Confetti and streamer sendoffs

[sej67]

When did cruise lines end the confetti and streamer bon voyage parties seen in a lot of movies and tv shows? IIRC they were still showing them on The Love Boat in the late 70s, so it must have been sometime after that.

 

And what was the reason for ending them? Was it seen as too expensive or not environmentally friendly for the stuff to end up in the water?

[pauleydm]

There were environmental concerns, because, at the time of the banning, the products being used were not biodegradable.

[COMBOY]

I remember on my last cruise that they gave out streamers it was in the early 90's on Princess out of Ft. Lauderdale. I don't remember any since. I think they discontinue this practice due to environmental concerns. But really what's the purpose since there are few visitors at the pier since they don't allow visitors on board and a majority of passengers fly to the port. Back in the 70's having visitors on board to see you off was a great selling point for the cruise line. Visitors would come on board and see what cruise ships were like and maybe book one the next time. But that was when ship were small and catered mostly to the wealthy so security concerns weren't a major concern. When ships became larger and then 9/11 happened having any visitors on board or near the pier became impractical.

[DCT61]

My thoughts exactly. Who would you be throwing confetti and streamers to? What visitors (folks dropping the passengers off) there are, aren't able to get close enough to the ships anyway. I remember the practice of not allowing visitors onboard started long before 9-11, after the ACHILLE LAURO incident in the early 1980s. Of the 4 cruises I took prior to 9-11, none of those allowed visitors.

Edited March 9, 2015 by DCT61

[navyvet8395]

Tampa is the only port that I know of where you can get close to the ship as there is a large deck area outside a mall area separated by glass bulkheads of course. I stood there as the ship pulled in and I got on it a few hours later. I watched everything from dropping the gangways to dumping trash.

[geoherb]

Princess has a bon voyage program in some ports that lets you bring on visitors. They're gone by sailaway time.

[djhsolara]

Funny that I just saw this topic. We were watching The Love Boat yesterday and talked about this. We said that if you so much as think about throwing something over the rail these days you'll likely end up in the brig. [emoji6]