[lmm]

I believe in the greatest happiness of the greatest number, so I'm in favour of making sure as many people as possible get to experience these places - Venice, Everest, Jamaica, wherever people want to go - with the minimum disruption to others. Cruises seem like the best way to minimise the per-person "footprint" of visiting a place - just as container ships are the most efficient way of transporting goods.

[c22]

I went on a Caribbean cruise once (the trip was bought for me, I would never have paid for it). The thing I found most striking was the same-ness of every stop. We stopped in Jamaica, but it felt the same as every single other stop: Busy "shopping area" right near the cruise terminal, with many of the exact same stores as the last stop. A variety of the same tired cruise-approved "activities" ("touch a dolphin", "ride a zipline through the forest", "snorkel adventure!") available with just a 1-2 hour cramped bus ride. And, in my experience, not enough time at each stop to actually see much or any of the place we'd landed. The boat stopped in Belize, so I guess I can stick that pin up on my big world-map. Except the "island" we stopped at was wholly-owned by the cruise line and we were only there for four hours, so we mostly gained the experience of buying the same overpriced drinks they had available on the boat, but out of a coconut.

I disagree that cruises are an effective way to visit a place at all, let alone on a low footprint.

[lmm]

In my experience you can find sameness anywhere if you look for it, or you can find the interesting differences. Four hours is pretty short, true, but it's time enough to wander around a place and experience something unique (I had around that long in Vienna on one trip, but I ate a lovely "sushi burrito" for lunch, saw some amazing paintings, and drank in a wonderfully traditional cafe). I'd argue that a cruise can be worthwhile precisely because long bus rides suck; I've done similar trips around Eastern Europe as a road trip, sleeper train trip and river cruise, and the cruise was when I spent the least time moving luggage around or staring out of a window and the most time actually in the cities I was visiting.

[c22]

Here is a map of the island [0]. There was a $20 ferry to Placencia [1], but the ferry ride was a 30 minute trip and they recommended coming back 2 hours before cruise departure.

The other stops were a little better, but were all still clearly "cruise towns" with hour+ long bus rides to the next nearest populated place.

I'm not saying there weren't interesting differences. The entire experience was, in fact, extremely novel to me. I don't feel like I've "visited" any of the countries we stopped in, however, any more than I feel like I've visited changeover cities where I never left the airport.

[0] https://1ypfazc0twx431e6w2jik5nw-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placencia

[lentil_soup]

in reality is the opposite, the footprint is huge in terms of environmental impact, the cruises pollute the air of the city. Also, cruise visitors use the city's facilities (roads, trash collection, beaches, etc) but don't leave much money behind to compensate. Sure we maximize the amount of people that get to visit the place, but they leave locals worse off as they have to foot the bill

[lmm]

> the cruises pollute the air of the city

Per-person? Surely anyone arriving by car, aeroplane or even bus is causing a lot more pollution, just on the sheer physics of how much more efficient sea transport is.

> Also, cruise visitors use the city's facilities (roads, trash collection, beaches, etc) but don't leave much money behind to compensate.

Surely that can be balanced with appropriate taxation - I believe a lot of places already levy a per-passenger tax for cruise ships berthing there.

[c22]

Are you sure about that? A quick search for carbon per passenger cruise ship vs airplane returned several results[0][1][2] suggesting that the airplane is in fact a more eco-friendly way to travel.

[0] https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green

[2] https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-...

[lmm]

I can believe those numbers saying that a transatlantic cruise would be 3-4x the emissions of a transatlantic flight. But the per-passenger-km figure isn't a realistic basis for comparison; tourists aren't trying to travel x kilometres, they're trying to see places x, y and z. The substitute for taking a 1000km cruise 5000km away from where you live is not 11000km of flying, it's more likely making two or three 10000km round-trips. And if you did replicate a cruise by flying between successive ports of call then the efficiency figures for those short-haul flights are going to be an order of magnitude worse than for a transatlantic flight.