Cruises Were Awful Before the Pandemic. Here's Why.

I’ve always been pretty aware of how irritated I am when a giant cruise liner comes into a port, unloading a herd of humans onto a town that’s having a hard enough time dealing with high season tourism as it is.

To me, the reasons not to go on a cruise always outnumbered any reasons to book one, the first of which being that I have terrible seasickness on vessels large and small.

But when you really dive into why cruise ships are the worst, you find that it isn’t just one thing.

It’s all the things.

Reasons NOT to Go on a Cruise

Before I dive in, I wanted to explore some of the reasons I’ve heard from people who love the cruise life, and then swiftly destroy them.

For example, many cruisers love the idea of a cruise as a budget-friendly vacation. The costs upfront may seen pretty good, considering your accommodations, food, and sometimes even a gratuity are included in your daily rate; but look at the fine print and it may not be as budget-friendly as you think.

Alcohol typically costs extra, along with any excursions you may be interested in off the ship. Cruise lines are also notorious for deceptive marketing, and advertise rates that don’t include a myriad of fees. It’s kind of like AirBnb in that sense, but on water.

But I hear the food is soooo good!

I love eating a lot, so some of you may think I’d be swayed by nonstop access to food on a cruise ship.

If you know me better, though, you know I love trying all of the local foods when I’m traveling. It’s a huge part of what I want to experience at a new destination, and it just feels good to support local tourism over a floating tax evader.

If I wanted a buffet, I’d just go to Vegas, and I don’t even like Vegas that much, either.

It’s still fun to visit new places though, right?

You don’t need to go on a cruise to experience new places.

And most cruisers I’ve talked to admit they don’t get to spend much time in any one place. What’s fun about a frantic port stop where you have to decide on one thing to do over anything else? How do you even decide on that one thing? The world is so big, and it seems like cruise lines try to make it seem smaller, which is silly.

So you can probably tell you won’t be able to change my mind, but for those on the fence about booking a cruise, perhaps I can change yours.

Here are some of the biggest reasons not to take a cruise.

They spread illness and disease more effectively than a daycare with chicken pox.

Things have gotten markedly worse for cruise ships since the pandemic, with cruise ships having to spend additional – sometimes indefinite – time out at sea, as no one wants those virus receptacles docking at their shores.

But did you really need to wait for said pandemic to know that being on a cruise ship can quickly turn into a nightmare if just one person comes down with something?

The cruise ship industry can call it as rare as they like, and some cruisers say it’s unfair that cruise ships are associated with gastrointestinal illness more than any other form of travel.

To them I say, none of that matters when someone comes down with norovirus on a vessel where you can’t help but be in close quarters. That brown sludge you see seeping through the bottom of your door is exactly what you think it is.

And if you do get sick, there’s nowhere for you to go.

Imagine coming down with food poisoning while you’re on a cruise ship. You have no other options for food while you’re on that floating petri dish.

And if you’re already packing saltines for your upcoming trip, you’re living life wrong.

Seriously, it’s one thing to be prepared and another thing to assume you’re going to get sick on that vacation you’ve been saving for all year. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Is it mechanical failures your ship is experiencing? That’s even worse.

One of my favorite cruise ship horror stories is what happened on a Carnival Cruise ship in 2013.

The ship, the “Triumph,” was re-dubbed the “Poop Cruise” to better describe what was going on there.

A fire in the engine room led to a domino effect of problems on the ship: passengers lost access to freshwater, air conditioning, elevators, and toilets, forcing them to use plastic bags to…you guessed it, defecate in. According to testimonials from passengers at the time, the hallways were flooded with human waste as a result.

What are you even experiencing on a cruise?

Frequent cruisers like the idea of saying they were able to visit so many countries on their recent cruise, as the ship docks here and there and everywhere.

If you only have hours in a destination, though, what are you really seeing in that destination?

Imagine having to contend with a cruise ship full of people at wherever you land. Did you think you were going to have a relaxing time enjoying the highlights at your stop?

Think again.

You’ll likely just have time to buy some overpriced trinket to show your family back home that you “went” to the Cayman Islands.

The vast majority of your time is spent on the boat, binge eating all that food served to you by underpaid staff. More on that later.

Many destinations don’t want you there.

Over-tourism is a real problem in many destinations, and cruise ships only exacerbate the issue. Many of the places these ships are docking at can’t handle the influx of visitors a cruise ship brings to their shores.

Other tourists who want to experience say, Sydney’s harbor or Norway’s fjords without a giant cruise ship in their view don’t want you there, either.

Venice has become the poster child of the effect of cruise ships on the tourism industry. The Italian city has gone so far as to say large cruise liners are no longer allowed to dock in the historic centre. The ban came after an incident in June 2019, where a ship collided with a dock and injured several people on shore.

But all that means is that the ships are docking elsewhere. Critics understandably say it’s not enough, and more needs to be done to address effects created by cruise ships on the canals, resulting flooding, and on the aesthetics of Venice.

Seeing a giant cruise ship parked in the lagoon while locals and non-cruising tourists are just trying to enjoy some gelato is not a good look.

