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Discover why some things seem to make no sense on a cruise ship, and the reason on why it has been done that way. I look at things I have seen on cruise ships that seem a bit off, and share what I found out about why things that don't seem to make sense on a ship do, when you know why.
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0:00
this was all sparked by a swimming pool
0:03
a swimming pool
0:04
on virgin voyage's scarlet lady just
0:06
after i boarded
0:07
i was looking at the pool wondering why
0:09
on earth it was so small
0:11
for a ship that carries around 3 000
0:13
passengers what
0:14
with the ship architects and the lion
0:16
thinking why on earth had they done it
0:18
but this got me thinking then about
0:20
other things that i've seen on cruise
0:22
ships
0:22
that seem a bit off or a bit odd so i
0:26
set myself a mission to find out exactly
0:28
why i'm gary bembridge
0:30
and i'm going to tell you what i found
0:32
out about
0:33
why things that don't seem to make sense
0:35
on the ship actually do
0:37
when you know why so exactly are cruise
0:40
ship pools like that one on scarlet lady
0:43
so small when i stay in a las vegas
0:45
resort the hotels with say 5 000 guests
0:48
have vast pools but not so on a ship
0:51
of similar passenger numbers at best the
0:54
swimming pools
0:55
on cruise ships are 20 foot by 40 foot
0:58
by five foot deep and i found out there
1:01
are three
1:02
key reasons for that first of all water
1:04
is extremely heavy
1:06
and the water in that modest sized pool
1:08
alone weighs around
1:10
250 000 pounds this risk making the ship
1:14
really top heavy and challenging to sail
1:17
and keep stable
1:18
when you're sailing the seas so size
1:21
needs to be limited
1:22
and then the pools have to be in the
1:23
middle of the ship and dead center of
1:26
the deck
1:26
to help with the balance the ones at the
1:28
rear are always
1:29
much much smaller that's also why you
1:32
always see hot tubs
1:34
mirroring each other with one on both
1:36
sides of the ship in exactly the same
1:37
position
1:38
again it's to balance out the weight
1:41
secondly
1:42
the more weight at the top of the ship
1:44
the more counter balancing weight has to
1:45
be added to the base of the ship
1:47
to keep it stable this of course wastes
1:49
more space
1:50
lower down and adds more weight to the
1:53
ship
1:54
now to get around this problem the old
1:55
cruise liners from the 40s the 50s and
1:58
the 60s like cunard's
1:59
qe2 they used to have the pool inside
2:02
the ship
2:02
and at the very bottom in kiwisu's case
2:05
it was actually around about the water
2:07
line
2:08
nowadays passengers expect pools to be
2:10
out in the sunlight
2:11
and so they have to be at the top of the
2:13
ship this actually magnifies
2:15
the risk of throwing the ship off
2:17
balance in rougher weather especially
2:19
when the water starts moving around you
2:21
have all that weight moving around
2:23
so that's also why pools are often
2:25
drained and emptied
2:26
when the seas get rough and thirdly real
2:30
estate in space is at a premium on a
2:32
ship
2:32
and lots and lots of deck space is
2:34
needed for guests like me to lie out in
2:36
the sun
2:37
and keeping the pool small means more
2:39
space
2:40
to be able to do that one way the cruise
2:42
lines disguise the small size of pools
2:44
is by having that area around the pool
2:46
that just has a few inches of water
2:48
it creates the effect of having bigger
2:50
pools and also practically of course it
2:52
means more passengers can
2:53
sort of cool off the next oddity is that
2:57
any premium cabin or suites that i've
2:59
stayed in
2:59
are actually located in some of the
3:02
worst parts of the ship
3:04
the worst for movement and risk of
3:06
getting
3:07
seasick i once had dinner with a ship
3:10
architect it was actually a silver sea
3:11
event in a shipyard and he told me there
3:14
are two
3:15
key problems he faces when adding
3:18
sweets to cruise ships when he's
3:19
designing them first of all
3:21
