7 ms·

The cruise industry is one of the most polluting and damaging industries in the world. It ruins cities worldwide. Their ships are petri-dishes for disease, spre

The cruise industry is one of the most polluting and damaging industries in the world. It ruins cities worldwide. Their ships are petri-dishes for disease, spreading it directly into our vital cities. They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. They are ruining local sea life and are spreading non-native species. Their exhaust fumes are extremely detrimental to local air quality in cities. The swarms of tourists are detrimental to local hotels and restaurants, since the swarms only buy souvenirs but lack incentive to spend big money on dining. And all of that without paying taxes. Let them go bust. Almost nobody is missing them.

Bnshsysjab 7y ago
I’ve always been curious about that, why do cruise ships always get hit with gastro? I rarely hear about it but when I do it’s on a cruise ship.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  -Thousands of passengers from all over the world, (comparatively) cramped quarters, HVAC systems push air from cabin to cabin without sterilisation, buffets where hundreds handle the same serving utensils...
  - Reason077 7y ago
    > "HVAC systems push air from cabin to cabin without sterilisation" I suspect this is actually a bigger part of it than people realise. I've been in very modern hotels that clearly had issues with their HVAC design as smells (bathroom smells... yuck!) from other rooms infiltrated through the ventilation ducts. I imagine this issue could be worse in a cruise ship given the small size of the cabins.
- BrentOzar 7y ago
  > why do cruise ships always get hit with gastro? Everybody uses the same touch points, all day long. Most get their food from the same buffet line, touch the same food, the same drink dispensers, sit down at the same tables (which aren't cleaned often enough), sit on the same deck chairs at the pool, hold on to the same railings on the stairways (especially since the boat is moving), etc., etc. They're all packed into the same space, making the same movements every day (room, to the stairs/elevator, to the buffet, to the stairs/elevator again, to the pool, to the stairs/elevator, etc.) Any virus that makes it to any common touch point is going to infect everybody in a matter of hours.
- numpad0 7y ago
  I’ve heard it’s the rugs repelling sanitizers. HVAC don’t look great as well and feels a bit like overall hygiene standards is as good as they were in their heyday.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Given how often cruise ships end up spreading infections between passengers, it's odd how popular they are with the elderly. Not only are they increasing their odds of catching something, the medical facilities on the ship and many of the ports of call are inferior to what's available in most average sized cities back home.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
They're likely not going to go bust though; they have a fuckton of money, at worst the ships are going to be docked for a while until this blows over. They won't make money, but they're not going to go bust. I think this is a major problem with a lot of businesses; they consider time not spent earning money as loss, instead of just a period with less income. And I think it's the responsibility of ALL businesses to keep a savings account so they can weather economic downturns for a few months (at least 6), while paying their staff in full. I mean it's only been a few months and they're already asking for handouts? Besides, whatever happened to pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and how communism and the state is evil?
- cltsang 7y ago
  The top has absolute power over the workers. This is the result of greed and extreme capitalism. The reason to justify employers/share holders getting paid so much more than workers should be that they take so much more and higher risks. Now we have it backwards. When business is profitable the top takes all the bonus and dividends. During downtime however, workers get to swallow all the loss.
  - chrisweekly 7y ago
    AKA "Capitalism on the way up, Socialism on the way down".
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >They're likely not going to go bust though; they have a fuckton of money, at worst the ships are going to be docked for a while until this blows over. Why do people get this impression a pandemic, combined with an unprecedented economic drawdown, combined with one of the most vitriolic political climates we've ever seen is just going to "blow over", and in 6 months we'll be going along like nothing ever happened? Covid19 might go away (or it might not, there's always that). But many things are going to change. Who's to say we don't now decide that cruise ships are a stupid idea, because they spread disease, pollute like crazy, don't pay taxes and need bailouts? Many industries disappear.
lmm 7y ago
> They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. Counterpoint: they absorb a lot of tourist demand for visiting particular places, while taking up a minimum of space. Building the equivalent hotel capacity in the same places would be far more intrusive.
- joshvm 7y ago
