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5 Things That Make NO Sense On A Cruise Ship! And Why..
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Jan 28, 2025
Discover some more 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. This is a follow to from my first video that looked at other things that do not make sense on a cruise ship watch this video: https://youtu.be/dbNjIhzKrq8 Links mentioned in the video: Oceana - https://oceana.org FOE Cruise Scorecard - http://www.foe.org/cruise-report-card ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS: If you want to get cruising right, Tips For Travellers makes it easy to plan and have the incredible cruise experiences you dream of every time. All my Tips For Travellers advice, tips and tricks tips draw on everything that I have learnt on the 77 cruises I have done to date. BUY MY CRUISE-THEMED T-SHIRTs ————————————————- Check out my T-Shirt range: http://bit.ly/TFTStore SUPPORT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS ————————————————————— Become a Channel Member and get perks: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/Join Become a Patron on Patreon and get perks: https://www.patreon.com/tipsfortravellers Make a donation: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=V9STJGYSEMGLJ Buy my book “Cruise Traveler’s Handbook: USA Amazon https://amzn.to/2YVFmG4 and https://amzn.to/3tzIxBn UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3oXbzYc and https://amzn.to/3qawqIQ
View Video Transcript
0:00
it was these pictures on this very
0:02
cruise ship
0:03
that got me thinking about things like
0:05
this that make
0:06
absolutely no sense on a cruise ship and
0:08
it was time to go and explore them by
0:10
the way if you're new here
0:12
welcome aboard my name is gary bembridge
0:14
and my goal is to make it more fun and
0:16
even easier to discover plan
0:18
and enjoy unforgettable cruise vacations
0:22
i was scrolling through some cruise
0:23
photographs the other day
0:25
and i came across a photograph of me
0:26
looking rather dapper in a dinner jacket
0:28
tuxedo but i couldn't for the life of me
0:31
remember where i taken it and what ship
0:34
i was on until today
0:35
when i boarded this ship the saga spirit
0:37
of discovery came into my cabin and saw
0:40
these
0:40
pictures it was on this very ship in a
0:42
cabin like this that had taken the
0:44
picture
0:45
but i had no recollection of it because
0:47
i don't remember
0:48
the artwork on a cruise ship i never
0:51
noticed the artwork around a cruise ship
0:53
and i certainly
0:54
never choose a cruise based on the
0:56
artwork and yet
0:58
for cruise lines artwork is a massive
1:01
huge big deal and they spend an absolute
1:03
fortune on it
1:04
let's take a little look at what
1:06
actually happens
1:08
in an interview with travel weekly
1:10
magazine royal caribbean group estimated
1:13
that they have
1:14
over 142 million dollars
1:18
of art on their ships that's over six
1:20
million dollars
1:21
per ship they have an incredible 52
1:23
million dollars
1:24
on celebrity ships they have over 14
1:28
000 different items of art on a
1:30
celebrity ship
1:31
for example now this ship saga discovery
1:33
which is quite a small ship
1:35
they have 1 000 pieces of art and 400 of
1:38
those
1:38
were specially commissioned from british
1:41
artists when the ship
1:42
was built it's become a massive big
1:45
business the owners
1:46
of the lines or even the ceos for
1:48
example frank del rio of norwegian group
1:50
personally used to choose the artwork
1:52
across all of their ships until it
1:54
became
1:54
just too big a thing to do now i was
1:56
once on a naming ceremony
1:59
for a ship and i met a lady who worked
2:00
for an art consultancy
2:02
that specifically works on sourcing art
2:05
for cruise ships it's a massive big
2:07
business the amount of money involved
2:08
is enormous artwork has taken a life
2:12
of its own for the cruise lines so for
2:14
example i was on a recent cruise on
2:16
viking venus
2:17
and they had a coffee table book of all
2:20
the art on the ship and even had an app
2:21
where you could go around
2:22
and look at all of the art across a ship
2:24
which would take hours
2:25
to do on hapag lloyd which i was on a
2:28
couple of years ago they
2:30
had a gallery with the artwork they even
2:31
had a full-time person
2:33
that would come on board from the
2:34
consultancy who would then host
2:36
art walks around the ship the lions
2:39
engage these various consultants
2:41
to generate and create art for them so
2:44
for example princess cruises has worked
2:45
with bronson fine arts in los angeles
2:47
norwegian cruise line
2:49
works with the atlanta-based soho myriad
2:52
over the years
2:53
art is integrated in other ways on board
2:56
ships so for example on celebrity
2:58
they have a partnership with hollywood
2:59
hot glass where they create
3:01
glass blowing creations which you can
3:03
actually get involved in making
3:06
oceania cruises onto their ships marina
3:08
and riviera they have an
3:10
artist's loft where they have an artist
3:11
in residence even here on saga they have
3:14
a small gallery with rotating
3:15
exhibitions by the different artists
3:17
who've contributed
3:18
to the art on the ship do you notice the
3:21
art on board
3:22
i certainly couldn't even remember the
3:24
pictures in my cabin
3:25
if you ask me what the picture was in
3:27
the last cabin i was on i couldn't tell
3:29
you
3:30
and the question i would have is does it
3:31
make sense or would it be better to take
3:33
that money and put it into perhaps some
3:34
of the facilities
3:35
in a cabin that we would notice another
3:38
thing that for me certainly
3:39
makes very little sense on a cruise ship
3:41
linked to art
3:42
is the art auction i have loads of
3:44
people contacting me asking me
3:46
around what is the story about art
3:48
auctions well it's massive big business
3:50
on cruise ships the main provider of
