Can the Cruise Industry survive ?

[AlaskaProf]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

I did not mean to change this into a theoretical discussion of Cruise Ship problems. The Fact is there are millions of miles of cruise ship travel every year without any fire or lifeboat problems. Debating the minutia is counter productive.

If you go on a cruise you will not need your lifeboat.

Maybe

[Benthic2]

Please cite an example of a time when cruise ship passengers had to deploy life boats, other than the Concordia.

And if you do.....consider how many person-miles have been traveled since then.

[backinblue]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

Please cite an example of a time when cruise ship passengers had to deploy life boats, other than the Concordia.

And if you do.....consider how many person-miles have been traveled since then.

I don't disagree that traveling by ship is very safe, but you can't think the Concordia was the only disaster. Just a few examples....

https://www.marineinsight.com/mariti...ips-that-sank/

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles...ship-disasters

[Hippocampus]

risky, hell the only thing more risky than being on a boat in the ocean is being in a small airplane over the ocean.

Think this is a misperception. Folks who go blue water tend to be on strong boats. They tend to have every available safety equipment. They tend to be experienced and skilled. They tend to have more than adequate crew who,are also skilled and experienced.

Know personally I felt much safer once off the continental shelf. No traffic to speak of to hit me. Even without weather routers weather visible miles and miles in advance allowing me to prep the boat. There’s no hard edges nor junk in the water to hit.

I recall a study that supports my view. Think USBoat published it. Statistically much more dangerous to be coastal or near shore. Yes there’s the low flyers who go off unprepared, microburst, white squall and the rare survival storm. They make the news because they’re unusual. But continue to contend a solid Bluewater boat, properly kitted out with good crew doing passage is a lot safer than the activities those on this thread are doing.

[Art]

Originally Posted by backinblue

I don't disagree that traveling by ship is very safe, but you can't think the Concordia was the only disaster. Just a few examples....

https://www.marineinsight.com/mariti...ips-that-sank/

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles...ship-disasters

Agreed! - And... So?? Each time I'm on a crowded, multi lane HWY carefully traveling at 60 to 70 mph and [way too often] some screw ball weaves in and out of traffic at 90 to 100 + mph... I can't help but think how safe boating/shipping is compared to every day life... in general!!

Currently... Reason we stay off ships and away from big gatherings [major airports and huge planes included] is due to the "petri-dish" analogy. i.e., To get sick... all ya gotta do: Hang close to, share air with and touch same surfaces as those already infected! Each time anyone in our family [wife and I included] got Covid-19 was due to being in big, too close-to-one-another, confined area crowds.

[backinblue]

Thanks Art. I agree that boating and cruising is relatively safe. Cruising more so in terms of dying, but less so in terms of disease. Even before Covid, there have been some horror stories of infectious diseases on cruise ships at times.

Once beyond your immediate family or a very small group, I'm not sure the large crowd matters too much. As I've said before, my wife and I caught covid for the first time last summer on a small cruise ship of about 75 passengers. I remember the cruise director giving a speech to all of us prior to boarding about covid protocols saying "statistically, 10% of you are already infected" as that was the avg rate at the time. If we were on a much bigger ship with many more passengers, I'm not sure our chances would have changed much. Whenever you are sharing space with others, you are at risk of infection. We also went to a sold out concert at MSG (2021 I think) with roughly 20K others, and didn't have a problem. It really only matters if you are in close proximity to someone who is infectious.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by backinblue

Thanks Art. I agree that boating and cruising is relatively safe. Cruising more so in terms of dying, but less so in terms of disease. Even before Covid, there have been some horror stories of infectious diseases on cruise ships at times.

Once beyond your immediate family or a very small group, I'm not sure the large crowd matters too much. As I've said before, my wife and I caught covid for the first time last summer on a small cruise ship of about 75 passengers. I remember the cruise director giving a speech to all of us prior to boarding about covid protocols saying "statistically, 10% of you are already infected" as that was the avg rate at the time. If we were on a much bigger ship with many more passengers, I'm not sure our chances would have changed much. Whenever you are sharing space with others, you are at risk of infection. We also went to a sold out concert at MSG (2021 I think) with roughly 20K others, and didn't have a problem. It really only matters if you are in close proximity to someone who is infectious.

And even then, especially if vaccinated, there's a little bit of luck. I had COVID a few months ago. The admiral was with me at the same event where I'm sure I picked it up. And around me in the house until symptoms showed up and I isolated upstairs. She never got it, so apparently she would have needed to be exposed more to get it than what it took for me.

[backinblue]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

And even then, especially if vaccinated, there's a little bit of luck. I had COVID a few months ago. The admiral was with me at the same event where I'm sure I picked it up. And around me in the house until symptoms showed up and I isolated upstairs. She never got it, so apparently she would have needed to be exposed more to get it than what it took for me.