  No, it's the opposite. Places which are already at capacity (like Venice, Mallorca, Santorini, etc) then receive multiple cruise ships a day which dump thousands more people into the system. There are cruises which are "just looking" but the ones which visit heavily touristic areas tend to stop and let passengers off. Also these ships are enormous, loud and polluting. I think most locals would prefer hotels which at least contribute to the economy.
  - Der_Einzige 7y ago
    You shouldn't be downvoted for high quality posts like this. You're absolutely right that most locals would prefer hotels - the economic contributions alone answer for the externalities that the OP was concerned about.
    - CaptArmchair 7y ago
      As a local living in such a hotspot: this exactly is a concern our municipal council is trying to balance. Cruise ships unload hordes of tourists who are then shepherded through the commercial center of town for a couple of hours. You'd think that's a good thing. It's not. They don't go to restaurants for a full meal, they don't visit venues or do any activities. It's literally drop 'n shop. Meanwhile, they crowd the streets, not to mention the surplus of garbage. Commercial activity changes to low quality souvenir shops and fast food. Local economy earns very little, but the costs of having them are very much for the locals.
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        As someone who spent a great deal of my life living and working in a tourism economy I am not shedding a single tear over cruise ships undercutting local providers of food/shelter. With traditional brick'n'mortar tourism the people who fleece the tourists make bank. Then the people who fleece the people who fleece the tourists take their cut. The landlord, the plumber, the garbage collection company, everything including even the municipal government basically charges what the market will bear in order to get their slice of the pie. Cruise ships piss off everyone who isn't running a tourist trap, T-shirt shop or cafe because they handle all the supporting industry so the people who normally fleece the people who fleece the tourists don't get their cut because the tourists don't have to stay in a hotel, visit a liquor store, etc, etc. in order to visit the beaches, the cafe's the shops, etc. because the cruise ship handles that.
ornornor 7y ago
You also forget to mention the magic pipes that let ships dump water polluted with oil directly into the sea so they don’t have to pay at ports for proper disposal. Outlaw ocean is an eye opening book (and a great read) about how lawless the sea is, how slavery is still very very real out there, and how it’s virtually impossible to keep eating fish once you know what’s going on (both in terms of human trafficking and in terms of quotas violation/fishing in U.N. “protected” natural reserves) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_pipe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_pipe https://www.theoutlawocean.com/ https://www.theoutlawocean.com/
- toyg 7y ago
  These days it’s basically impossible to “ethically” eat anything, unless you have your own patch of land and can be bothered to grow vegetables.
  - ornornor 7y ago
    It beats doing nothing. Vegetables are harder to avoid eating at all, but fish? You can totally do without eating any ever again and be fine. And almost all salt you can buy in stores has iode added so you won’t miss that nutrient.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 93po 7y ago
      There's no known dietary replacement for some essential nutrients that come from eating fish. Even fish oil pills aren't as effective.
      - ornornor 7y ago
        Fish oil pills don’t solve the issue anyway, they’re made out of fish. Be that as it may, by not eating fish you’re also not absorbing as much heavy metals which fish is rather rich in these days.
kolleykibber 7y ago
To list a few positives. Europe maybe not, but places like Honduras would be worse off without them. The industry and shipyards are advancing technology in ways that other industries do not. New ships use LNG, batteries and renewables. A carbon neutral cruise ship is not too far away. The intensive childcare offered allows parents who cannot otherwise get such services to relax. Pixar's Wall-e was prescient in that most people would choose to live this way. The demand for cruises is not going to go away.
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  > The demand for cruises is not going to go away. In that case why the need for a bailout? If they are viable businesses either as is or after reorganization in bankruptcy, then what’s the issue that needs solving by the government? That the very rich owners and lenders lost money and wish they hadn’t?
  - ftvy 7y ago
    You could say the same thing about airlines, but no one is arguing about whether airlines are a necessary component of the economy. I don't support a bailout for cruise lines, but I also don't support a bailout for airlines or any industry. This pandemic crisis is being exploited on all fronts, and the first thing that everyone is going for is money. There is a lot of FUD being spread around as cause to bailout special interests, and that's a short term solution for a long term problem. It will only make things worse and more difficult in the end to correct the current problems at hand. The focus shouldn't be on where to be spending money right now. The focus should be on developing proper procedures that at best prevents the next pandemic or at worst controls and minimizes its effect.
    - fpoling 7y ago
      Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. Bail out people so they can can quickly start new businesses.
      - 7y ago
pmiller2 7y ago
Just to quantify your first sentence, one single cruise ship emits the same amount of pollution as 1 million cars [0]. And, one cruise line emits more pollution every year than ALL the cars in Europe [1]. They should not just be allowed to go bust; they should be forced out of business. --- [0]: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.4277147/a-cruise-ship-s-emissions-are-the-same-as-1-million-cars-report-1.4277180 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday... [1]: 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 https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/luxury-cruise-gia...
- willis936 7y ago
  This is often quoted and misleading. It doesn’t emit a million times more pollution than a car across the board, it emits a million times more sulphur oxide than a car. Now sulphur oxide is nasty stuff, and regulated out of vehicle emissions for good reason. Fuel conditioning and catalytic convertors take care of this. But those things add cost, and why would a cruise ship company do it if they are not compelled legally and their customers don’t mind? I don’t feel bad for giving my friends who go on cruises a hard time over this. Most will say they simply do not care about the environment. They are not immediately threatening their own immediate habitat. These are the people who go on cruises. The fact that the cruise industry exists is a sad mark on humanity. https://www.abctourism.org/cruise-ship-pollution https://www.abctourism.org/cruise-ship-pollution
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Not only sulphur oxides, particulates as well (see my first quoted link). Particulate matter from combustion is extremely nasty. These floating petri dishes choke everything in their path. > But those things add cost, and why would a cruise ship company do it if they are not compelled legally and their customers don’t mind? Because their owners give a shit about the world they're leaving to their children? Oh, well, I suppose they don't, then, do they?
    - 7y ago
simonh 7y ago
I think you're being a bit naive. All the ships will still exist. All that will happen is that investors will snap up the ships and 'brands' at bargain prices, set up new cruise companies and the ships will be back in business in a matter of a few months, probably with the same crews and the same company names. The only thing that will change is the ownership.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  All the more reason not to bail them out. Let the market do its thing.
  - simonh 7y ago
    You mean kill efficient businesses on a random basis? I don't see how that benefits anybody. To be clear I don't care about cruise lines particularly, but I'm not sure I agree with the general point that businesses hit by freak events should in general just be allowed to die.
    - cloverich 7y ago
      I think the counter point was that if they are actually efficient businesses, then they will return more or less the same, as soon as there is economic capacity for them. I think an argument that it would actually be cheaper for the economy to mandate that taxpayers keep them afloat is interesting, but would argue the burden of proof should be on that side.
      - simonh 7y ago
        It's a tricky issue. In general I'm a free markets believer, tending towards the view that markets need to be regulated to be efficient and effective, but the problem we have here is not to do with market forces. It's to do with markets temporarily ceasing to exist. On burden of proof, there's not going to be any relevant historical metrics for effectively a unique event. Politicians are simply going to need to make their best estimate of what services and capabilities are strategic and which aren't. If we only intervene where there is solid prior evidence for capabilities being needed to be preserved after a global pandemic in the modern era, we're just going to let everything burn. I don't think it's clear to me that is in the public interest.
csomar 7y ago
I never got it but I also never went on a cruise ship. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out the attraction of the cruise ship. You are siting in this big hotel complex, you are not enjoying much of the scenery, cities, or anything. You are just in a hotel and they even have pools? What's the point of being in the ocean anyway if you are staying inside?
- edejong 7y ago
  Reflects my thoughts exactly. Also, all the amenities are overcrowded. I've seen photos (while doing research before writing GP) and I can't imagine having to stay in such an invested place for longer than a day or two.
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  > I never got it but I also never went on a cruise ship. Well I have been on one. A friend thought it would be a good idea to hold his 60th birthday on a cruise ship. It is exactly as you say - a hotel, laid sideways. But unlike a hotel there no way to out, and in my case no internet worth using. The primary ways people seemed to keep themselves occupied were drinking alcohol, eating food and watching other people in various ways. None of those thinks work for me. Exercise consisted doing the same brisk walk around and around the ship every day. There were other options, but you had to pay for them.