3:52
those art for art auctions is a
3:54
company called park west gallery they
3:56
have sales of over
3:58
400 million dollars a year and you can
4:01
find them online certainly at the time
4:03
of recording like celebrity
4:04
norwegian msc princess royal caribbean
4:08
the way it works is they have perhaps
4:10
some talks on the art they might have a
4:11
big champagne
4:12
reception they might have a raffle and
4:14
they get punters on the cruise ships to
4:16
parliament
4:17
and bid on the art now it's not without
4:19
some controversy at all
4:21
bloomberg for example reports that there
4:22
are at least 21 lawsuits with people
4:24
suing park west
4:25
over having overpaid for art on board
4:29
there's lots of discussion around just
4:30
how good the art is on board
4:32
the companies tend to sell three things
4:34
either original artworks by up and
4:36
coming
4:36
artists or perhaps even more well-known
4:38
artists
4:39
limited edition prints signed by the
4:41
artist and thirdly
4:42
other limited edition prints which are
4:44
perhaps not fully endorsed by the
4:46
artists because they might have
4:47
passed away of course these are auctions
4:50
so the price you pay is what
4:51
you bid on those however for me
4:55
it doesn't really make sense why would
4:56
you go on a cruise ship on a vacation
4:58
buy art where you have no way of
5:00
independently verifying
5:01
what it is checking the prices to me it
5:03
makes no sense at all
5:05
i can see that it does make some sense
5:06
because it generates a lot of profit
5:08
for the cruise lines and certainly the
5:10
companies that own them
5:12
what do you think about that one do you
5:13
think that makes sense on a cruise ship
5:15
or not i'm almost certain that you're
5:18
going to have an issue with these next
5:20
two things
5:20
that do not make sense on a cruise ship
5:23
and that's because
5:24
i've already seen a study by a group
5:26
called oceana
5:27
which lobbies for the preservation and
5:29
protection of the ocean
5:30
that says 75 of cruise passengers
5:33
agree that this makes no sense and so
5:36
it's likely to be even higher amongst
5:37
non-cruise
5:38
passengers and it all hinges on what
5:41
happens
5:42
behind that door that's behind me over
5:44
there
5:45
and it's all around when you want to go
5:48
and what happens
5:49
after you've been first let's talk about
5:52
the toilet system
5:53
there are four key differences you'll
5:55
notice when you're on a cruise that are
5:57
different to on land first of all
5:59
you have to close the seats before you
6:01
can flush the toilet so lots of people
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probably find that
6:03
a big plus and see that as something
6:05
that definitely makes sense
6:06
and that's because the button to push is
6:08
behind here
6:09
now when you push that button the second
6:11
thing you'll notice is sometimes there's
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a slight
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pause before it goes and then you'll
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hear this
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sound
6:20
there's like a and then and that's
6:23
because the system here
6:24
is a vacuum system so it's not like the
6:26
systems on
6:27
land so you may think it makes no sense
6:30
for them to have a very different
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toilet system well actually up until the
6:32
1970s it was the same system as used on
6:35
land
6:36
but that meant it used an enormous
6:37
amount of water if you think much water
6:39
is used when you flush the toilet
6:41
and water is an incredibly precious
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commodity they actually used to
6:45
at one point use sea water but that
6:47
created lots of problems with rustings
6:49
of pipes so actually this system
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does kind of make sense also what's
6:52
important about it is it means that it
6:54
can have smaller pipes so less space
6:56
and also can move the business up down
7:00
sideways and around about so it doesn't
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rely
7:02
also on downward pressure so it does
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make sense from that perspective
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interesting enough by the way the vacuum
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system was originally
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part of the electrolux company who
7:12
created some of the products
7:14
that were used by cruise ships as a
7:16
little aside there is however one really
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big downside with this system for all
7:20
the pros
7:21
and that it's because it's got really
7:22
small pipes and because it's a suction
7:24
system
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it's extremely sensitive if anything
7:27
else
7:28
other than kind of what's supposed to go
7:30
down there goes down there so people
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throw
7:32
anything else down there the chances
7:34
because those small pipes the whole
7:36
system gets clogged up and i've been on
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quite a few cruises where you know the
7:39
whole stretch of cabins
7:40
has had a problem the toilet won't work
7:42
and they've had to yank everything out
7:44
to clear the blockages so from that
7:46
sense
7:47
it makes no sense to have such a
7:49
sensitive system although it does work
7:51
within the cruise ship and saves water
7:53
so assuming there's no blockages or the
7:55
blockages get sorted out
7:57
and the waste makes its way through the
7:59
system what
8:00
happens next well in the olden days
8:04
and until actually surprisingly recently
8:07
most of the sewage that was generated on
