Environmentally Friendly Changes

[brisalta]

2 minutes ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

 I never thought of it that way but you’re absolutely correct. 

It was never about saving forests in the first place.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

5 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

That is bad!!!

I suspect who ever purchased the system was clueless and created poor specifications.

 

Exactly.  They are getting rid of straws, ketchup packets, and other single serve items and replacing them with the medallion. My guess is that the medallion will  be redesigned to where it can be reused.  Right???

Edited September 2, 2019 by MsSoCalCruiser

[MsSoCalCruiser]

3 minutes ago, brisalta said:

It was never about saving forests in the first place.

 Then what was it all about? 

[RocketMan275]

1 hour ago, Travlin grrl said:

Thanks for posting. I'm glad they are making some changes. Everyone will get used to it. Just like plastic bags at the store everyone complained when they were banned. Now everyone brings it and it's no big deal. At least it's a start in conserving and less waste. My last cruise in  Europe everyone had hydroflasks, which makes a lot of sense. Keeps your water cold for a long period of time and reusable. 

So glad my state/county/city hasn't given in to the anti-plastic, feel-good virtue signalling that accomplishes nothing. 

[AmazedByCruising]

28 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Not only is it single use, but a sealed unit so the battery can't be recycled.

 

Someone, a professor or something, should compare the environmental damage of one battery eventually ending up in a landfill to a million straws on ships that simply get burned. I am not a professor, but I feel the straws can be compensated for by planting a few trees. The battery might be found by archaeologists in the year 9030 while still leaking poison.

[neverbeenhere]

I will take on half of the scientific study. A battery of the size used in the medallions will not be around in 9030. If it is placed into the local landfill, it will most likely have degraded in 50 years or less. While there will be residual chemicals existing, they shouldn’t be in highly dangerous levels unless you bury all of your 100’s of cruise medallions in one spot. 

 

Burning straws, that is another question. But I think the issue with the straws is not burning them. But who knows. 

[MsSoCalCruiser]

3 hours ago, Travlin grrl said:

Thanks for posting. I'm glad they are making some changes. Everyone will get used to it. Just like plastic bags at the store everyone complained when they were banned. Now everyone brings it and it's no big deal. At least it's a start in conserving and less waste. My last cruise in  Europe everyone had hydroflasks, which makes a lot of sense. Keeps your water cold for a long period of time and reusable. 

You’re welcome. I would buy one of those Hydroflasks but I have a serious problem with sitting things down and forgetting them.  I lose my soda package cup almost every single cruise. I really would like a yeti cup but I know what would happen to it.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

2 hours ago, neverbeenhere said:

I will take on half of the scientific study. A battery of the size used in the medallions will not be around in 9030. If it is placed into the local landfill, it will most likely have degraded in 50 years or less. While there will be residual chemicals existing, they shouldn’t be in highly dangerous levels unless you bury all of your 100’s of cruise medallions in one spot. 

 

Burning straws, that is another question. But I think the issue with the straws is not burning them. But who knows. 

 I’m curious how many people with an ocean medallion embark on their cruise on just one day.

[brisalta]

3 hours ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

 Then what was it all about? 

See post #122

[brisalta]

3 hours ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

Someone, a professor or something, should compare the environmental damage of one battery eventually ending up in a landfill to a million straws on ships that simply get burned. I am not a professor, but I feel the straws can be compensated for by planting a few trees. The battery might be found by archaeologists in the year 9030 while still leaking poison.

Paper straws can be composted among other ways of disposing of them

[The Mikado]

At some point, I would like someone to explain to me how, in an industry dependent on food service and with a history of wide-spread illnesses, communal servings of everything from sugar to cereal to butter to you name it are going to prove to be anything but a disaster in the making. 

 

The whole idea of individual servings of things was to prevent some yucko from sticking his filthy digits in the pie we’re all supposed to eat. 

 

Unless the cruise lines plan on installing dishwashers in the staterooms, “reusables” are impractical in the extreme on a large-scale basis.