They’re masters at tax avoidance.

The Carnival Cruise Line is headquartered in Florida. But its fleet flies the flags of Panama, the Bahamas, and Malta. Royal Caribbean International, which is also headquartered in Florida, is registered in Liberia. Are you a fan of Norwegian Cruise Lines? They’re incorporated in Bermuda.

Why is that?

It’s strategic. Cruise lines pick and choose where to register and incorporate based on lax tax laws in those countries. I’m not saying other companies don’t do this. They absolutely do, and it’s wrong across the board.

But when we float the idea of bailing out industries that don’t pay their fair share of taxes, I get a little miffed, to say the least. Because it’s not typically Liberia or Malta coming to the rescue when something goes wrong on that floating tax haven. It’s more often than not the taxpayer-funded U.S. Coast Guard that saves the day.

Thankfully, it’s looking like cruise lines didn’t qualify for government aid under the last stimulus bill, and if that sinks the industry, so be it.

Cruise ships treat their staff like garbage.

The countries these cruise ship lines register with also have different labor laws than the United States, another area the industry has been just fine taking advantage of.

Cruise lines love to hire workers from countries in the Caribbean, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe. All of those places are full of people faced with limited economic opportunities. So cruise lines hire these people on and treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve, right?

Wrong.

These hires take the worst jobs at the lowest pay, and sign contracts that give them little job security and recourse if they complain. If employees were ever to complain, those complaints would typically go through arbitration processes with the cruise line rather than lawsuits. Remembers those contracts? The fine print typically includes language prohibiting lawsuits.

Shifts for these workers are typically a minimum of 12 hours, and most employees work seven days a week. And if you’re stuck on board for whatever reason, such as during a pandemic, for example, you may not be paid while waiting to get back home.

They wreck the environment.

Thankfully, environmental watchdog groups have been taking a closer look at cruise ships for a while now. Their effects on the environment are a doozy.

Princess Cruise Lines Ltd., which operates under the Carnival Corporation, was hit with a $40 million fine in 2018 for deliberately dumping contaminated waste into the ocean via a “magic pipe” used by employees. Their response was to attempt to hide the illegal dumping before eventually pleading guilty, thus the fine.

And that’s just a high profile case.

Cruise ships produce all kinds of waste, from 21,000 gallons of sewage per day to wastewater to oily bilge water, or the water that collects in the lowest part of the ship’s hull. That water often contains contaminants; cruise ships claim anything discharged into the ocean is filtered through a variety of processes, but that’s not always the case.

What about air pollution?

A cruise ship uses the dirtiest fuel out there to take you on that trip out to sea. It’s high in sulfur, and spews out into the air. A European study published in 2019 showed that cruise ships polluted 10 times more than all of Europe’s cars combined in 2017, the year the study’s authors were collecting data.

That’s 260 million cars.

If you’re not convinced about the environmental effects, consider the effects on your body. The air you’re breathing in on a cruise ship is worse than the air in some of the most polluted cities.

Studies looking at the link between the sulphur being spewed into the air by cruise and cargo ships show that in cities with very active ports, there is an increased likelihood of premature death from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, alongside an increase in childhood asthma cases.

Despite the link to the health of their consumers, cruise ships have been slow to address these issues, with most of them receiving failing grades to do anything about the air pollution.

Yes, air travel comes with its own problems.

But cruise ships emit three to four times more carbon dioxide per passenger mile than a jet.

If you're someone who cares about their carbon footprint, that footprint is three times what it would be on land while you're on that cruise ship.

Crimes go underreported.

People who go missing on a cruise often stay that way.

As a true crime junkie, I’m all about a good story, and there are plenty that involve the cruise industry. People go overboard, or they’re tossed overboard, or they just disappear, with the assumption that they’re out at sea somewhere.

More often, though, the crimes are less mysterious. They’re sexual assaults.

Sexual assaults are already underreported and tough to prosecute on land. These kinds of crimes that happen on a cruise ship are even more challenging, as you don’t have access to immediate law enforcement.

And who prosecutes those crimes when it’s unclear which country has jurisdiction? Is it Liberia, if that’s the flag the ship is flying? The outlook’s not good in that scenario.

Cruises are a want, not a need.

Cruises are the ultimate in lazy travel. You're told what to do and when, and have all your immediate needs met in one place.

But there are better ways, literally any other way, to see the world. Heck, if you really need that ease of travel, there are all-inclusive type vacations out there waiting for you at all kinds of resorts, in all kinds of budgets.

There are better ways to relax, too. Because if you’ve read all the way up to this point, what’s relaxing about all of the things that can go wrong on a cruise ship?

If you care about the environment, you shouldn’t be going on a cruise. If you care about people and the way they’re treated, you shouldn’t be going on a cruise. And if you care about your own health, you shouldn’t be going on a cruise.

Want to see more of this?

If you liked that, check out more of my writing at the links below.

?? Follow me on Medium. ??

?? Check out my blog. ??

This article first appeared on Travel on the Reg at https://www.travelonthereg.com/reasons-not-to-go-on-a-cruise/.