You say you need a bigger boat?
They don't get much bigger than this one:====
http://tinyurl.com/98p9k Tuesday, February 07, 2006
John Pain
Associated Press
Miami
|
Feb 7
2006
|
| Just what I want to do...go on a cruise on a boat with 6,400 passengers.
Must be like a week in Las Vegas at one of the new monster hotels,
except you're stuck on a boat. |
Harry
Feb 7
|
| Embarkation will be a nightmare. |
Feb 7
|
| Yeah, no eff'ing way I'd ever want to be trapped on a tin can with THAT many
people that liked the cruise ship experience. Ugh, talk about a nightmare. |
Bill
Feb 7
|
| Wait until the Airbus 380 enters service. Now, considering I already
hate to fly, the chances of stepping aboard that monstrosity are in the
negative column. Imagine when the first one crashes in flames with one famous person aboard: "Famed sports legend Denny McClain and 554 others perished yesterday
when an Airbus 380 suffered a hernia and crashed into..." |
Harry
Feb 7
|
| Or finding a taxi once you did. |
P.
Feb 7
|
| Send it here. The bigger the better! (free spending American tourists) |
Don
Feb 7
|
| I wouldn't cruise the Caribbean on one. You'd be very limited on which
ports you could tie up in and would probably spend half your shore leave
waiting for the launch.
Now if I was sailing from the West Coast to Tahiti, the bigger the
better. (hopefully less pitching, yawing or rolling) |
Don
Feb 7
|
| As we speak they are testing one in Canada's far north to see how they
handle extreme cold.
http://tinyurl.com/9vn8x |
Don
Feb 7
|
| As much as I hate flying, if I were heading for Tahiti, I'd go there on
a plane, so I could get there and enjoy the islands. Being cooped up on
a cruise ship way offshore for a week is not my idea of fun. Now, a cruise that hugged the shoreline on the way to Alaska I might
enjoy. Lots to see. |
Harry
Feb 7
|
| Several cruise lines make weekly departures from Seattle and do 6 day
cruises to AK and back. The industry is considered a mixed blessing in some of the small towns
in AK. Yes, the folks from Hoboken and Omaha bring a lot of welcome
cash with them- but a lot of the shops that are set up nearest the
cruise ship docks are owned and operated by.....guess who....the cruise
ship companies. The money that gets brought to town by the ship's
passengers leaves town the same night in the purser's safe. At best,
the industry creates a few seasonal, mini-wage jobs for retail clerks
and benefits those businesses just beyond the cruise ship's "inner
circle" capable of competing with the cruise company's business model
or offering something truly unique. (Some of the cruise ship company's
"native craftwork" is made in China. I guess that if you live in China,
you're a native-- of China.) Some of these "cruise ships" are about 20 stories tall. They look out
of scale moored in Elliott Bay in front of the Seattle Skyline, so of
course they tower over every shoreside structure and literally blot out
the sun at some of the smaller towns up in SE AK. When the cruise ship
hits town, the population literally doubles or triples for a day. One of the biggest challenges has been pollution from these gargantuan
monsters. They have holding tanks the size of Olympic swimming pools
and when you dump a million gallons of raw sewage it really doesn't
matter if you're 3.1 miles from shore, or not. All in all, however, the Inside Passage to AK is stunningly beautiful
and a cruise ship makes as much sense for most people as trying to
charter a boat. Probably less expensive, and if one isn't used to some
of the "isms" of our regional waters there would need to be a lot of
time spent every day with the Coast Pilot orother resource and
extensive chart work to make a safe passage. |
chuckgould.chu...
Feb 7
|
| I think you are thinking "debarkation"..getting off the
ship.but maybe not as you might need a taxi to get around that ship.
;-) |
Feb 7
|
| They do in theory!:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/transportation/1289186.html |
atl_man2
Feb 7
|
| Yeah...not enough coffee this morning.debarkation would be just as
big a pain ......getting off the |
P.
Feb 7
|
| My wife's aunt and uncle have mad a couple of trips up the inside passage.
They go on small cruise ships. About 80-100 passenger. |
Calif
Feb 7
|
| That sounds like something I'd like. |
Harry
Feb 7
|
