This could be on board: bugs, pirates, power outages: 10 facts that spoil the cruising pleasure

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About 500,000 Swiss have planned a cruise for 2023. Life on board, swimming, excursions – vacation on board offers something for everyone. While air travel has to deal with stress, flight cancellations, overbooking or annoying seat neighbors at the airport, a lot can go wrong on cruises.

Fortunately, sinkings are no longer so common: 16 cruise ships were lost this way between 1980 and 2012. Especially dramatic: the Costa Concordia crash in 2012. The ship struck a rock and partially sank – or rather: it was on the ground – in front of the Italian Isola del Giglio, with about 4,200 people on board. Such accidents are much more common. Between 1972 and 2011, 98 cruise ships were affected.

Between 2000 and 2019, there were 623 reported cases of ship fatalities. The top three causes among passengers were falls, cardiac arrest, and suicide; There are suicides, murders and falls among the crew. Everyone who dies on the cruise ship is placed in special cold rooms and taken home at the earliest opportunity.

After complications on a cruise ship, the Carnival 2013 company flew passengers home a few days later. One reason: overflowing toilets. An average cruise ship produces 500,000 to 800,000 liters of wastewater per week. That’s more than 3.8 billion liters of wastewater that ends up in the ocean each year – after all, only after it’s usually treated in multi-stage wastewater treatment plants.

Many shipping companies are trying to be more environmentally friendly. But: The German environmental association NABU has calculated that air quality on cruise ships can be up to 20 times worse than in a busy city centre. Overall, cruise ships produce about 17 percent nitrogen oxide emissions. Crusader waste also destroys coral reefs and marine ecosystems.

About 60 people are injured each year due to operational failures such as minor fires or explosions. However, thanks to the self-extinguishing systems on board, fires with serious consequences became rare. The last major event was a fire in Sydney harbor in February 2023 on board the Viking Orion, which required the evacuation of 600 passengers.

According to a report from the International Cruise Ship Association, about 150 people went overboard on cruise ships between 2009 and 2016. Passengers were rescued in only a quarter of cases. The main problem: Given the size and complexity of the ships, it is often no one notices when a person falls over the railing into the water.

Crime cannot be prevented on cruise ships either. The largest proportion of reported crimes are sexual assaults – for example, in 62 of the total 92 crimes reported on cruise ships in 2016. Piracy remains a problem, for example in Indonesian waterways or off the east coast of Africa – but especially for merchant ships. Their long hulls and significantly higher speeds make cruise ships difficult targets for pirates. Many shipping companies have also upgraded it with sonic or water cannon to fend off attackers.

Without electricity, the entire cruise ship system crashes. The main negative effects are on the sewer system, as an incident in 2013 showed: “Carnival Triumph” caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico and there was a power outage. For five days, passengers were exposed to untreated rising sewage. The fresh water supply was as difficult as cooling the food.

Errors on board are not always caused by pollution or negligence. According to a Carnival Cruise Lines spokesperson, bedbugs often enter airplanes from passengers’ luggage. And food deliveries can bring all kinds of small pests on board.

In February 2020, the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship was quarantined at the port of Yokohama (JP). Out of a total of 2,666 passengers, more than 700 tested positive for the corona virus, which was still new at the time. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control, about 17 percent of known cases of Covid-19 in the United States can be traced by cruise ship passengers. The cramped living conditions on a cruise ship offer ideal conditions for the spread of infectious diseases.

Source: Blick