I love to cruise do you?

I’ve been on a lot of cruises and consider myself very fortunate. I’m going again next month. This topic seems to bring out some very extreme views. Of course cruising isn’t for everyone but why not live and let live? There are a lot of holidays I would rather not have such as remote cottages, camping and caravan trips. For me a cruise is an opportunity to glimpse some beautiful places and escape from my routine at home. There is so much to do but I often opt for nothing much. It’s such a wonderful feeling to wake up to so many different views and options to explore. As for other people, DH and I are happy to be together but enjoy an opportunity to chat with others. You can learn so very much from these chance encounters.

Fear of water is a very good reason not to cruise. I absolutely hate small boats and can get extremely upset and agitated if I’m on one and it rocks at all. Therefore I avoid going on small boats, particularly if there’s any swell. However, I don’t know why but I feel very safe on a cruise ship. I’ve never been in a storm on a cruise ship although there have been times when it’s rocked a bit and the access to the outside decks has been restricted for safety reasons. I became afraid of boats after the Townsend Thorenson ferry went down. The coverage on television horrified me. At that time we used to use the ferry to cross over to mainland Europe every year, pulling our trailer tent and later our caravan. We had three very small children and I watched them like a hawk during the crossing and planned my escape route just in case. This was what started my fear of boats, especially if they rock, but cruise ships don’t bring about that same fear in me. If I’m ever in a bad storm I may change my mind.

I think we all have likes and dislikes. I did my first conventional cruise last summer, one week to southern Norway on the QM2,

The ship and everything about it was wonderful, food, accommodation etc, the places we visited were fascinating and we were also able to meet up with old friends, but essentially I was bored. Too much time doing/seeing nothing.

We have done more unconventional cruises, including the Nile (no murders!), no sea time and plenty to see and the Norwegian winter coast hop on Hurtigruten, when the ships were like over sized Brittany Ferries with no entertainment but 2 or 3 different stops a day with loading and unloading of freight and passengers. DS has done it since and was disappointed because it is now more a conventional cruise in a conventional cruising ship.

The other point of our conventonal cruise (with DD) we all, conventional returned home with COVID and I am beginning to think the sudden deterioration of my health, since then is associated with COVID

Fear of open water/deep sea is an understandable reason not to want to try a cruise Blondiescot. I sometimes suffer from 'mal de mer' but it doesn't put me off. I was told that the best way to avoid seasickness was to sit under a tree!
We're currently just trying to decide which river cruise to do next. I'm enjoying just browsing the websites and imagining which to choose.

Aveline I'm assuming you've just responded to my post without reading the link or doing any research yourself?

Think outside the box for a moment - from the mining and processing of raw materials to make the ships and everything in them; the the amount of diesel used; the food waste; the human waste; I could go on....instead you may like to read this, from Friends of the Earth, 14 March 2022:

"How Much Sewage Do Cruise Ships Dump?

More than a billion gallons of sewage are dumped into the ocean annually. This sewage is not only full of human waste, but also chemicals, pharmaceuticals, bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, and hazardous waste. And many cruise ships lack the sewage treatment facilities to adequately filter out toxins.

The increased waste in the ocean adds to the problem of pollution and oxygen depletion in the waters. Added nitrogen and phosphorus allow for algae blooms — which can suffocate coral reefs, manatees, shellfish, and fish.

Cruise ships often use cheap, dirty, heavy fuel to power their engines. And their smokestacks must be cleaned to remove the harmful elements from the exhaust. So cruise ships have implemented using scrubbers to “clean” their dirty fuel air emissions. This allows the cruise liners to continue to burn cheaper, more harmful fuel. And the water used in the “scrubber” process is then discharged into the ocean adding more pollution to the already polluted waters. These scrubbers emit acidic wastewater that is warmer than ambient sea water and contains heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), suspended particulate matter, and nitrates, all of which are harmful to the marine environment."

I despair that we humans seem to be developing ostrich-like DNA

It's serious pollution..

