Cruising — for as common it is — is actually pretty crazy. Where else do you essentially take a building, put it on the ocean, load thousands of people, feed them, entertain them, and do things at sea that were simply unimaginable just a few years ago?
But there are good reasons behind all the seemingly wild things that cruise lines do, and it’s fascinating to learn. That’s why I’m highlighting the craziest things about cruising that just don’t make sense at first and explaining the why behind it.
The Insane Size of Mega-Ships
Any discussion of the craziness of cruising has to begin with the size of the ships. If you’ve sailed before, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then you can’t appreciate the size until you’re standing on the pier next to the ship. These things are unimaginably big.
A modern cruise ship can be 1,200 feet long with more than 20 decks. The biggest have upwards of 2,500 rooms, which is on par with a Las Vegas hotel. And don’t forget that these ships also continue under the water, so you’ll see most of the size, but not the entire thing.
So why so big?
In cruising, size is everything these days. Bigger ships are more stable, they carry more passengers (more on this in a moment), they can pack on so much more to see and experience, and they are more efficient. Your investment goes a lot further when build a 6,000 person ship compared to two 3,000 person ships.
The size is wild, but it actually makes perfect sense for the cruise lines.
Ships With Thousands and Thousands of Passengers
Staying along those lines, let’s discuss another crazy aspect, and one that’s likely the most controversial in cruising. I’m talking of course of the number of people on the ships.
Twenty or thirty years ago, a ship with 2,000 to 3,000 people was common. Today, the new ships coming from the mega lines are in the 5,000 to 6,000 passenger range. The biggest ships can hold upwards of 8,000 when completely full, and then you add on thousands of crew members.
Now the ships have increased in size too, so it’s not like it’s more people in the same space. Still, it’s a lot.
You likely know the “why” behind this comes down to dollars. The more people on the ship, the more money it makes with each trip. That’s a no-brainer.
On the flip side, it also goes to efficiency, which lowers costs. When you can take 5,000 people on one trip instead of 2,500 on two separate trips, your costs are also going to come down while carrying the same amount of passengers. As with so much in cruising, it comes down to dollars and cents.
Buildings Sailing 25 Miles Per Hour
Imagine taking the Empire State Building, and moving it overnight from New York to Pittsburgh. Sounds far-fetched, but that’s essentially what cruise ships are doing every day.
We’ve talked about the size, but what hasn’t been mentioned is the speed with which these ships sail to get from port to port while passengers eat, play in the casino, and sleep.
Ships sail at upwards of 25 miles per hour, meaning if they leave a port of call at 6 p.m., by 6 a.m. they could have covered 300 miles.
Why move so fast? In cruising, the schedule is everything. And with cruises traveling to distant spots like Alaska or sailing from Galveston where the nearest foreign port is hundreds of miles away, speed is critical in being able to put together a cruise that can not only visit multiple ports but also do it within a week’s schedule.
A Non-Stop Schedule
Building on that theme, there’s arguably nothing crazier when it comes to cruise ships than the schedule. Before I ever took my first cruise, I had the idea that a ship would return at the end of one cruise, let everyone off, resupply, take on new passengers, and then sail out again the next day.
Yes, that was naïve.
Since cruise ships don’t make money unless they are carrying passengers, they don’t take breaks unless it’s absolutely required, such as a mechanical issue or a refurbishment. Otherwise, it’s crazy to think about, but ships are sailing 24/7. No matter the time of year, holidays, or anything else, the cruises never stop.
So when you get on the ship and find your room, realize just hours earlier someone else was sleeping in that bed.
The Behind-the-Scenes You Never See
I can’t be alone in that whenever I walk by an open door that leads into crew only areas… I have to look. It’s like pulling back the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.
What’s crazy is that there are areas of the ship that you will never get to see. As a passenger, it can feel like you have the run of the ship. In fact, there are lots of places you won’t ever visit including the spots where thousands of crew members live, eat, and relax. Let’s just say they are much less glamorous than the rest of the ship.
