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ltbewr wrote:On the good side, older, less fuel efficient and higher polluting ships will no longer be in use replaced by far better ones.
FGITD wrote:I think the key here is that Archguy needs to actually go on a cruise to appreciate what the ships are. From the outside/online they appear to be these immense wonders. Which, to a certain extent...they are.
But once you've really explored them, you realize that most cruise ships are designed as if they picked a deck layout, and copy/pasted it vertically 10-15 times. There's no real uniqueness because room 1001 looks the same as room 8001. You're meant to be able to board any ship from the same line, and have it look more or less the same as all the others.
ArchGuy1 wrote:FGITD wrote:I think the key here is that Archguy needs to actually go on a cruise to appreciate what the ships are. From the outside/online they appear to be these immense wonders. Which, to a certain extent...they are.
But once you've really explored them, you realize that most cruise ships are designed as if they picked a deck layout, and copy/pasted it vertically 10-15 times. There's no real uniqueness because room 1001 looks the same as room 8001. You're meant to be able to board any ship from the same line, and have it look more or less the same as all the others.
Are they nothing like old Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, the SS Nieuw Amsterdam (1938), SS Rotterdam (1959), Finnjet, MV Bore, SS Norway, SS Independence, or SS United States?
FGITD wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:FGITD wrote:I think the key here is that Archguy needs to actually go on a cruise to appreciate what the ships are. From the outside/online they appear to be these immense wonders. Which, to a certain extent...they are.
But once you've really explored them, you realize that most cruise ships are designed as if they picked a deck layout, and copy/pasted it vertically 10-15 times. There's no real uniqueness because room 1001 looks the same as room 8001. You're meant to be able to board any ship from the same line, and have it look more or less the same as all the others.
Are they nothing like old Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, the SS Nieuw Amsterdam (1938), SS Rotterdam (1959), Finnjet, MV Bore, SS Norway, SS Independence, or SS United States?
Well one of those was a train station, so not much common ground there.
And for the rest...no, absolutely not. Aside from being a ship, there’s really no common ground. Those ships were individually uniquely designed and outfitted. That’s how they stood out, by being the fastest or most ornate, or biggest and so on.
These days the ships are cookie cutter designs. The experience is meant to be homogeneous across the fleet because the cruise line needs you to like and want to return your business to the company, not reliant on the individual ship. You can even go as far as to request the “same” cabin on different ships of the same class to maintain that level of familiarity. Most cruise pax don’t set out to book a specific ship. They find an itinerary they like, and match it with whatever cruise line they have loyalty to or offers the best price.
bennett123 wrote:An ocean liner and a cruise ship are not the same thing.
If you think of it this way, on an ocean liner you lived for perhaps a week on the ship without getting off. On a cruise ship, you arrive at a port at 0700 say and disembark at say 0800 and spend the day ashore. At 1800 you re embark and leave port at 1900, by say 2300 you are in bed. This process is repeated. Your total waking time on board is perhaps 6 hours per day.
The experience and facilities required are totally different.
Then if you want to turn it into a hotel, apart from anything else there is no scope for seeing a new city every day.
As for the museum idea, would you turn the local Holiday Inn into a museum.
ArchGuy1 wrote:bennett123 wrote:An ocean liner and a cruise ship are not the same thing.
If you think of it this way, on an ocean liner you lived for perhaps a week on the ship without getting off. On a cruise ship, you arrive at a port at 0700 say and disembark at say 0800 and spend the day ashore. At 1800 you re embark and leave port at 1900, by say 2300 you are in bed. This process is repeated. Your total waking time on board is perhaps 6 hours per day.
The experience and facilities required are totally different.
Then if you want to turn it into a hotel, apart from anything else there is no scope for seeing a new city every day.
As for the museum idea, would you turn the local Holiday Inn into a museum.
Queen Mary 2 would be a worthy candidate for preserving as a hotel and museum ship when she retires about 30 years from now.
IH8BY wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:bennett123 wrote:An ocean liner and a cruise ship are not the same thing.
If you think of it this way, on an ocean liner you lived for perhaps a week on the ship without getting off. On a cruise ship, you arrive at a port at 0700 say and disembark at say 0800 and spend the day ashore. At 1800 you re embark and leave port at 1900, by say 2300 you are in bed. This process is repeated. Your total waking time on board is perhaps 6 hours per day.
The experience and facilities required are totally different.
Then if you want to turn it into a hotel, apart from anything else there is no scope for seeing a new city every day.
As for the museum idea, would you turn the local Holiday Inn into a museum.
Queen Mary 2 would be a worthy candidate for preserving as a hotel and museum ship when she retires about 30 years from now.
It feels more likely than some of the other ships you've suggested. It's one of a kind and it's opulent, but it isn't the historical relic of a bygone age as QM or even QE2 which does reduce potential interest as a museum ship. The challenge is, it's enormous, which poses problems: if a port can take its draught, you've got to find space AND it's got to be a place that people want to visit, and if you're going to set it up as a hotel ship you've got a LOT of cabins to fill. Also, although it does cruises, the definitive QM2 experience is the transatlantic crossing - the opportunity to disconnect, and be in another world for a week out at sea. You lose that by being constantly in port.
