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5 Things That Make NO Sense On Cruise Ships. Here's Why
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Jan 28, 2025
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. 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 FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA ———————————————
View Video Transcript
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
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beyond
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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
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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
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when ships cannot dock in a port
5:19
and the ship has to ferry guests to and
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from land to go on tours and explore
5:24
it's a really time consuming and very
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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
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and bar options that's just a bonus so
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it's lowered to sea level
5:43
when the ship's moored and provides a
5:45
huge platform
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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
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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
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improves
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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
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tips if you prefer to call them that
6:17
have changed over the last 15 years
6:19
since i started
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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
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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
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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
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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
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which meant some or many passengers
7:18
would actually not pay
7:19
any tips to this new system which they
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claim assists crew by ensuring
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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
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in terms of money and in terms of
8:19
control
8:21
another feature of cruise ships even the
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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
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outside stores
8:34
constant flies in my cabin offering
8:36
drinks of the day
8:38
jewelry watches spa treatments
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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
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of cruise line profits
8:59
come from what people spend on board not
9:01
the actual
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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
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that's for things like drinks
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wi-fi excursions spa treatments shopping
9:20
casino bingo and so on now each of those
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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
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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
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all-inclusive holland america brought in
9:56
their have it all fair so that includes
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for example an excursion
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signature drinks package one specially
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dining and wi-fi and i
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have seen fares increase on those sort
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of lines by at least
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350 per person for a seven night cruise
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on those lines you get a sense of just
10:12
how big and important those things
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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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