Bnshsysjab 7y ago

I’ve always been curious about that, why do cruise ships always get hit with gastro? I rarely hear about it but when I do it’s on a cruise ship.

lb1lf 7y ago
-Thousands of passengers from all over the world, (comparatively) cramped quarters, HVAC systems push air from cabin to cabin without sterilisation, buffets where hundreds handle the same serving utensils...
- Reason077 7y ago
  > "HVAC systems push air from cabin to cabin without sterilisation" I suspect this is actually a bigger part of it than people realise. I've been in very modern hotels that clearly had issues with their HVAC design as smells (bathroom smells... yuck!) from other rooms infiltrated through the ventilation ducts. I imagine this issue could be worse in a cruise ship given the small size of the cabins.
BrentOzar 7y ago
> why do cruise ships always get hit with gastro? Everybody uses the same touch points, all day long. Most get their food from the same buffet line, touch the same food, the same drink dispensers, sit down at the same tables (which aren't cleaned often enough), sit on the same deck chairs at the pool, hold on to the same railings on the stairways (especially since the boat is moving), etc., etc. They're all packed into the same space, making the same movements every day (room, to the stairs/elevator, to the buffet, to the stairs/elevator again, to the pool, to the stairs/elevator, etc.) Any virus that makes it to any common touch point is going to infect everybody in a matter of hours.
numpad0 7y ago
I’ve heard it’s the rugs repelling sanitizers. HVAC don’t look great as well and feels a bit like overall hygiene standards is as good as they were in their heyday.
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Given how often cruise ships end up spreading infections between passengers, it's odd how popular they are with the elderly. Not only are they increasing their odds of catching something, the medical facilities on the ship and many of the ports of call are inferior to what's available in most average sized cities back home.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

They're likely not going to go bust though; they have a fuckton of money, at worst the ships are going to be docked for a while until this blows over. They won't make money, but they're not going to go bust. I think this is a major problem with a lot of businesses; they consider time not spent earning money as loss, instead of just a period with less income. And I think it's the responsibility of ALL businesses to keep a savings account so they can weather economic downturns for a few months (at least 6), while paying their staff in full. I mean it's only been a few months and they're already asking for handouts? Besides, whatever happened to pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and how communism and the state is evil?

cltsang 7y ago
The top has absolute power over the workers. This is the result of greed and extreme capitalism. The reason to justify employers/share holders getting paid so much more than workers should be that they take so much more and higher risks. Now we have it backwards. When business is profitable the top takes all the bonus and dividends. During downtime however, workers get to swallow all the loss.
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  AKA "Capitalism on the way up, Socialism on the way down".
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>They're likely not going to go bust though; they have a fuckton of money, at worst the ships are going to be docked for a while until this blows over. Why do people get this impression a pandemic, combined with an unprecedented economic drawdown, combined with one of the most vitriolic political climates we've ever seen is just going to "blow over", and in 6 months we'll be going along like nothing ever happened? Covid19 might go away (or it might not, there's always that). But many things are going to change. Who's to say we don't now decide that cruise ships are a stupid idea, because they spread disease, pollute like crazy, don't pay taxes and need bailouts? Many industries disappear.

lmm 7y ago

> They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. Counterpoint: they absorb a lot of tourist demand for visiting particular places, while taking up a minimum of space. Building the equivalent hotel capacity in the same places would be far more intrusive.

