MSC Meraviglia

Bipolar disorder: Record cruise crowds bring riches, but also complaints of intrusive behavior toward kids, cabin dwellers, wildlife

Bipolar disorder: Record cruise crowds bring riches, but also complaints of intrusive behavior toward kids, cabin dwellers, wildlife

By Mark Sabbatini on July 24, 2018

Read Time:3 Minute, 41 Second

An “invasion” of cabins and a kindergarten. Attacking birds and petting reindeer. Treating everywhere outdoors as a port-a-potty and digging up wild plants to take home.

The increasing intensity and frequency of such complaints about cruise ship passengers – especially when larger ships can mean up to 8,000 extra people in a 2,000-person town – aren’t just local vs. visitor feuds. Often they’re pitting local against local, with the pro-cruise folks arguing the complaints are about a relative handful of visitors, but can result in a generally negative attitude toward all of them.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

http://icepeople.net

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Was it good for them? 6,000-person cruise ship might be tight fit for locals, but visitors say they had a peak experience

Was it good for them? 6,000-person cruise ship might be tight fit for locals, but visitors say they had a peak experience

By Mark Sabbatini on July 11, 2018

Read Time:3 Minute, 27 Second

Eric Pireyn said his family arrived without pre-booking a tour, but managed to rent a car and take a full driving tour that included spotting a polar fox near the campsite (which his eight-year-old daughter Anna called the day’s high point). She and her sister Nina, 5, were wearing “husky head” fur hats they bought during the day as they headed back to a cruise ship towering above the buildings in town around dinnertime.