Article - The world's largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem

[Pauline]

The Guardian - The world's largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem, by John Vidal, 21 May 2016
As Harmony of the Seas sets sail from Southampton docks on Sunday she will leave behind a trail of pollution – a toxic problem that is growing as the cruise industry and its ships get ever bigger

From the article: 'Daniel Rieger, a transport officer at German environment group Nabu, said: “Cruise companies create a picture of being a bright, clean and environmentally friendly tourism sector. But the opposite is true. One cruise ship emits as many air pollutants as five million cars going the same distance because these ships use heavy fuel that on land would have to be disposed of as hazardous waste.”'

Yes, here I am going on about cruise ships again. We just spent a week with friends who had done 3 back to back cruises (South America, Florida to Europe, Mediterranean) and were spending a week with us before doing a 4th cruise (Ireland and Iceland), so I heard plenty about how it is the ideal way to travel, how the ports they visit want the cruise ships because it is beneficial to the local economy, how environmentally friendly it all is, how well paid and well treated the staff are. I argued each point and hoped to show them the beauty of slow travel, but they left being very happy to get back on a cruise ship.

People on the cruise ship are not affected by the pollution because it spews away from the ship.

I find that I am now factoring in cruise ships to my trip planning. I used to worry about "tour bus towns" but now I look to see if cruise ships doc nearby and offer day trips to places I am going to. The Amalfi Coast, where we just spent two weeks, gets day trippers from cruise ships docking at Salerno and Naples. They are offered a bus tour along the Amalfi Coast, stopping in Amalfi. Tour buses are not allowed into Positano but they drive by and, I think, stop at a view point just outside of town. Sorrento was packed with day trippers. Lots of them at Pompeii too.

Maybe the answer is to go off season to cruise ship destination and in season to go inland.

The travel world is all getting a bit too crowded.

 

[PatrickLondon]

We have our own local version of this problem in my part of London. There is a plan for a dedicated cruise terminal building on one of the remaining post-industrial parts of North Greenwich (to replace the little temporary pontoon thing that moves up and down the river as the occasonial cruise ship turns up). There's a major campaign to make the developers require the ships to connect to on-shore mains electricity while there, rather than run their own diesel generators with all the air pollution that gives us (London has a particularly bad problem already).

It's the latest version of the problem that "X was lovely till all those tourists started coming". Now that more and more of the world has money to travel, they can't all fit into the sought-after places. It'll have to be a limited number of timed tickets for the likes of Venice and the Cinque Terre, or whatever.

 

[jonathan]

Oh dear! I'd read that initial Guardian article with interest (and astonishment at finding out just how much diesel fuel these things consume) - but hadn't realised how close these issues were to our intended home...

 

[PatrickLondon]

Prevailing winds would push the air pollution away to the east (one hopes!), and I'd imagine the noise would be mostly absorbed by the riverside blocks on that side of the island, so I wouldn't want to overstate the downsides. We currently get a few big ships a year mooring opposite our side of the island, which adds a certain temporary excitement without too much noticeable disruption. But if it were throbbing diesel engines, blaring ships' announcements and clouds of fumes several times a week, it might be different.....

 

[jonathan]

No, I wasn't seriously worried! And certainly the Thames is pretty wide there: so the cruise ships wouldn't loom as large as they do, horrendously, in Venice.

 

[Sharon J]

Pauline, we just returned from Venice last night. It was a nightmare. We have been going to Venice for over 17 years, and I have NEVER seen it so crowed. I realize there are times when there are less people, but I don't think I want to return to find out. There were actually 8, yes 8 cruise ships in port, 2 were mega ships. Yes, you could find corners of Venice, where there are fewer people, but those aren't always the places, we are visiting. We tried to observe how many shopping bags were being carried as these cruise passengers returned from their day, and never saw any. I've never been pushed and shoved so much getting on and off a Vaporetto's. It's truly time for Venice to say, "Enough." I may feel better in time, but I'm don't think I'll be returning to Venice anytime soon. I was just sad the entire time I was there.

 

[Pauline]

That is such bad news about Venice @Sharon J ! We were there in 1996 and it was crowded then. I agree that it is time for many places to say "enough".

I recently heard that Taormina in Sicily is now overrun with cruise ship day-trippers. I haven't been there but was planning to go. I wonder if going off-season works? Don't the cruise ships have a "season" - April to October? Or do they run year-round.

 

[chiaro di Luna]

Most ships go to the Caribbean between Oct and first of Dec, but the Italian/European lines still sail through that area in our winter. Canary Islands, Egypt, Spain are destinations after the lines like Princess, RCL leave Europe. Many head to Europe at the end of April.
The residents need to say NO CRUISE SHIPS---they don't need the jobs, or money, or crowds.
Ships can tender in, they do not need to dock, especially in Venice.
Many cruisers do spend money on land, despite what we hear from non cruisers.

 

[artnbarb]

I guess I prove the theory "ignorance is bliss" because I had no idea how much pollution these ships spew out! It must be a nightmare for those living in port cities.

As you know we do like transatlantic cruises, mainly for the no-jet-lag arrival in Europe, and also for the no weight/liquid restrictions when sailing from Europe to the states. We'll probably continue to take those TA cruises as long as it makes economic and logistical sense for us.

This summer we are taking 2 cruise to places we think it makes more sense to cruise to: Alaska and the Baltic region. Altho we're not cruising through the fjords, I think that would also be a situation where cruising would be a nice option. Oh, and we've also talked about cruising through the Panama Canal just for the experience, but I doubt we will. We are definitely not Caribbean cruisers, and I would never, ever take a cruise ship into Venice.

