Are big ships ruining ports around the world?

[kazu]

The "saving" they need is from humans. We don't need to save them; we need to stop killing them.

 

 

I cannot imagine it would "simple" to have a cruse ship ban implemented thanks to another "save the whales" campaign. The financial loss for the ports would be strongly fought by those who put that interest first. Then there are the non-believers or those who find excuses such as why pick on (big) cruse ships when cargo ships have killed them too, or fishing is a cause of their deaths (or continued purposeful killing such as Iceland and Norway (where as per Nat Geo is being used for animal feed because few humans even want to eat the meat) and Japan "scientific" research.

 

I am not saying that the financial interests are wrong to fight for their cause but "simple" is a simplistic view

 

Fact - I live here and keep up to date on this problem as it is a big one and I care. Every report gets major coverage.

 

Fact - cargo ships, whale viewing ships have killed whales.

 

Fact - fishing nets are killing whales.

 

I was simply stating (since you want to belittle my simple) that there is much more involved in the whales than just cruise ships. You can't blame all the deaths on cruise ships. It's just not true.

 

Fishermen's livelihoods have been affected and so have businesses and the ports since now cruise ships cannot visit some because of the speed.

 

The problem is man - we have changed the climate and the temperature of the water. The whales did not stay in those places in the St. Laurence sea way so long in the past. They were in a different area and off our coast more where it is safe.

 

Something has made them change their pattern and the suspicion is that it is climate and water temperature and sea life. No one knows.

 

I highly doubt no cruise ships in Montreal or Quebec would put a major issues on their economy. They are very popular tourist spots and most of their tourist economy is driven by land tourists, not cruise ships. So, yes the ships could be cancelled and yes, if the ships do not follow the regulations or if it doesn't solve the problem, I suspect cruise ships will be banned IF they are deemed to be the issue.

[Divi]

Well said Kazu .

[YoHoHo]

Fact - I live here and keep up to date on this problem as it is a big one and I care. Every report gets major coverage.

Good that you keep up to date and get lots of local reports.

Fact - cargo ships, whale viewing ships have killed whales.

Your quoting my post but I did not say otherwise.

Fact - fishing nets are killing whales.

Your quoting my post but I did not say otherwise.

I was simply stating (since you want to belittle my simple) ...

You did say " If it was as simple as that". My intention was not to belittle you. My intention was to say that it would not be simple to get cruise ships banned. It was not personal.

...that there is much more involved in the whales than just cruise ships. You can't blame all the deaths on cruise ships. It's just not true.

Where did I say that I did? I never made any such statement.

Fishermen's livelihoods have been affected and so have businesses and the ports since now cruise ships cannot visit some because of the speed.

Agreed. I wrote "I am not saying that the financial interests are wrong to fight for their cause"

 

The problem is man - we have changed the climate and the temperature of the water. The whales did not stay in those places in the St. Laurence sea way so long in the past. They were in a different area and off our coast more where it is safe.

 

Something has made them change their pattern and the suspicion is that it is climate and water temperature and sea life. No one knows.

 

I highly doubt no cruise ships in Montreal or Quebec would put a major issues on their economy. They are very popular tourist spots and most of their tourist economy is driven by land tourists, not cruise ships. So, yes the ships could be cancelled and yes, if the ships do not follow the regulations or if it doesn't solve the problem, I suspect cruise ships will be banned IF they are deemed to be the issue.

This is all reasonable. I cant reach the same conclusion though that cruise ships will be banned, perhaps reduced / controlled but not banned. Too much money involved and other arguments can be made with some of the above examples. such as blame climate change, fishing, cargo ships.

 

My magic eight ball is a little foggy so will have to wait.

[ChinaShrek]

Many of the places we are talking about do not have the empty hotel rooms necessary to accommodate even a fraction of the number of cruise ship passengers that visit them for a day. The logical fallacy that you've hung your hat on is a false dichotomy: Since there is no choice to earn that revenue by way of tourists staying overnight in hotels, there is no alternative way for the port city to earn the revenue that is earned from cruise passengers. The cruise ships serve the financial interests of the port city by providing a place for those tourists to sleep at night (as the ship travels to the next port), which the city could not offer otherwise.

 

I spent three nights in Bruges before my cruise left Amsterdam last month. One day, I took a walking tour of city and the guide commented that cruise ships were destroying his delightful town. He argued that cruisers really spend very little money in Bruges. They come in like "mosquitoes," buy a few trinkets, and have a beer before returning to their ship. They have a negligible impact on the local economy but a large impact on crowding. He said that they should be banned. I personally noticed that Bruges was significantly quieter on the day when no cruise ships were in port.