8:09
ships whether it's cruise ships or
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maritime ships
8:12
ended up in the ocean and it wasn't
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until pretty recently
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in fact as late as 2003 that new
8:19
regulations came in
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and it's under the auspices of the
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international maritime organization
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they introduced a thing which is called
8:25
mapol 4 and it's
8:27
multiple 4 convention and it aims to
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reduce and control the pollution from
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sewage
8:32
that goes into the ocean now these rules
8:34
are as follows and bear in mind this
8:35
applies to cruise ships
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as well as all the other ships out there
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selling it says
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after you 12 miles away from land and
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traveling at least four knots you can
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release
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untreated sewage into the ocean between
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3 and 12 miles
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you can only release it if it's been
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through an approved
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treatment process and system and within
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three miles
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or less you can't release anything into
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the ocean and of course you can pump it
9:00
out
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on land now that sounds pretty scary
9:04
when you consider
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that the us environmental protection
9:07
agency they estimate that
9:09
in a week-long cruise of 3000 people say
9:12
2 000 passengers 1 000 crew
9:16
that will generate 150 000
9:19
gallons of sewage that's enough they say
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to
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fill 10 kind of backyard swimming pools
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so
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bear in mind all the amount of ships
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that are out there setting does that
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mean that that
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huge amount of sewage is heading into
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the ocean well the good news is
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that whilst maritime ships so cargo
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ships or whatever
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may follow that rule the cruise lines do
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not follow that rule they
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come under another voluntary rule which
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is under the auspices of
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clear the cruise line international
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association and this says
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that no sewage will go into the ocean
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and let us bend through a treatment
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system
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so cruise ships have a system where
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sewage goes through or it's known as
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black water
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goes through four different stages of
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treatment which includes bacteria uv
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filters all sorts of things
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and basically it ends up with water
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that's as near as you can imagine
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to drinking water believe it or not and
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i've certainly been on ships and seen
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that whole process
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so that is what is released into the
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ocean so basically what
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is argued is that water from syringe is
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processed
10:19
to basically be equal to the water
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that's in the ocean
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now a lot of people are still skeptical
10:25
about that and
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certainly people have seen some
10:29
companies find
10:30
for infringements although interestingly
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it's not been infringements for
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surge it's been infringements for either
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releasing oily water so princess
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was fined over 40 million dollars in
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2016.