There are some tours of the backstage areas that I’ve been on. If you get the chance, they are fascinating, including backstage in the theater, the engine room, where the waste and greywater from the ship is processed, and yes, even the bridge where the crew steers the ship.
But it’s crazy to realize how much of the ship you actually don’t get to see. While the ship seems like a city at sea, there’s another city within the ship that most passengers don’t access.
The Amount of Money Made By a Ship
When you step on a cruise ship, it’s your vacation. For the cruise ship? It’s business, and business is good. In fact, it’s crazy to think just how much money the ship you’re on is generating.
Cruise lines tend to be parts of public companies and as such, they report financials quarterly. Take Carnival Corporation for instance. Across all lines in the past year, they took in $26.2 billion with 101 million passenger cruise days. So for every day the average passenger takes a cruise, the company earns about $260 in revenue. Now that’s an average across all lines and ships. The specific figures will vary ship to ship.
Take that average and apply it to a ship like Carnival Jubilee. It’s considered 100% occupancy with 5,200 passengers, but often sails with more since some rooms have three or four people in them. But at 100% occupancy, you can estimate the ship is earning $1.35 million in revenue each day based on averages.
Royal Caribbean? They see average revenue of $305 per passenger cruise day. If sailing aboard Icon of the Seas when it’s absolutely completely full — roughly 7,600 passengers — that means $2.3 million earned per day based on averages.
The numbers are simply mind-blowing.
The Extra Spending Some Passengers Do
As someone who is known to squeeze a dime so tight that he can split it into two nickels, I don’t think I will ever get over the crazy amounts that some people shell out for things on the cruise.
You can think of what’s spent on cruising as a bell curve. There’s a small percentage of people that spend very little, a large majority that spend a middle amount and then another small percentage that spends mega bucks.
Cruise lines are only happy to oblige. On the low end, people are spending as much as $12 for a six-pack of soda on ships. Some cruise lines have drink packages that can add up to more than a thousand dollars on some trips. A bit higher up the ladder here are cabanas in places like CocoCay that run multiple thousands of dollars for a single day. And then there are high-end rooms that cost in the tens of thousands of dollars compared to hundreds of dollars for a typical cabin.
Spending on a cruise is to be expected. But there’s a tier of passengers that take it to a completely other level.
Pools That Are So Tiny for so Many People
It’s crazy how many people pack onto a ship, but it’s also crazy to think about a classic cruise staple — the swimming pool.
Think of a cruise and you likely envision a sunny day at sea with lots of people soaking up the sun. At the middle of that scene is always the pool. But when you consider there are thousands of passengers on the ship, those pools are insanely small for all those people.
It could be that some people reading this literally have bigger pools in their backyard than what’s found on some ships.
The reason is simply that water is heavy and when you put it high up on the pool deck, that weight can have a major impact on the ship’s balance. But the result is that if you want a spot in the pool during the middle of the day, then you better be comfortable swimming in close quarters with strangers.
Treating Passengers Like Children
One thing that’s crazy about cruising is something that you might not even notice at first, but once it’s pointed out, it’s hard to ignore.
There are lots of ways that cruise lines treat passengers like they are children. For instance, try to get a pool towel on Carnival or Royal Caribbean. You either have to give your room number or scan your card. Then you have to return it or risk getting charged.
Then there are signs about chair hogging. There are people stationed at the buffet telling you to wash your hands. There are even drug dogs smelling people as they go through security.
So why is it like this? Unfortunately, it seems needed in some cases, but it also seems to be related to the clientele.
For instance, go on Virgin Voyages, which is adults only, and there’s no check-in to get a towel. Or sail Celebrity and there’s no drug dog and there’s even free sunscreen available for passengers to use on the pool deck. That’s something you’d never see on lesser-tier cruise lines.
But seemingly the less expensive the cruise, the more need there seems to be to be sure everyone acts correctly.
