Fugly cruise ships.

[snorri]

Here's one I spotted this morning

How did you get through?
I can see we need to reinforce Border Control along the Great Glen.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

How did you get through?
I can see we need to reinforce Border Control along the Great Glen.

You'd have been snoozing.

 

[slowmotion]

They say that the larger cruise ships have all the seaworthy characteristics of a yellow plastic bath duck when the sea state gets a bit lively.
[media]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AU2kMW9ZM
[/media]

 

[TheDoctor]

Göteborg has a Maritime Museum.

I have always wanted to go into a submarine.

Chatham Docks has a sub you can go round. Bit nearer than Göteborg.

 

[slowmotion]

They are also moving environmental disaster areas, and small coastal communities in the Caribbean hate them as they tend to tie up offshore and bring nothing to the local economy as they exploit local marine resources and sites.

The locals on Symi, Greece have a partial answer. On any day when a cruise ship visits, they quickly bring out special menus in bars and restaurants, and more exotic price tags in the boutiques. The moment the hideous monstrosities haul anchor, normal pricing is resumed.

 

[snorri]

Chatham Docks has a sub you can go round. Bit nearer than Göteborg.

Also at Gosport, HMS Alliance is part of a submarine museum.

 

[swee'pea99]

They say that the larger cruise ships have all the seaworthy characteristics of a yellow plastic bath duck when the sea state gets a bit lively.
[media]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AU2kMW9ZM
[/media]

Call me a sick puppy but for some reason I find that hilarious...

 

[slowmotion]

Call me a sick puppy but for some reason I find that hilarious...

The fixed camera position does make it all a bit surreal. I would be really surprised if some people didn't get a bit knocked about during the episode. Furniture is quite heavy stuff and it was ebbing and flowing at a fair lick.

 

[slowmotion]

And that tells me all I need to know about the type of people who go on cruises, generally! 'Tis my idea of hell. Expensive hell. All those bars are making a fortune too, as they charge shore side prices for alcohol which is not subject to tax. When I were a lad back in 1978 etc. etc. - on board prices were completely tax free. A 26oz bottle of spirits cost 95 pence, or 5p per measure at the bar (paid for by an honesty box system). The can of coke/lemonade whatever to put in it cost 3 times as much at 15p! 200 cigarettes was £2.20. Dirt cheap, even then. No wonder so many Merchant seamen were heavy smoking alcoholics; all of which I believe has been clamped down on and many cargo ships are now "dry".

Good points. Here's a rather wonderful website about alcohol on cruise ships.
http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=1404
It seems that most lines are pretty much prepared to strip-search you on embarkation in order to prevent you circumventing the inflated prices in their bars. It seems to occur at every port of call too. I'm not sure that having a company policy of treating adults like naughty prep school boys quite hits my buttons.

Edit: The beers on offer on most ships are simply ghastly!

 

[screenman]

Call me a sick puppy but for some reason I find that hilarious...[/


Where do you see the humour?

 

[ufkacbln]

.....and don't forget to tell the person who stitches up the shroud to put the last stitch through the nose to be sure that the person really is dead.......

......tot of rum anybody?

Tradition has it that after Trafalgar, Nelson's body was preserved in a barrel of rum

However when the barrel was opened there was a certain lack of rum...... apparently sailors had drilled small holes in the barrel inserted straws and drunk the contents of the barrel!

 

[ufkacbln]

Also at Gosport, HMS Alliance is part of a submarine museum.

OT .. The Gosport one is fun!

They (used to and I presume still do) sit you down and put out the lights to allow you to hear the sounds including a depth charge attack

 

[subaqua]

Tradition has it that after Trafalgar, Nelson's body was preserved in a barrel of rum

However when the barrel was opened there was a certain lack of rum...... apparently sailors had drilled small holes in the barrel inserted straws and drunk the contents of the barrel!

thats why in jackspeak "tapping the admiral" is slang for a sly drink.

 

[TheDoctor]

Good points. Here's a rather wonderful website about alcohol on cruise ships.
http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=1404
It seems that most lines are pretty much prepared to strip-search you on embarkation in order to prevent you circumventing the inflated prices in their bars. It seems to occur at every port of call too. I'm not sure that having a company policy of treating adults like naughty prep school boys quite hits my buttons.

Edit: The beers on offer on most ships are simply ghastly!

Can't say I saw that happening. We were paying about £4 for cocktails and maybe £20 for a bottle of decent wine with dinner. There was a drinks package at £17 a day. Hardly inflated.

 

[Oldfentiger]

It's a good job we're all different eh?
I can't imagine a worse scenario for me and my good lady - cooped up in the said floating apartment block with no means of escape. I don't suppose you get dropped off anywhere near mountains or countryside, always in cities?
We can do crowds in small doses, and the older we get the more this is so.
Maybe we're just anti-social, but we now dislike flying and train journeys partly because of the enforced closeness to unfamiliar people.
We regularly holiday in Italy, but we choose to drive rather than fly. Blatting through the Alps in our MX5 with the lid down wins big time compared to sitting in an aluminium tube with someones knees in my back every time.
We also have a caravan, but we avoid the big commercial sites for the same reasons. For us it's a quiet CL, with 5 vans maximum, and the bikes for exploring.

This isn't a rant - if cruises are your thing then great. But I agree they don't look like proper ships any more.