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carnival was fined 20 million in 2019
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for disposing of plastic waste in the
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ocean
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but the tremolo surge seems to be under
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much more control
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and that's been verified for example
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alaska which has really strict rules
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does spot checks on ships and in their
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last test
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they found 98 of cruise ships were
10:59
following the procedures and they had
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water that was of
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that grade that was ready to be released
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into the ocean
11:06
other groups like the friends of the
11:08
earth are less convinced and they
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actually
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track this whole area and they every
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year release
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a scorecard if you want to find out more
11:15
about the scorecard and see how
11:16
different
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cruise lines and ships actually perform
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i've got a link
11:20
in the description or this is what where
11:22
you can go and have a look
11:23
at another area which people feel make
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no sense on a cruise ship and causes a
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huge amount of angst
11:29
is in the area of dress clothes in fact
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even as recent in the last couple of
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years
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the washington post had an article
11:35
called how dress codes are tearing
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passengers apart and certainly on the
11:39
channel i see loads and loads of comment
11:41
and discussion
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and ranting about dress codes now in the
11:45
olden days
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of cruising dress codes were a
11:48
fundamental part of cruising but so
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was life whether you went on airplanes
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trains or even out to the cinema or
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theater people dressed up things have
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changed people argue
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people now expect to be able to dress
11:59
down dressed casually and they go crazy
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with dress codes
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some of the lines which actually tend to
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be more british lines have really strict
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dress codes so piano cruisers which i'm
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on right now
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as i record this cunard cruises fred
12:12
olson
12:12
they have really strict dress codes with
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formal nights where people wear
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dinner suits beautiful gowns tuxedos
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whatever
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however there's an ingrowing push
12:22
against it so we sing many other lines
12:24
whether it's carnival holland america
12:26
celebrity change their former nights
12:28
into nights like gala nights celebration
12:31
nights
12:32
dress your best if you want nights many
12:35
people feel that it no longer makes
12:37
any sense to have dress codes on a
12:38
cruise ship and they should better
12:40
reflect what happens on land
12:41
however dress codes have now become part
12:44
of the brand
12:46
so a line like qnut which wants to
12:48
recreate
12:49
that sense of magic of the crossing
12:52
areas in the 50s and 60s of glamour
12:54
they keep dress codes as a fundamental
12:56
part of what they do because it's
12:58
what they want the brand to stand for on
13:00
the other degree we have norwegian
13:01
cruise line that really wants
13:02
people to feel relaxed and comfortable
13:04
unless people wear things like shorts
13:06
around and about even in the evenings
13:08
for dinner and stuff like that
13:10
so dress codes have become an area that
13:13
people feel make no sense
13:14
the feeling is that the modern man the
13:16
modern woman today
13:18
wants to be able to dress as they choose
13:20
dress as they please and at the end of
13:22
the day
13:22
many people argue i'm paying to be on a
13:24
ship
13:25
why are you telling me what i have to do
13:27
so that's certainly an area that people
13:29
feel make no sense personally i quite
13:31
like a dress code i do like
13:33
like a bit of dressing up but that's me
13:35
and i guess what people are saying
13:36
it should be a matter of choice if you
13:38
want some thoughts on some
13:40
other things that make no sense on a
13:41
cruise ship why don't you watch this
13:43
other video
13:44
where i look at six key things that make
13:46
no sense on a cruise ship
13:47
on top of the ones that i've already
13:48
discussed here so why don't you
13:50
click on those and take a look including
13:52
one which explains to you
13:54
why swimming pools are so small on
13:56
cruise ships
13:57
see you over there
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