Three-year cruise canceled weeks before shoving off, after one woman sold her apartment to join unique voyage
foxbusiness.com
Passengers who booked trips have been told refunds will be issued in monthly installments
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Life at Sea Cruises' first three-year sailing was announced in March and promised passengers willing to fork out at least $29,999 per year
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Cruise ships really need to disappear if we are gonna keep this planet somewhat livable. Mega polluters.
The problem isn't the ships it's the insane amount of diesel they suck down. We already run giant ships powered by nuclear reactors.
Honest question: do the use diesel? A lot of big ships when they are not in a nation's waters burn bunker oil which is significantly worse.
While googling this, it seems like there is an international cap on marine fuels for 0.5% sulphur.
https://www.cruisemapper.com/wiki/752-cruise-ship-engine-propulsion-fuel
A lot of ports and shipping areas require 0.1% sulphur content.
A lot of places I've read say things along the lines of "cruise ships run on diesel, specifically MDO or MGO".
E.g.
https://luxurytraveldiva.com/what-does-a-cruise-ship-use-for-fuel/
Here's a thing about MDO and MGO.
https://maritimepage.com/what-are-mgo-and-mdo-fuels-marine-fuels-explained/
MGO is 0.1% sulphur content.
MDO is 2% sulphur content.
For comparison, car diesel sulphur content is like 0.001%.
Best source I can find for bunker fuel is 3.5%. So, MDO/MGO are better than bunker fuel, I guess. Feels like a rebrand with minor improvements, so everyone can say "yeh, it's just diesel. Not bunker fuel".
But 2% MDO is still a 40% improvement over 3.5% bunker fuel.
Seems like there is a lot of changing and outdated information on this.
And it being related to international trading, laws and standards... There doesn't seem to be a reliable definitive source on it.
My takeaway is "yeh, it's not bunker fuel. It's diesel. But it's not diesel as we know it from driving cars, trucks, tractors and other plant"
I was surprised to learn that many cruise ships burn diesel rather than bunker oil.
That's a recent change, IIRC, and not all cruise lines are in on it.
Cruise ships are pretty big polluters, yes. Cruise passengers have about 8x the emissions that they'd have from a comparable land-based vacation.
But when people talk about ship pollution, they're usually talking about non-carbon pollution.
For example, ships often burn heavy fuel oil, which produces tons of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and NOX, which depletes the ozone and causes smog and asthma.
Cruise ships are bad for the environment, but there's honestly bigger fish to fry. Gas power plants are way, way worse for the planet.
It’s all bad. This isn’t a competition. It all needs to cease.
Are you comparing power plants to cruise ships?
From the comparisons I've made in the past, they're also relatively cheap compared to land based vacations. For some reason, it's cheaper to make your hotel float.
Then there's places where ships are more inherent to the experience, like transiting the Panama canal, or coastal regions of Alaska or Norway. Places that are too remote to get to by most other means.
But fuck Caribbean cruises. That's a boat taking you from one tourist outdoor shopping mall to another.
Nations won't stop using oil as long as it is economically viable.
We're already forced to burn oil to power air conditioners so our elders don't die in heatwave. Just imagine the inside of a giant Vegas casino without electricity.
Way to complete ignore my point.
You said we will still use oil because it's profitable. I said that we can't stop using oil, because our earth is too hot, because we are too much burning oil. How am I off topic?
My point is, it's not economically viable for an elderly Texan to spend 500 bucks on inflated energy prices during a heatwave, but it's not like there is a choice. We're gonna burn it all up because we don't know how to stop.