I'm not convinced it's got another 30 years however. I'm sure it's tough enough to last that long, but a ship the wrong side of 40 will be inefficient and probably not matched to customer demand. How many millennials, let alone Gen Z, are thrilled at the idea of a week's formal voyage with no port calls?
I am, but I appreciate I'm not typical of my age group. I intend to do the transatlantic sooner rather than later, though I'll need to level up my wardrobe first!
einsteinboricua wrote:Well...having moved from WA to MD and now to VA, guess my cruise for this year will be canceled. I had scheduled Norwegian Bliss to Alaska in September...but no vacation time and having to pay down expenses means the vacation will have to take a backseat until next year. Besides, something tells me cruises will be limited until COVID truly comes under control.
IH8BY wrote:
It feels more likely than some of the other ships you've suggested. It's one of a kind and it's opulent, but it isn't the historical relic of a bygone age as QM or even QE2 which does reduce potential interest as a museum ship.
jetwet1 wrote:IH8BY wrote:
It feels more likely than some of the other ships you've suggested. It's one of a kind and it's opulent, but it isn't the historical relic of a bygone age as QM or even QE2 which does reduce potential interest as a museum ship.
I just have to ask, have you been on the QM2?
The regular cabins are ok, certainly nothing special and on the tech side they are well behind many other ships.
The 2 level suites and above are nice, but again nothing amazing.
The public areas are tastefully done, the dining rooms are nice, but nothing that I would call opulent.
IMHO the Cunard ships are a product of people buying into the PR more than an actual product, there are lines that are far better at offering a luxury experience.
bennett123 wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_2
Agree 100%.
johns624 wrote:Archguy1, have you ever been on a cruise ship or even done a virtual tour of a cabin on a cruise line website? The reason that I'm asking is that 95% of the cabins are very small. They are much smaller than hotel rooms. There's nothing romantic about them. They are a motel that moves from port to port so that you don't have to keep repacking and driving to a new destination every day. If you built a hotel with rooms the size of a cabin, people would be very upset.
ArchGuy1 wrote:bennett123 wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_2
Agree 100%.
The Queen Mary 2 is a beautiful and unique ship on both the exterior and interior and I find is a modernized hybrid of SS Normandie and QE2.
ArchGuy1 wrote:We spent our wedding night on the QM and there was a lot of exposed steel. IIRC, the walls and deck were steel and the window was a large porthole. It was 17 years ago but I don't remember it as anything elegant, more utilitarian. The thing you don't seem to understand about ships, is that their chief attribute is that they MOVE. They get you from here to there in relative comfort but are nowhere near a good hotel.johns624 wrote:Archguy1, have you ever been on a cruise ship or even done a virtual tour of a cabin on a cruise line website? The reason that I'm asking is that 95% of the cabins are very small. They are much smaller than hotel rooms. There's nothing romantic about them. They are a motel that moves from port to port so that you don't have to keep repacking and driving to a new destination every day. If you built a hotel with rooms the size of a cabin, people would be very upset.
What are the rooms on Queen Mary, SS Rotterdam, and QE2 like?
ArchGuy1 wrote:johns624 wrote:Archguy1, have you ever been on a cruise ship or even done a virtual tour of a cabin on a cruise line website? The reason that I'm asking is that 95% of the cabins are very small. They are much smaller than hotel rooms. There's nothing romantic about them. They are a motel that moves from port to port so that you don't have to keep repacking and driving to a new destination every day. If you built a hotel with rooms the size of a cabin, people would be very upset.
What are the rooms on Queen Mary, SS Rotterdam, and QE2 like?
bananaboy wrote:https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24136-it-s-official-the-marco-polo-is-getting-scrapped.html
Sad but not surprising to see confirmation that Marco Polo is to be scrapped. Was such a lovely little ship, nothing fancy but had some nice features including teak decks, comfortable lounges and great crew. Cabins were comfortable (although the cheapest inside cabins felt like they were in the very depths of the ship).
Bon voyage Marco Polo.
bananaboy wrote:https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24136-it-s-official-the-marco-polo-is-getting-scrapped.html
Sad but not surprising to see confirmation that Marco Polo is to be scrapped. Was such a lovely little ship, nothing fancy but had some nice features including teak decks, comfortable lounges and great crew. Cabins were comfortable (although the cheapest inside cabins felt like they were in the very depths of the ship).
Bon voyage Marco Polo.
IH8BY wrote:what we all need is a throwback to the golden era of cruising...
johns624 wrote:IH8BY wrote:what we all need is a throwback to the golden era of cruising...
There was a golden age of cruising?