joshvm 7y ago
No, it's the opposite. Places which are already at capacity (like Venice, Mallorca, Santorini, etc) then receive multiple cruise ships a day which dump thousands more people into the system. There are cruises which are "just looking" but the ones which visit heavily touristic areas tend to stop and let passengers off. Also these ships are enormous, loud and polluting. I think most locals would prefer hotels which at least contribute to the economy.
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  You shouldn't be downvoted for high quality posts like this. You're absolutely right that most locals would prefer hotels - the economic contributions alone answer for the externalities that the OP was concerned about.
  - CaptArmchair 7y ago
    As a local living in such a hotspot: this exactly is a concern our municipal council is trying to balance. Cruise ships unload hordes of tourists who are then shepherded through the commercial center of town for a couple of hours. You'd think that's a good thing. It's not. They don't go to restaurants for a full meal, they don't visit venues or do any activities. It's literally drop 'n shop. Meanwhile, they crowd the streets, not to mention the surplus of garbage. Commercial activity changes to low quality souvenir shops and fast food. Local economy earns very little, but the costs of having them are very much for the locals.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      As someone who spent a great deal of my life living and working in a tourism economy I am not shedding a single tear over cruise ships undercutting local providers of food/shelter. With traditional brick'n'mortar tourism the people who fleece the tourists make bank. Then the people who fleece the people who fleece the tourists take their cut. The landlord, the plumber, the garbage collection company, everything including even the municipal government basically charges what the market will bear in order to get their slice of the pie. Cruise ships piss off everyone who isn't running a tourist trap, T-shirt shop or cafe because they handle all the supporting industry so the people who normally fleece the people who fleece the tourists don't get their cut because the tourists don't have to stay in a hotel, visit a liquor store, etc, etc. in order to visit the beaches, the cafe's the shops, etc. because the cruise ship handles that.

ornornor 7y ago

You also forget to mention the magic pipes that let ships dump water polluted with oil directly into the sea so they don’t have to pay at ports for proper disposal. Outlaw ocean is an eye opening book (and a great read) about how lawless the sea is, how slavery is still very very real out there, and how it’s virtually impossible to keep eating fish once you know what’s going on (both in terms of human trafficking and in terms of quotas violation/fishing in U.N. “protected” natural reserves) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_pipe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_pipe https://www.theoutlawocean.com/ https://www.theoutlawocean.com/

toyg 7y ago
These days it’s basically impossible to “ethically” eat anything, unless you have your own patch of land and can be bothered to grow vegetables.
- ornornor 7y ago
  It beats doing nothing. Vegetables are harder to avoid eating at all, but fish? You can totally do without eating any ever again and be fine. And almost all salt you can buy in stores has iode added so you won’t miss that nutrient.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 93po 7y ago
    There's no known dietary replacement for some essential nutrients that come from eating fish. Even fish oil pills aren't as effective.
    - ornornor 7y ago
      Fish oil pills don’t solve the issue anyway, they’re made out of fish. Be that as it may, by not eating fish you’re also not absorbing as much heavy metals which fish is rather rich in these days.

kolleykibber 7y ago

To list a few positives. Europe maybe not, but places like Honduras would be worse off without them. The industry and shipyards are advancing technology in ways that other industries do not. New ships use LNG, batteries and renewables. A carbon neutral cruise ship is not too far away. The intensive childcare offered allows parents who cannot otherwise get such services to relax. Pixar's Wall-e was prescient in that most people would choose to live this way. The demand for cruises is not going to go away.

bradleyjg 7y ago
> The demand for cruises is not going to go away. In that case why the need for a bailout? If they are viable businesses either as is or after reorganization in bankruptcy, then what’s the issue that needs solving by the government? That the very rich owners and lenders lost money and wish they hadn’t?
- ftvy 7y ago
  You could say the same thing about airlines, but no one is arguing about whether airlines are a necessary component of the economy. I don't support a bailout for cruise lines, but I also don't support a bailout for airlines or any industry. This pandemic crisis is being exploited on all fronts, and the first thing that everyone is going for is money. There is a lot of FUD being spread around as cause to bailout special interests, and that's a short term solution for a long term problem. It will only make things worse and more difficult in the end to correct the current problems at hand. The focus shouldn't be on where to be spending money right now. The focus should be on developing proper procedures that at best prevents the next pandemic or at worst controls and minimizes its effect.
  - fpoling 7y ago
    Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. Bail out people so they can can quickly start new businesses.
    - 7y ago

pmiller2 7y ago

Just to quantify your first sentence, one single cruise ship emits the same amount of pollution as 1 million cars [0]. And, one cruise line emits more pollution every year than ALL the cars in Europe [1]. They should not just be allowed to go bust; they should be forced out of business. --- [0]: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.4277147/a-cruise-ship-s-emissions-are-the-same-as-1-million-cars-report-1.4277180 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday... [1]: 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 https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/luxury-cruise-gia...

