Following on from our discussion yesterday about a sailing cargo ship versus a modern container ship, I found this photographic comparison interesting. Click the image for a larger view.
There are more interesting size comparisons at the link. Interesting viewing.
I think we don't understand just how big modern vessels have become until we see that sort of comparison. Frankly, I wouldn't like to sail on either of them . . . too many people crammed together, with little privacy or chance for some peace and quiet!
Peter
14 comments:
My wife and I have been on a few dozen cruises, mostly on the smaller ships (about 2,000 passengers). I mostly prefer to find a relatively quiet place to read. Never had much of a problem doing that. You just need to know where to look. Sure, there are always crowds to get food or drinks, but that is a minor issue for me. BTW, I have a bad back and need a cane to walk. Also an old, fat guy, but I manage to get by.
Seem to be a haven for The Thirteen Percent, with large brawls breaking out amongst them.
I'll take the Amtrak, thank you very much.
In my opinion, the lack of understanding of size differences is entirely due to poor education.
- Poor history means people don't understand the past. For example, there are lots of people who think the Titanic was the deadliest maritime accident ever. Far from it!
- The other part is the lack of science/ engineering/ math to understand the difference: To many people, tonnages are just numbers and they don't have the ability to understand the implications.
Jonathan
I refer to cruise ships as floating petri dishes.
Holy ship!!!
My little central Texas town has maybe 1500 residents (including the chickens, dogs, cats and goats). Way overpopulated, IMO.
Can't imagine wanting to go on a cruise.
To each his own, I guess.
I don't know what the passenger capacity is, but how do they have enough lifeboats on board to evacuate everybody on board ?
My wife and kids have been on Carribbean cruises and love them. Me - no thanks, like you I don't care for that much social interaction. Vacation for me is peace and quiet in the rurals. I feel the same for Las Vegas - too much stimulation, not enough quiet.
I understand that cruises aren't for everyone (especially if you've read John Ringo) so I won't try to tell you you're wrong, but if I could go on a cruise every few months, I would do it.
The thing I love most about going on a cruise is the fact that my phone does not work once I get about a mile or so offshore. No temptation to log into Teams or Outlook, no way for my clients to call with "I know you're on PTO, but this will only take a minute."** It's a forced vacation of a kind I haven't had since Hurricane Irma knocked out power to my neighborhood for 9 days.
**Yes, I do bill triple-time if someone calls me on PTO after getting my Out of Office message.
I spent time at sea in the Coast Guard. It doesn't matter how big the ship is. It's gonna feel VERY small after a VERY short time, especially given the number of people they cram onto those things! Add to that the fact that when something breaks out on a ship it RIPS through the ship! Flu, Covid, "stomach flu;" one person comes down with it and in a day or two EVERYONE is sick! Speaking from experience here!
NOOOOO THANKS!
I keep seeing the Cruiseship scene from Matt Bracken's 'Doomsday Reef'.
I'll stick with river cruises if I go on a boat aside from a ferry, thanks. Far fewer people, and depending on the river, you can almost wade ashore if the boat sinks. (The Elba was three meters deep. If the boat sank, we'd just move to the top deck and wait.)
TXRed
My experience of cruise ships is the they seem like the “Hotel California”. They’re just like a floating hotel that you can’t (easily) leave, and have cameras all around to catch the moment if someone decides to go for a mid-ocean swim. They seem to be crammed with people stuffing their faces, getting drunk or “single” and ready to, ahem “mingle”. Sometimes all three and sometimes temporarily “single”. Must be getting really old, because that stuff has never appealed to me and I’ve never wanted to go on one.
We've had a few of the new ultralarge cruise ships visit NY this year. For the most part they're on par with the larger container ships that visit us every day. For my part, I don't like fueling cruise ships- the blasts of canned air that come out of the hydraulic hatchways just above the waterline that conceal the fueling ports are a conferva soup of plague and pestilence, but it's nice to be eye to eye with the engineers peeping out of the hatches as we send the fuel hose over, as opposed to praying that we get to container ships before they unload, when the 80' high deck edge (when loaded) becomes too tall for our cranes to reach with a hose underslung.
Let's see
I'm sick of the rat race, I need a vacation away from it all
Maybe I'll go on a cruise
When I heard that the design constraints for large vessels included considering the curvature of the earth, well, just WOW.
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