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I don't fly, by choice, so I don't stay in resorts.. it will be our children and grandchildren who bear the legacy of this generation's selfishness.. or maybe you're a climate denyer?

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maddyone

pascal perhaps you’d like to take your concerns to China, the USA, or Russia. I’m sure they’d want to listen and amend their ways.

even you should know that we can only be responsible for our own behaviour

And even you can know she's not wrong pascal30!

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Monica I didn't say never to travel if you look at my comments.
and I didn't duck out of the question I said we have responsibility for our own actions which of course can include being part of campaigns and trying to live mindfully and ethically. Cut the rude remarks it isn't worthy of you

pascal30

I don't fly, by choice, so I don't stay in resorts.. it will be our children and grandchildren who bear the legacy of this generation's selfishness.. or maybe you're a climate denyer?

We don't fly unless forced, we generally drive, however cars use petrol, so? We typically don't stay in resorts, too claustrophobic for us, but we do stay in single lets/B&B and actually that may be just as eco unfriendly as a resort. Staying home is same, we still use earth's resources.

All people can do is their best, imo.

Monica wasn’t remotely rude.

Aveline I think you, and many other posters on this thread, would find it illuminating and productive to research the environmental impact of cruises. Then you'd be able to make an informed choice about how you holiday; after all, one cannot unlearn what one has learned.

I have no moral high ground - nor have I made a comparison between cruising and holidaying in resorts - I am extremely concerned about our CLIMATE EMERGENCY. And the legacy we are leaving our grandchildren.

We are in this emergency NOW. It isn't something that's going to happen sometime in the future. How we choose to live NOW has a knock-on effect for generations. These are facts - not my opinion.

It seems to me that there's a lot of people who put their personal desires - I have one friend who says she'll not rest until she's visited every continent - above all else, even when there's so much information about how we are affecting our world.

Still, I guess it'll be worth spoiling our world just so we can hark back to the good old days of cocktails on our cruises - perhaps when we're all unable to breathe clean air?

M0nica you posted the following, under the heading: What kind of father sacrifices his children in order, he thinks, to win an election

"I have read today that Rishi Sunak has said he is going to review Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and ban them and do other things to make using a car easier and that he has approvea major extension of oil exploration in the North Sea. All this as Europe burns and heatwaves are reported everywhere.

If global warming gets worse, it is his children along with everyone elses who will suffer, children like his and my grandchildren, just starting into life, on their way towards adult life. Sunak, himself is only 43.

Forget which political party he supports, I just cannot get my head around the idea of a father prepared to sacrifice his children for a petty political gain."

Seems like there's a bit of a mis-match between your post above and the number of your cruises and their ensuing environmental impact.

Northernlass discuss this with cruisers from China and India.

Perhaps those who enjoy cruises are making their own effort to help the environment in other ways? Wishing to enjoy a perhaps well-earned and much-needed holiday, whether that is a cruise or a package holiday or a staycation, doesn't necessarily mean that person doesn't care about climate change or the environment. They may well be doing their own bit in other ways. We can't all be paragons of virtue.

Blondiescot

Perhaps those who enjoy cruises are making their own effort to help the environment in other ways? Wishing to enjoy a perhaps well-earned and much-needed holiday, whether that is a cruise or a package holiday or a staycation, doesn't necessarily mean that person doesn't care about climate change or the environment. They may well be doing their own bit in other ways. We can't all be paragons of virtue.

Well said. 👏👏

I’m not sure what your last message means Aveline?

I’ve only ever been on one, a quickie just to Ghent and Amsterdam, can’t say I fancy anything longer but 2 siblings and their spouses are fans - smaller ships only, though - not those enormous block-of-flats things.

However an ex colleague went on several mega-ship cruises sailing out of Miami, and loved them. She said most of the passengers were very fat Americans who spent much of the day going from one on-board eatery to another - she herself was a good size 18 and said she felt positively skinny beside many of them!

