowed on cruises (I'm not aware of a "no conviction" clause when buying a cruise ticket)

- in jail, in which case you can also make the argument they're not allowed out in public

So criminals are allowed on board, and people who might commit a crime are not necessarily criminals yet.

There was an effort a few years back (I looked it up, and it was 2001, oops) to market this, a perpetual cruise ship for retired people. "MS The World". I suspect it didn't do all that great, since there weren't a lot of copycats, but it took until covid to strand the project.

Now apparently there's a second ship trying the same business model, "Villa Vie Odyssey". Predictably, the marketing suggests it's the first one ever of its kind.

https://villavieresidences.com/residences/

Annual carrying costs coming to 30% of the purchase price.

The photographs satisfy the Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross Sections of Everything part of my brain.

After watching Brick Immortar on youtube this sounds like the root cause of a future episode.

What can one do in these massive, employee abusing, law dodging, polluting piles of monstrosities that can’t be done on land? Drink, party, fight (Google cruise ship fights for some colorful stories)…? makes zero sense.

If one is going to watch sea life, dive etc, then it makes some sense.

I honestly don’t understand the appeal

Don't they typically stop at different ports in different countries during the trip?

Other than that, I don't understand it either, especially since you're just stuck on the boat for the majority of the time.

Ye, they do stop. From what I have heard, these are short stops to do touristy things

Have to confess the “serving class caters to the punter class” thing annoys me a bit.

Why can’t modern cruises just be like the Love Boat on tv?

To show the power of flex tape?

And now I am reminded that I have to replay Leisure Suit Larry 7 ...

Meh. We do this to software projects all the time.

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