Good points. I should point out that my wife and I at the time of infection had double vax plus double boosts so agree that there is some luck involved and that vax will not always prevent it. I'm guessing we would have been sicker w/o the vaxes, but it was still a fairly significant illness regardless. Maybe now that we also survived it, I'm hoping our tolerances are even better.

[Art]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

And even then, especially if vaccinated, there's a little bit of luck. I had COVID a few months ago. The admiral was with me at the same event where I'm sure I picked it up. And around me in the house until symptoms showed up and I isolated upstairs. She never got it, so apparently she would have needed to be exposed more to get it than what it took for me.

Similarly... Last time C-19 entered our home: Linda got very ill with Covid and it then turned into pneumonia [which she for years has been susceptible to]. We'd been in same crowed functions, but - I did not get sick. We pretty much isolated from one another for a couple weeks... with me bring food/drink/meds etc to keep her comfortable... i.e., Alive! LOL

[Hippocampus]

For any infectious agent you need
Sufficient bolus of the agent to have sufficient infectious particles to attach to places the agent can enter your body. Those places need to be places the agent can replicate in.
Also if you mount a sufficient immediate immune response that the particles cannot attach or you destroy them faster than they can reproduce you won’t get sick.

All the things you been told. The six feet, mask, vaccines, avoid enclosed settings etc. are based on those two principles.

The stories above are very common and also speak to those two principles. Exposure doesn’t mean infection. Infection doesn’t mean illness. In fact asymptomatic infection occurs with many agents.

There is virtually no natural ventilation in cruise ships. They are known to be high risk for all respiratory infections and even some GI from what I understand. Given at home food handling is done by self or family. Eating at any restaurant raises your risk. All meals are restaurant meals on cruise ships.

If you’re risk aversive you would avoid cruise ships. However think it’s reasonable to avoid them but ridiculous to take it to the extreme of not eating or drinking anything not prepared by yourself.

Think it reasonable to do the little things to decrease risk without getting OCD about it. Last night went out to dinner with a cruising couple who are close friends. She is immune suppressed. The four of us have done our vaccinations and boosters. Rather than taking a Uber we took my dinghy. We ate in the outside sitting area at the restaurant. We had great fun at low risk.

[Cold Duck]

The vast majority of cruise ship deaths are from falling over board. [/QUOTE]

Actually this is not true. The majority of deaths on cruise ships come from "old people" dying of natural causes. I have been on at least 4 cruises where people died, not one fell overboard. Routinely people die on cruise ships from natural causes, not diseases or falling overboard. It's just numbers, 3-5000 people mostly elderly (55+) together for 2 weeks or so and statistics just tend to have someone die of natural causes. The Cruise Ships deal with this all the time. I was in Columbia, where a guest died of a heart attack on the pier. They did their best to say he died on the ship otherwise the wife would be stuck with tons of paperwork and weeks to get her dead husband out of the country. They got him back on board and put on ice for the rest of the cruise. I've seen in Mexico where parents wanted to retrieve their son who died with another couple he just met, and the Mexican officials would not release the body unless the parents took and paid for the couple they didn't even know. It can be a bitch getting a body outta a foreign country.

[Benthic2]

Originally Posted by Cold Duck

The vast majority of cruise ship deaths are from falling over board.

Actually this is not true. The majority of deaths on cruise ships come from "old people" dying of natural causes. [/QUOTE]

I would not call those deaths "cruise ship deaths" Those folks would have died no matter where they were.

[fgarriso]

They can all sink as to my way of thinking.
I have went on three cruises and regretted all of them.

[backinblue]

Originally Posted by fgarriso

They can all sink as to my way of thinking.
I have went on three cruises and regretted all of them.

Why 3? Hoping for a different result? I went on 1 as a way to experience Alasaka in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise. But it was a very small adventure cruise with lots of time off the boat daily hiking, kayaking, etc. I don't regret it, but I'm not rushing to do another one, and I'm sure I'll never do a big boat cruise. I don't criticize those who love them, just not my style. Also not a big fan of vacationing at an all-inclusive resort. Almost the same thing w/o the boat.

[Hippocampus]

Originally Posted by backinblue

Why 3? Hoping for a different result? I went on 1 as a way to experience Alasaka in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise. But it was a very small adventure cruise with lots of time off the boat daily hiking, kayaking, etc. I don't regret it, but I'm not rushing to do another one, and I'm sure I'll never do a big boat cruise. I don't criticize those who love them, just not my style. Also not a big fan of vacationing at an all-inclusive resort. Almost the same thing w/o the boat.