Mollygo & Blondiescot you may be correct, of course. Your language is somewhat emotional eg well-earned, much needed - it’s hard to put the other side. No doubt lots of people feel these things.
However, as I’ve said before, many of us put our desires, or needs, above the needs of our world. Which is the more important? We all have the capacity to make choices and, once informed, to look for alternative ways of being/living/thinking

Northernlass
However, as I’ve said before, many of us put our desires, or needs, above the needs of our world. Which is the more important? We all have the capacity to make choices and, once informed, to look for alternative ways of being/living/thinking

No one is perfect, not even those who shower only once a week for less than four minutes, who grow all their own food and never set foot out of doors so they don’t use pollution-creating transport, or causing danger on the roads by cycling or wearing out shoes by walking.

Not even those using electricity to power their devices to post on GN about other’s perceived defects.

I’ve read threads on GN where GN’s share the efforts they are making to minimise their impact on the planet. I find it both useful and heartening that we are all doing something.

I always find it very virtue signalling when people imagine that their actions or choice of actions are superior to those of others and imagine that no one but them is making any effort,

but if doing that keeps you busy, go for it, Northernlass

Mollygo
I find it disarming, and I'm saddened, that this thread seems to have turned into point scoring. It wasn't my intention to provoke you into such response.

May I ask what you think my intentions have been throughout this thread?

Perhaps you've heard of Dave MacKay? He was a fantastic bloke whom I had the privilege of working with:

Sir David John Cameron MacKay FRS FInstP FICE was a British physicist, mathematician, and academic. He was the Regius Professor of Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and from 2009 to 2014 was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. Wikipedia
Born: 22 April 1967, Stoke-on-Trent
Died: 14 April 2016, Cambridge
Education: California Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Newcastle-under-Lyme School

This is a link you and others may find interesting:

www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml

and here's an extract which sums up what I'm trying to say:

"*Every BIG helps*

We’ve established that the UK’s present lifestyle can’t be sustained on the
UK’s own renewables (except with the industrialization of country-sized
areas of land and sea). So, what are our options, if we wish to get off fossil
fuels and live sustainably? We can balance the energy budget either by
reducing demand, or by increasing supply, or, of course, by doing both.

Have no illusions. To achieve our goal of getting off fossil fuels, these
reductions in demand and increases in supply must be big. *Don’t be distracted
by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone does a little, we’ll
achieve only a little. We must do a lot. What’s required are big changes in
demand and in supply.*

“But surely, if 60 million people all do a little, it’ll add up to a lot?”
No. This “if-everyone” multiplying machine is just a way of making something
small sound big. The “if-everyone” multiplying machine churns out
inspirational statements of the form “if everyone did X, then it would provide
enough energy/water/gas to do Y,” where Y sounds impressive. Is
it surprising that Y sounds big? Of course not. We got Y by multiplying
X by the number of people involved – 60 million or so! Here’s an example
from the Conservative Party’s otherwise straight-talking Blueprint for a
Green Economy:

“The mobile phone charger averages around ... 1W consumption, but if every one of the country’s 25 million mobile phones chargers were left plugged in and switched on they would consume enough electricity (219GWh) to power 66 000 homes for one year.”

66 000? Wow, what a lot of homes! Switch off the chargers! 66 000 sounds a
lot, but the sensible thing to compare it with is the total number of homes
that we’re imagining would participate in this feat of conservation, namely
25 million homes. 66 000 is just one quarter of one percent of 25 million. So
while the statement quoted above is true, I think a calmer way to put it is:

If you leave your mobile phone charger plugged in, it uses one quarter of one percent of your home’s electricity.

And if everyone does it?

If everyone leaves their mobile phone charger plugged in, those chargers will use one quarter of one percent of their homes’ electricity.

The “if-everyone” multiplying machine is a bad thing because it deflects
people’s attention towards 25million minnows instead of 25million sharks.
The mantra “Little changes can make a big difference” is bunkum, when applied
to climate change and power."

I believe he wrote Without Hot Air c. 2010. And, it appears, we're still debating the validity of his research.