[kangforpres]

Too many tourists in the world is getting coverage more than before, I remember seeing a story about a small town in NZ near where the "Lord of Rings" was shot and during their high season they get 165 tourist for every local, it overloads the sewer system and people can't flush the toilets. There are more tourist then ever everywhere. Mega ships impact ports but too many people on Earth in general is overwhelming to planet too. So enjoy your ability to travel while you can, and try to do it as responsibly as possible.

 

I love the irony of the Sandals resorts commercials that only shows one couple enjoying the entire resort to themselves!

 

Peace,

 

Paul

[kazu]

Good that you keep up to date and get lots of local reports.

 

Your quoting my post but I did not say otherwise.

 

Your quoting my post but I did not say otherwise.

 

You did say " If it was as simple as that". My intention was not to belittle you. My intention was to say that it would not be simple to get cruise ships banned. It was not personal.

 

Where did I say that I did? I never made any such statement.

 

Agreed. I wrote "I am not saying that the financial interests are wrong to fight for their cause"

 

 

This is all reasonable. I cant reach the same conclusion though that cruise ships will be banned, perhaps reduced / controlled but not banned. Too much money involved and other arguments can be made with some of the above examples. such as blame climate change, fishing, cargo ships.

 

My magic eight ball is a little foggy so will have to wait.

 

You might want to re-read your post, carefully ;)

 

I am not going to get into a fight on a bunch of snips you choose.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to the facts.

 

The Canadian Government (and most Canadians in general as well) is very big on protecting species and people in need. They will gladly sacrifice fishermen, cruise ships, whatever if it means they can save the species. Their actions so far have addressed that with the additional prohibitions that they keep adding very quickly when further deaths were reported.

[RDC1]

Cruise ship passengers do not leave as much money as tourists who book hotels and eat in the restaurants. An organized herded group just blocks the streets; I know I have been part of enough groups to know that we sometimes didn't even have enough time to browse for souvenirs let alone time for anything else except a potty break.

 

The city of Venice should have clamped down on the airbnb and hotel transformation of residential apartments. Other cities with similar problems have acted. By the way, France has closed the original Lascaux cave with the drawings and recreated a copy for visitors.

 

They may not leave as much money per traveler, though there is a fair amount. However, they also have a much much lower of impact on city infrastructure, Real estate prices, crowding out of local by increasing costs, etc than travelers visiting and arriving by air or bus, having to stay in hotels, or AirBnb type rooms.

 

You can also split the impact into Alaska/Caribbean and most of the rest of the world. In Alaska and Caribbean you do get a lot of crowds from cruise ships, but the town infrastructures have trouble even handling the people that come in to work for the summer, let alone if cruise ships did not come and the tourists came in by some other method.

 

The reality of it is that cruise ships have brought a lot of money into the cruise ports. Much more than there would be without them. Same with the Caribbean. Do away with the cruise ships and the number of tourists that they would get would drop dramatically along with tourist revenue.

 

This conversation is kind of like everyone saying that they want to travel and visit different areas, but they don't want other people to crowd them. The reality is that by cruise ship or other means the number of tourist areas are pretty fixed, but the number of people with the means to visit them are increasing dramatically.

 

The only solution to that is to raise the costs, or limit the number of visitors in some other fashion such as a lottery.

[SetAnOpenCourse]

Like Yogi Berra said, nobody goes there anymore- it’s too crowded!

[Fouremco]

Like Yogi Berra said, nobody goes there anymore- it’s too crowded!

I thought that was Yogi Bear complaining about overcrowding at Jellystone Park.:halo:

[kazu]

I spent three nights in Bruges before my cruise left Amsterdam last month. One day, I took a walking tour of city and the guide commented that cruise ships were destroying his delightful town. He argued that cruisers really spend very little money in Bruges. They come in like "mosquitoes," buy a few trinkets, and have a beer before returning to their ship. They have a negligible impact on the local economy but a large impact on crowding. He said that they should be banned. I personally noticed that Bruges was significantly quieter on the day when no cruise ships were in port.

 

I have been lucky to be in Brugges when there is only one cruise ship (P'dam) which is not a big ship.

 

tourist influx here is large without question.

 

We spent plenty of $ here between a lovely local restaurant we found where the local seemed to inhabit, (both lunch and my birthday dinner), chocolates and other important items.

 

We love this spot but there were a lot of tourists there and I don't think it was just our 800 passengers ;)

[YoHoHo]

You might want to re-read your post, carefully ;)

 

I am not going to get into a fight on a bunch of snips you choose.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to the facts.