ArchGuy1 wrote:The QM needs money, not signatures. Signing a petition is feel good but it doesn't solve anything.Here is a petition to sign to try and save the Queen Mary for further generations and this is a ship that desperately needs restoration.
https://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeact ... =675739135
johns624 wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:The QM needs money, not signatures. Signing a petition is feel good but it doesn't solve anything.Here is a petition to sign to try and save the Queen Mary for further generations and this is a ship that desperately needs restoration.
https://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeact ... =675739135
ArchGuy1 wrote:The Costa Victoria, built in 1996 will be towed to Turkey for scrap. Thd ship was sold to an Italian shipyard and rumored to become a hotel for drydock workers, but that fell through. Very much a futuristic space age ship that had 20 more years of cruise service life left.
https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/crui ... apped.html
bennett123 wrote:Not a great surprise.
Several ships of this age and size have already gone to the breakers.
VSMUT wrote:bennett123 wrote:Not a great surprise.
Several ships of this age and size have already gone to the breakers.
Looking at photos of ships from the era, it seems like the ships of the 90s pretty much lacked balconies (or had very few). This makes them rather unattractive in this day and age where external cabins are expected to have one. The number of balconies per ship skyrocketed around the millennium change.
ArchGuy1 wrote:VSMUT wrote:bennett123 wrote:Not a great surprise.
Several ships of this age and size have already gone to the breakers.
Looking at photos of ships from the era, it seems like the ships of the 90s pretty much lacked balconies (or had very few). This makes them rather unattractive in this day and age where external cabins are expected to have one. The number of balconies per ship skyrocketed around the millennium change.
The Costa Victoria has like 3 full decks of balconies and from what I heard somewhere, was rumored to be going to Jalesh this year shortly before COVID-19.
VSMUT wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:VSMUT wrote:
Looking at photos of ships from the era, it seems like the ships of the 90s pretty much lacked balconies (or had very few). This makes them rather unattractive in this day and age where external cabins are expected to have one. The number of balconies per ship skyrocketed around the millennium change.
The Costa Victoria has like 3 full decks of balconies and from what I heard somewhere, was rumored to be going to Jalesh this year shortly before COVID-19.
Sure, but look at all the cabins that don't have them. Compare it with this ship, launched just 2 years later:
Not only more cabins with balconies, but it also squeezes cabins in at the front of the superstructure. The money making potential is just so much higher.
ArchGuy1 wrote:VSMUT wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:The Costa Victoria has like 3 full decks of balconies and from what I heard somewhere, was rumored to be going to Jalesh this year shortly before COVID-19.
Sure, but look at all the cabins that don't have them. Compare it with this ship, launched just 2 years later:
Not only more cabins with balconies, but it also squeezes cabins in at the front of the superstructure. The money making potential is just so much higher.
Many ocean liners and cruise ships built from the 1950's onward sailed 40-50 years before being scrapped despite being outdated for many years before their retirement.
VSMUT wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:VSMUT wrote:
Sure, but look at all the cabins that don't have them. Compare it with this ship, launched just 2 years later:
Not only more cabins with balconies, but it also squeezes cabins in at the front of the superstructure. The money making potential is just so much higher.
Many ocean liners and cruise ships built from the 1950's onward sailed 40-50 years before being scrapped despite being outdated for many years before their retirement.
But that is because:
1) The market could absorb the capacity. It can't any more.
2) Passenger expectations have changed.
If we compare it with aviation, business class seats were pretty much unchanged from the 1950s onwards. In the 2000s we then got angle-flat seats and in the 2010s the lie flat seats. Barely anyone would be satisfied with an angle-flat today, let alone a traditional business recliner.
ArchGuy1 wrote:FGITD wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:Are they nothing like old Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, the SS Nieuw Amsterdam (1938), SS Rotterdam (1959), Finnjet, MV Bore, SS Norway, SS Independence, or SS United States?
Well one of those was a train station, so not much common ground there.
And for the rest...no, absolutely not. Aside from being a ship, there’s really no common ground. Those ships were individually uniquely designed and outfitted. That’s how they stood out, by being the fastest or most ornate, or biggest and so on.
These days the ships are cookie cutter designs. The experience is meant to be homogeneous across the fleet because the cruise line needs you to like and want to return your business to the company, not reliant on the individual ship. You can even go as far as to request the “same” cabin on different ships of the same class to maintain that level of familiarity. Most cruise pax don’t set out to book a specific ship. They find an itinerary they like, and match it with whatever cruise line they have loyalty to or offers the best price.
An exception is Queen Mary 2, which is an ocean liner that also serves as a cruise ship.
Kiwirob wrote:ArchGuy1 wrote:FGITD wrote:
Well one of those was a train station, so not much common ground there.
And for the rest...no, absolutely not. Aside from being a ship, there’s really no common ground. Those ships were individually uniquely designed and outfitted. That’s how they stood out, by being the fastest or most ornate, or biggest and so on.
These days the ships are cookie cutter designs. The experience is meant to be homogeneous across the fleet because the cruise line needs you to like and want to return your business to the company, not reliant on the individual ship. You can even go as far as to request the “same” cabin on different ships of the same class to maintain that level of familiarity. Most cruise pax don’t set out to book a specific ship. They find an itinerary they like, and match it with whatever cruise line they have loyalty to or offers the best price.
An exception is Queen Mary 2, which is an ocean liner that also serves as a cruise ship.
I think I agree with you on this one. However she doesn’t have the same following as the QE2.