Where do we draw the line? Is it hypocritical to take an Alaskan cruise while condemning cruise ships to Venice? I'm not sure, but this article was an eye-opener, and hopefully will spark more awareness on the part of the public, and more responsibility on the part of the cruise lines - but as long as they're making money I doubt things will change.

 

[ellen]

Reading this thread caused me to look up the cruise ship schedule for the three days I'll be in Venice in October. While not off season, mid-October certainly isn't high season either. Even so, on the day we arrive in Venice there will be seven cruise or river cruise ships in town with a maximum passenger load of 11,922 souls. Yikes! I guess it's good news that three of those ships, representing two-thirds of the passenger load, pull out between 5 - 6 PM, which means that teh passengers will need to be out of the city and at the cruise port by mid-afternoon, about when we'll arrive. Nevertheless, that's a lot of people for a relatively small group of islands in shoulder season.

The next two days are better for us, only 5,252 possible passengers the next day and only 2,570 the day after that.

Believe it or not, these are not the bigger ships in the cruise industry, the largest one during our stay, the MSC Orchestra, has only 3,223 passengers vs. more than 6,000 on Oasis of the Seas or Allure of the Seas.

 

[artnbarb]

Wow - those numbers are staggering! When we visited the stops on our Baltic cruise, Berlin, Tallin, St Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm, I wondered how much of an impact we made in terms of traffic, congestion, and overcrowded shops. Do the smaller ports like Tallin experience a 'feast or famine' type economy, and do the larger cities even notice the influx of multiple shops? I'd love to know more about this issue.

 

[ellen]

I think that cities like St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Stockholm can absorb cruise passengers fairly well due to their size and the fact that they are used to land tourism.

Tallin may be a bit different because I don't think it was on a lot of travelers' agendas until the cruise industry started stopping there, Estonia not being high on most lists. That said, I thought they were pretty well set up for cruise stops and it was easy to walk into the old town and back.

I wonder what is taking the coastal towns in Poland so long to try and develop some cruise business. With all the ships plying the Baltic sea in the summer everyone is looking for something new that will set them apart, and I bet Poland would be interesting assuming that there was anything left after WWII. Gdansk, anyone?

 

[Pauline]

Reading this thread caused me to look up the cruise ship schedule for the three days I'll be in Venice in October.

What website do you use to find this info?

Another thing with these numbers is that everyone on the ships goes to the one destination. For cruise ships in Salerno near the Amalfi coast they choose between a few day trips, so everyone doesn't go to the same place.

 

[ellen]

True, passengers do head in several directions but unfortunately in Venice, that's all there is for the most part, that small collection of islands. At least at Naples they might head to Pompei, or Sorrento, or the AC, or Capri, or stay in Naples, the area is big enough to absorb them. Venice, not so much.

I found the information on the port authority's web site. Most of the Italian ports publish it so you can see what's coming. For Venice it's here: http://www.vtp.it/calendario-approdi/

For Naples the calendar is here, just click on a date and the list of ships pops up below the calendar: http://www.terminalnapoli.it/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=245

Salerno: http://www.porto.salerno.it/application/Crociere/Calendario2016.asp?m=Tutti

For Livorno and Civitavecchia I don't think it makes a difference, there are so many places to head and a lot of room to absorb them. Plus, they're not right in Florence or Rome as they are in Naples or Genoa.

The really scary one is Cinque Terre. That part of the coast is quickly becoming overwhelmed since La Spezia opened berths for cruise ships.

Edited to add:

I just realized that I left out a step from my explanation. After I had the list of ships I googled them to get the passenger load information. Each cruise line publishes this on their web site.

 

[Pauline]

Cinque Terre was packed when we were there 12 years ago! I can't imagine that walking trail now. We stayed in Levanto, the larger town to the north. There is a good trail from there to the first Cinque Terre town - that would be how to avoid the crowds I guess.

But really, this makes me sad. Too many people seeing a place as a day trip only.

 

[chiaro di Luna]

Gdansk was a stop on my Baltic cruise in 2007.

Ships offer excursions when they visit Venice to Padua, Murano, Burano, Mazzorbo Island for vineyard tour, lagoon cruise and gondola ride. This gets some of the cruisers out of your way. And there are many people who do sign up for the ship's excursions who use Locals to provide the service.

 

[ellen]

What was Gdansk like? Would you go back and spend more time there or was a port day enough?

It's true that excursions take some portion of the ship population elsewhere but with Venice I suspect that's a fairly low percentage, certainly no more than 20%, especially considering that only a percentage of the population uses ship excursions. Even if we cut the number of people in half, that's still a big surge. Of course, it's not just the cruise ships. They take the hit because they are so big and impossible to miss, but the hundreds of buses dropping off and picking up in Piazzale Roma each day bring their fair share as well.

 

[Pauline]

In the Italy forum, an article in today's Observer (UK) about the crowds in Italy this year. Link to thread.

 

[chiaro di Luna]

Gdansk was very interesting in the old town. Pedestrian, river, interesting architecture, very reasonably priced food and drinks. I did buy some jewelry there and found the shop keepers and waiters very friendly. Loving the tourists. It was very sad seeing the huge apartment buildings and hearing the way of life these people have endured. It was about 45 minute drive from ship to town. Several others took day trip to a concentration camp. A day is not enough.

 

[chiaro di Luna]

I probably won't go back to Tallin nor Gdansk, although I did enjoy the port stops.
Re:Venice---the residents must do something to make changes. I do not support cruise ships docking there.
And I think they should limit some of the smaller boats that go much faster then the ships.