Think this is the main obstacle for this industry. Not Covid or other infectious disease. Believe there’s a large segment of the baby boomers with this view of things and an even larger segment of their descendants with the same attitude. Given the boomers will die out the available numbers of customers will decrease. Any and all economies cycle so periods of discretionary income cyclically decrease. The nut to maintain these vessels is huge. People realize if they time it cheap berths become available . So vacancies increase until prices go down. Eventually ROI will fall sufficiently that investors mothball cruise ships until supply meets demand. So don’t think the cruise ship business will disappear but wouldn’t be enthusiastic about buying stock. Do believe size matters and the larger the ship the larger the profit margin. So think we will continue to see two segments. Ever larger ones in fewer numbers and small boutique ones for the exotic places and rivers/canals.

[Cold Duck]

I would not call those deaths "cruise ship deaths" Those folks would have died no matter where they were.[/QUOTE]

I don't follow your logic. You can not say they would have just died someplace else. There are many situations on the ship that can induce or contribute to death, excessive eating, drinking, exercise, stress, overdoing everything, etc. I am not saying that makes a cruise ship a "Killing Machine", but people tend to over indulge on vacations which the cruise definitely is. So what are you calling a "cruise ship death"? Technically, an overboard drowning is death at sea, not on the cruise ship. Maybe someone beat to death by a beer bottle would qualify as a cruise ship death by your standards. Sorry, you die on a cruise ship, it's a cruise ship death. Actually, a couple of deaths I have seen were at excursions off the ship or the heart attack on the pier. I would still count those as cruise ship deaths even like a person falling overboard, they did not technically die on the ship.

[Art]

Originally Posted by Cold Duck

I would not call those deaths "cruise ship deaths" Those folks would have died no matter where they were.

I don't follow your logic. You can not say they would have just died someplace else. There are many situations on the ship that can induce or contribute to death, excessive eating, drinking, exercise, stress, overdoing everything, etc. I am not saying that makes a cruise ship a "Killing Machine", but people tend to over indulge on vacations which the cruise definitely is. So what are you calling a "cruise ship death"? Technically, an overboard drowning is death at sea, not on the cruise ship. Maybe someone beat to death by a beer bottle would qualify as a cruise ship death by your standards. Sorry, you die on a cruise ship, it's a cruise ship death. Actually, a couple of deaths I have seen were at excursions off the ship or the heart attack on the pier. I would still count those as cruise ship deaths even like a person falling overboard, they did not technically die on the ship.[/QUOTE]

I'm planning to die - wherever I die... no rush to find that spot. Unlikely it will happen on a Cruise Ship. But, if so - No Prob!!

[Benthic2]

We are really getting into semantics here instead of the inherant dangers of taking a cruise. If there were a sinking, fire, or torpedo that would make a dangerous situation for me if I were on that ship. If some guys ticker stops because he is dancing away in the disco, while unfortunate for him, that doesn't jeopardize my safety in any way. The law of averages says that there are going to be some deaths on some ships, but that does not indicate a cruise specific danger to all passengers.

The risk of falling overboard is there for all passengers, but you would have to try really hard to fall off a ship. When you consider the number of times it has happened and that tens of millions of people go on cruises, the risk is so minescule as to not be relevant. I spent about 4 years with a company that had 3 ships that each did 2 cruises per week, so that's over 1,000 cruises and we never had anyone fall overboard.

[BruceK]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

Actually this is not true. The majority of deaths on cruise ships come from "old people" dying of natural causes.

"I would not call those deaths "cruise ship deaths" Those folks would have died no matter where they were".[/QUOTE]
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You leapt the chasm with that trite statement. You cannot validly generalize like that. Each death needs to be examined individually.
We avoided contracting Covid, on land, for almost 3 years, but contracted Covid within 6 days of boarding a cruise ship. 800 others caught it too.Patently, there is a cruise ship/Covid nexus. it likely applies to other maladies as well.

PS. The last episode of the "Wreck" TV series about a mythical Velorum Cruise Line was a cracker. Blood and bodies everywhere. As it ended, I expect a Series 2.

[Benthic2]

Originally Posted by BruceK

.Patently, there is a cruise ship/Covid nexus. And it likely applies to other maladies as well.

There's no mystery about the Covid "nexus". Getting close to people with an infectious disease, increases your chance of getting infected. That is absolutely a risk associated with taking a cruise in our current Covid environment. But if a person has non transmissible health issues and dies on a cruise that is not indicative of cruising as a risky activity.

I am sorry that I have not been able to effectively make my point here. When I jumped into this fray, it was because the topic was that the risk of fire and insufficient lifeboats make cruising a risky activity. I wanted to refute those ideas, as the risk of fire or the need to board a lifeboat are exceedingly small. Considerably smaller than risks we all assume everyday without a second thought. That's it. I am not sure if the comminication breakdown was in the transmission, reception or both, but I give up.