 

The Canadian Government (and most Canadians in general as well) is very big on protecting species and people in need. They will gladly sacrifice fishermen, cruise ships, whatever if it means they can save the species. Their actions so far have addressed that with the additional prohibitions that they keep adding very quickly when further deaths were reported.

You are very argumentative. And continue that theme with a retort "you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to the facts." yet you do not address my comments asking where I said the those things you replied to me. Seems to me there is a failure to communicate. I am done trying. And this is too off topic. Feel free for another shot; I will ignore it.

[YoHoHo]

They may not leave as much money per traveler, though there is a fair amount. However, they also have a much much lower of impact on city infrastructure, Real estate prices, crowding out of local by increasing costs, etc than travelers visiting and arriving by air or bus, having to stay in hotels, or AirBnb type rooms.

 

You can also split the impact into Alaska/Caribbean and most of the rest of the world. In Alaska and Caribbean you do get a lot of crowds from cruise ships, but the town infrastructures have trouble even handling the people that come in to work for the summer, let alone if cruise ships did not come and the tourists came in by some other method.

 

The reality of it is that cruise ships have brought a lot of money into the cruise ports. Much more than there would be without them. Same with the Caribbean. Do away with the cruise ships and the number of tourists that they would get would drop dramatically along with tourist revenue.

 

This conversation is kind of like everyone saying that they want to travel and visit different areas, but they don't want other people to crowd them. The reality is that by cruise ship or other means the number of tourist areas are pretty fixed, but the number of people with the means to visit them are increasing dramatically.

 

The only solution to that is to raise the costs, or limit the number of visitors in some other fashion such as a lottery.

Good thoughts. I can see your solutions happening.

 

 

Ports raise fees which are passed to pax and so some cruises will skips those ports occasionally to not raise fares. The lottery too. Not in a draw a ticket type but for the cruise ships in order to dock and perhaps even tour providers allowed access. As was mentioned Cinque Terre closes the gates when X number have passed through so even limiting cars. Better to have purchased limited access in advance. Limiting tourists will improve the experience for those who can get to visit as well. And then that great experience and the somewhat exclusive / limited experience can create more demand and so prices raise further...

 

As previous poster wrote travel we'll travel as we can now and travel as responsibly as we can now so that it can be an enjoyable experience for others to follow and minimize the harm.

[smokinmike]

One of the places we love in the Caribbean is Terre-de-Haute on the main island of Îles des Saintes. About the only way you can get to this small port on this small island is a small ship, ferry in, or fly in on a Caravan. I couldn’t imagine a Gigantic Ship of the Sea visiting this place. Sometimes you need to actually work to get to good places.

 

. . . and that’s the way it should be sometimes.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[RDC1]

I spent three nights in Bruges before my cruise left Amsterdam last month. One day, I took a walking tour of city and the guide commented that cruise ships were destroying his delightful town. He argued that cruisers really spend very little money in Bruges. They come in like "mosquitoes," buy a few trinkets, and have a beer before returning to their ship. They have a negligible impact on the local economy but a large impact on crowding. He said that they should be banned. I personally noticed that Bruges was significantly quieter on the day when no cruise ships were in port.

 

Since you mention Bruges for example. In 2016 all of Flanders had 29,105,389 overnight stays of which Bruges had 1.8 million. All of Flanders had a little less than 800,000 cruise ship passengers visit during that year.

 

While there are certainly excursions that go to Bruges, it is not the largest destination of cruise ship passengers. On the last cruise I was on to that area there were 2 excursions, out of over 20 offered for that port, that touched on Bruges. So even if we went with 15% of all cruise ship passengers that touch Flanders go to Bruges (I think that would be a high number considering all of the competing tour locations during 1 day stops) that would be around 120k compared to 1.8 million. Both numbers are pretty heavily concentrated during May-Sept time frame. If you assume that Bruges gets the same percentage of cruise ship passengers as it gets of overnight stays then one could use 6.2% as a lower bound which would be approximately 50,000 cruise ship passenger visits per year compared to the 1.8 million over night stays. Using 120k as an upper bound and 50k as the lower that would mean that cruise ship passengers would constitute between 2.7 to 6.6% of tourist visits to Bruges.

 

One might suspect that your guide could also be unhappy with cruise ship passengers, because they are not his customers, but instead are guided by competing tour companies who are guiding to the same sites that he visits and as such might conflict with his tour groups.

 

The data comes from Tourism in Key Figures 2017 Edition by VisitFlanders

Edited August 5, 2018 by RDC1

[Bill B]

Man tames fire. Man burns fossil fuels. Planet gets warmer. Sea ice melts. Cruise lines see profit. Polar bears can't hunt seals. Polar bears hunt tourists. :rolleyes:

[jkadventures]

You might want to re-read your post, carefully ;)

 

I am not going to get into a fight on a bunch of snips you choose.