willis936 7y ago
This is often quoted and misleading. It doesn’t emit a million times more pollution than a car across the board, it emits a million times more sulphur oxide than a car. Now sulphur oxide is nasty stuff, and regulated out of vehicle emissions for good reason. Fuel conditioning and catalytic convertors take care of this. But those things add cost, and why would a cruise ship company do it if they are not compelled legally and their customers don’t mind? I don’t feel bad for giving my friends who go on cruises a hard time over this. Most will say they simply do not care about the environment. They are not immediately threatening their own immediate habitat. These are the people who go on cruises. The fact that the cruise industry exists is a sad mark on humanity. https://www.abctourism.org/cruise-ship-pollution https://www.abctourism.org/cruise-ship-pollution
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Not only sulphur oxides, particulates as well (see my first quoted link). Particulate matter from combustion is extremely nasty. These floating petri dishes choke everything in their path. > But those things add cost, and why would a cruise ship company do it if they are not compelled legally and their customers don’t mind? Because their owners give a shit about the world they're leaving to their children? Oh, well, I suppose they don't, then, do they?
  - 7y ago

simonh 7y ago

I think you're being a bit naive. All the ships will still exist. All that will happen is that investors will snap up the ships and 'brands' at bargain prices, set up new cruise companies and the ships will be back in business in a matter of a few months, probably with the same crews and the same company names. The only thing that will change is the ownership.

nerdponx 7y ago
All the more reason not to bail them out. Let the market do its thing.
- simonh 7y ago
  You mean kill efficient businesses on a random basis? I don't see how that benefits anybody. To be clear I don't care about cruise lines particularly, but I'm not sure I agree with the general point that businesses hit by freak events should in general just be allowed to die.
  - cloverich 7y ago
    I think the counter point was that if they are actually efficient businesses, then they will return more or less the same, as soon as there is economic capacity for them. I think an argument that it would actually be cheaper for the economy to mandate that taxpayers keep them afloat is interesting, but would argue the burden of proof should be on that side.
    - simonh 7y ago
      It's a tricky issue. In general I'm a free markets believer, tending towards the view that markets need to be regulated to be efficient and effective, but the problem we have here is not to do with market forces. It's to do with markets temporarily ceasing to exist. On burden of proof, there's not going to be any relevant historical metrics for effectively a unique event. Politicians are simply going to need to make their best estimate of what services and capabilities are strategic and which aren't. If we only intervene where there is solid prior evidence for capabilities being needed to be preserved after a global pandemic in the modern era, we're just going to let everything burn. I don't think it's clear to me that is in the public interest.

csomar 7y ago

I never got it but I also never went on a cruise ship. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out the attraction of the cruise ship. You are siting in this big hotel complex, you are not enjoying much of the scenery, cities, or anything. You are just in a hotel and they even have pools? What's the point of being in the ocean anyway if you are staying inside?

edejong 7y ago
Reflects my thoughts exactly. Also, all the amenities are overcrowded. I've seen photos (while doing research before writing GP) and I can't imagine having to stay in such an invested place for longer than a day or two.
rstuart4133 7y ago
> I never got it but I also never went on a cruise ship. Well I have been on one. A friend thought it would be a good idea to hold his 60th birthday on a cruise ship. It is exactly as you say - a hotel, laid sideways. But unlike a hotel there no way to out, and in my case no internet worth using. The primary ways people seemed to keep themselves occupied were drinking alcohol, eating food and watching other people in various ways. None of those thinks work for me. Exercise consisted doing the same brisk walk around and around the ship every day. There were other options, but you had to pay for them.