he's required by the lions to put suites
3:24
high up
3:25
and also forward in the front of the
3:27
ship and rear or
3:28
after the ship because that's where the
3:30
views are best and that's what premium
3:32
passengers expect now he actually said
3:35
the best place for premium cabins which
3:37
would have the least amount of movement
3:39
and the smoothest sailing even in
3:41
rougher weather
3:42
would actually be pretty low down
3:44
ideally sort of
3:45
deck 6 or deck 7 and of course in the
3:47
middle of the ship
3:48
this is not where premium cabins
3:50
normally are now i remember seeing that
3:52
in action
3:53
when we were in rough seas on queen
3:54
victoria we were selling between hawaii
3:56
and new zealand our cabin was midships
3:59
and we had not really felt
4:00
this rough weather pretty much we
4:02
invited to a cocktail party in the very
4:04
best cabin at q1
4:05
at the rear of the ship it was higher up
4:08
and we basically struggled to stand as
4:09
the ship
4:10
kind of moved up and down on the waves
4:12
which we didn't feel in our cabin
4:14
the second issue the architect faced was
4:16
that suites tend to have
4:17
marble bathrooms and lavish features all
4:20
of which
4:21
are heavy and add much more weight and
4:24
as we saw with the swimming pools
4:25
these are being added to the top of the
4:27
ship that again need to be
4:28
counterbalanced to stop the ship being
4:30
top heavy
4:31
and less stable one cruise ship edition
4:34
that seemed like
4:35
a really unnecessary gimmick to me at
4:37
first is the so-called
4:39
magic carpet this first appeared on the
4:42
side of celebrity cruises
4:44
edge class of ship so edge apex and soon
4:47
beyond
4:48
now much was made of its dining and bar
4:50
features and it could move up and down
4:51
the side of the ship
4:52
to create these wonderful different
4:54
dining experiences but it did seem a
4:56
rather unnecessary and
4:57
costly add-on or while making the ship
5:00
itself kind of feel a bit unsymmetrical
5:02
design-wise because it's only on
5:03
one side of the ship however i
5:06
discovered it's really there to solve a
5:08
major problem and a big bottleneck when
5:11
cruising
5:12
and that's getting passengers on and off
5:14
the ship
5:15
when they have to tender tendering is
5:17
when ships cannot dock in a port
5:19
and the ship has to ferry guests to and
5:21
from land to go on tours and explore
5:24
it's a really time consuming and very
5:26
frustrating experience as anyone whose
5:28
crews will know
5:29
that's true for the crew and for the
5:31
passengers now the real role of the
5:33
magic carpet
5:35
is to solve that problem not provide new
5:37
dining
5:38
and bar options that's just a bonus so
5:41
it's lowered to sea level
5:43
when the ship's moored and provides a
5:45
huge platform
5:46
to be able to process loads of guests on
5:49
and off the tenders
5:50
greater numbers it also means
5:52
importantly the ship carries
5:53
much larger tender boats that can carry
5:56
many many more guests per
5:58
trip as ships get bigger and bigger
6:01
and the ports get busier they often have
6:03
to tender guests and the magic carpet
6:05
improves
6:06
and speeds all of that up that's the
6:08
real reason it's there
6:10
another odd aspect about cruising and
6:12
cruise ships is how gratuities or
6:14
tips if you prefer to call them that
6:17
have changed over the last 15 years
6:19
since i started
6:20
cruising certainly they've moved from
6:21
being a discretionary award i
6:23
gave to selected crew members for great
6:25
service into
6:26
a compulsory charge i am no longer
6:30
left to decide how much and which crew
6:32
members i give tips to
6:34
the lions have turned those into part of
6:36
the cruise fair basically and they've
6:37
become a fixed rate charge
6:39
per person per day and i have to either
6:42
prepay them before boarding
6:43
or my on-board account is charged every
6:46
single day with them
6:47
it's not linked to service i get and i
6:49
have no say
6:50
over who gets them this is not how it
6:52
works on land i don't hand over a tip
6:54