 

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to the facts.

 

The Canadian Government (and most Canadians in general as well) is very big on protecting species and people in need. They will gladly sacrifice fishermen, cruise ships, whatever if it means they can save the species. Their actions so far have addressed that with the additional prohibitions that they keep adding very quickly when further deaths were reported.

 

 

 

If the Canadian government is very big on protecting species, why are they still allowing the disgusting seal hunt? And why are Canadians still participating?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Etta1213]

One thing Americans could do is take a stronger interest in the study of foreign languages. They'd be more inclined to get off the tourist tracks, have more meaningful visits with those of other cultures, etc. Our country, I think, is woefully weak in the area of foreign language study. I feel ashamed when I meet those of other countries who speak three or more languages.

By the way, reading through the posts in this thread has been thought-provoking for me, a privilege.

[Tatka]

One thing Americans could do is take a stronger interest in the study of foreign languages. They'd be more inclined to get off the tourist tracks, have more meaningful visits with those of other cultures, etc. Our country, I think, is woefully weak in the area of foreign language study. I feel ashamed when I meet those of other countries who speak three or more languages.

By the way, reading through the posts in this thread has been thought-provoking for me, a privilege.

Not going to happen unless there is an exposure to natural speakers. It's extremely difficult to learn languages without it.

I know this from my personal experience. I studied English since 4th grade, but it was passive knowledge till we moved to US. Since then I made an effort to learn Spanish, German, Italian. It's hard even with the best courses without real interactions.

[RDC1]

Not going to happen unless there is an exposure to natural speakers. It's extremely difficult to learn languages without it.

I know this from my personal experience. I studied English since 4th grade, but it was passive knowledge till we moved to US. Since then I made an effort to learn Spanish, German, Italian. It's hard even with the best courses without real interactions.

 

The other reason is that English is a pretty wide spread second language. So if you wanted to study the one language that gives you the best chance of communicating in widespread areas around the world it would be English.

[HUNKY]

The Port of Amsterdam has no intention of sending cruise ships to alternate ports. In 2022 the world's largest sea lock opens. Promotional video specifically mentions the ability to handle larger cruise ships, Oasis of the Seas.

 

Tourism is a double edged sword. The Florida Ports Council states that 15% of Key West's TOTAL tax revenue is contributed by passenger port fees! When upwards of 9,000 cruise ship passengers descend on a city of 22,000 some craziness is unavoidable.

[MMDown Under]

One of the places we love in the Caribbean is Terre-de-Haute on the main island of Îles des Saintes. About the only way you can get to this small port on this small island is a small ship, ferry in, or fly in on a Caravan. I couldn’t imagine a Gigantic Ship of the Sea visiting this place. Sometimes you need to actually work to get to good places.

. . . and that’s the way it should be sometimes.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I agree and fortunately there are lots of magical places, such as this place, where the "difficulty of getting there" is half the fun.

[bUU]

This conversation is kind of like everyone saying that they want to travel and visit different areas, but they don't want other people to crowd them.

Precisely.

 

The only solution to that is to raise the costs, or limit the number of visitors in some other fashion such as a lottery.

The former is the way everything was done prior to the advent of democracy - withhold all that is good in life for those who are fortunate enough to be wealthy or otherwise powerful. The latter breaks the system by which a value is associated with something (market-based pricing). So, regrettably neither is a "solution". When the problem is, as is the case in this case, that, "there isn't enough to go around," the solution must necessarily involve having enough of what people want to satisfy all. That's probably impossible, so we'll likely just cobble together a back-and-forth between these two other approaches you outlined, going this way or that way as one set of constituents or another gain an upper hand. Edited August 5, 2018 by bUU

[AmazedByCruising]

The Port of Amsterdam has no intention of sending cruise ships to alternate ports. In 2022 the world's largest sea lock opens. Promotional video specifically mentions the ability to handle larger cruise ships, Oasis of the Seas.

 

They certainly want to get rid of the ships. In Dutch, but google may help:

 

https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/182096/nieuw-stadsbestuur-neemt-radicale-maatregelen-tegen-toerisme

[cartervan]

When I started this thread I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. But, wow, everything from Canada bashing to elitism vs. democracy! But there have been a lot of thoughtful points made about a complicated subject.

[ChinaShrek]

When I started this thread I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. But, wow, everything from Canada bashing to elitism vs. democracy! But there have been a lot of thoughtful points made about a complicated subject.

 

Yes, this is a great thread. I am glad that you started it because I often consider how crowded the ports will be before I book a cruise.