before i get serviced at say a
6:56
land-based restaurant i only pay it
6:58
afterwards
6:58
based on the service so why have the
7:01
lines
7:02
done this gratuities have traditionally
7:04
been
7:05
a really key part of crew earnings
7:08
they're in a base salary but tips
7:10
increase what they take home
7:12
significantly now the lions argue
7:14
they've moved from the totally
7:15
discretionary approach
7:16
which meant some or many passengers
7:18
would actually not pay
7:19
any tips to this new system which they
7:22
claim assists crew by ensuring
7:24
all guests are contributing into the
7:26
tips fund and also then ensures a wider
7:28
pool
7:29
of crew benefit from tips however in
7:31
reality it means that lions have taken
7:33
control of gratuity money they now have
7:35
a
7:35
sizable pot of money to use and they can
7:38
allocate that money
7:39
as they want to now skeptics argue this
7:41
means they can now
7:42
keep the crew base pay that they cover
7:44
and of course
7:45
their costs at a pretty low level they
7:47
minimize the cost of the line because
7:49
they now have these funds
7:50
that they can top up wages to a more
7:51
acceptable level now i'd like to think
7:54
it's the first reason but many crew are
7:56
talk to definitely say
7:57
they prefer the old approach gratuities
8:00
have been turned
8:00
in cruising from a bonus i can give to
8:02
selected crew members
8:03
for good service basically to a thinly
8:06
disguised
8:06
base salary top-up that the cruise liner
8:09
controls
8:10
and manages now of course it does
8:12
probably make sense for the lines
8:14
but it feels it's come at a cost to
8:16
passengers
8:17
in terms of money and in terms of
8:19
control
8:21
another feature of cruise ships even the
8:23
ultra luxury ones
8:25
is as soon as i step on board the
8:27
selling begins to get me to spend
8:29
spend and spend tables with goods
8:33
outside stores
8:34
constant flies in my cabin offering
8:36
drinks of the day
8:38
jewelry watches spa treatments
8:41
add-on excursions it just goes on and on
8:43
and everywhere you turn it feels
8:45
like someone is trying to sell me
8:47
something so why
8:48
do cruise lines actually do this i found
8:51
out this is basically because of the way
8:53
that the crew's business model has
8:55
evolved a really important and big chunk
8:57
of cruise line profits
8:59
come from what people spend on board not
9:01
the actual
9:02
fare itself now industry reports that
9:04
i've found
9:05
say that people say like me will spend
9:07
between 50
9:09
and 100 on top of what my fare is
9:12
once i'm actually on board the ship so
9:14
that's for things like drinks
9:16
wi-fi excursions spa treatments shopping
9:20
casino bingo and so on now each of those
9:23
items
9:24
have really big margins and has become
9:27
a really big part of the cruise line
9:29
profits
9:30
so lions are always trying to sail their
9:33
ships full for that very reason they
9:34
aim to fill every single cabin even if
9:36
they have to discount cabins
9:39
close to sailing because so much money
9:41
so much of their profits is made on
9:43
board
9:44
now you can get a sense of just how much
9:46
money they make from those extras
9:48
by how much phase increased recently
9:51
when lines like celebrity cruises moved
9:53
to be more
9:53
all-inclusive holland america brought in
9:56
their have it all fair so that includes
9:58
for example an excursion
9:59
signature drinks package one specially
10:01
dining and wi-fi and i
10:04
have seen fares increase on those sort
10:05
of lines by at least
10:07
350 per person for a seven night cruise
10:10
on those lines you get a sense of just
10:12
how big and important those things
10:14
are now if you want to find out about
10:16
other unusual and little discussed
10:18
aspects of
10:19
cruising i've got two other videos you
10:21
can watch right now
10:23
in this playlist i've put together here
10:24
so why don't you take a look at that
10:26
and enjoy learning a little bit more
10:28
about some unusual things about cruising
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