 

And I want the sugar for my coffee from an individual, sealed packet. 

Edited September 3, 2019 by The Mikado
Spelling

[chengkp75]

2 hours ago, The Mikado said:

with a history of wide-spread illnesses,

Really?  CDC reports that cruise ships account for only 1% of the norovirus outbreaks in the US, and norovirus accounts for 90% of cruise ship GI illness.  Wonder what other industries account for the other 99%?  Do they have communal servings?

Edited September 3, 2019 by chengkp75

[Colo Cruiser]

32 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Really?  CDC reports that cruise ships account for only 1% of the norovirus outbreaks in the US, and norovirus accounts for 90% of cruise ship GI illness.  Wonder what other industries account for the other 99%?  Do they have communal servings?

and the fact that the cruise lines have to keep score.

Hotels/resorts/airlines/trains/buses etc etc don't.

[neverbeenhere]

Noro:

Brought to you by

Nursing Homes

Hospitals

Childcare Facilities

 

That's the poop on that. (I guess that's the problem)

[The Mikado]

55 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Really?  CDC reports that cruise ships account for only 1% of the norovirus outbreaks in the US, and norovirus accounts for 90% of cruise ship GI illness.  Wonder what other industries account for the other 99%?  Do they have communal servings?

What % of the U.S. are cruisers?

[AmazedByCruising]

34 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

What % of the U.S. are cruisers?

 

All ships combined can host 550,000 pax, but that includes Europeans, Australians, Chinese. So at most 0.17% but when you subtract the non-US clientele it must be less. That's a lot smaller than 1%. So yes, if you absolutely don't want to be infected by Noro, it is wise to stay away from ships as your chances of being infected would go up.

 

Also stay away from hotels, casinos, nursing homes, malls, conventions and performances. And day care, offices. Oh, and bars and buses and trains. And planes and schools. Actually, staying away from people in general is the safest option.

Edited September 3, 2019 by AmazedByCruising

[chengkp75]

37 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

What % of the U.S. are cruisers?

15%

[The Mikado]

13 minutes ago, AmazedByCruising said:

Actually, staying away from people in general is the safest option...

That’s been my strategy for years. 

 

I’m glad you grasped my point regarding percentages because the way you used them was a bit disingenuous. 

 

But it rather than argue about how likely I am to get sick on a ship, let’s leave it at this: I do not want to eat from a communal trough of ANYTHING. I do not want to carry around a reusable cup I have to clean in the bathroom sink. I don’t want my pat of butter to come from a bowl 300 people before me have picked over and whose serving utensil has been who-knows-where and touched in ways I can only imagine. 

 

Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?

Edited September 3, 2019 by The Mikado

[chengkp75]

6 minutes ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

All ships combined can host 550,000 pax, but that includes Europeans, Australians, Chinese. So at most 0.17% but when you subtract the non-US clientele it must be less. That's a lot smaller than 1%. So yes, if you absolutely don't want to be infected by Noro, it is wise to stay away from ships as your chances of being infected would go up.

 

Also stay away from hotels, casinos, nursing homes, malls, conventions and performances. And day care, offices. Oh, and bars and buses and trains. And planes and schools. Actually, staying away from people in general is the safest option.

I believe your statistic for pax is the total berths, but you have to figure that each berth is filled every week (roughly), so multiply your 550,000 by 52, so you are hosting 28.6 million passengers.  That is about 8.7% of the US population.  While, as I stated above, 15% of the US population has cruised at least once, 7-8% have done so within the last 2-3 years.  So, 1% of the 8% that have cruised recently have contracted noro, or 1 in 8 chance.  Outside of cruising, 99% of the 92% that don't cruise have had noro, or 10.7 in 10 chances to contract noro.  Looks to me like the odds are higher off the ships.

[The Mikado]

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

15%

You’re saying that 50m Americans take a cruise every year?

[d9704011]

4 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

You’re saying that 50m Americans take a cruise every year?

A rather obtuse interpretation of what was written.... 15% of Americans have cruised at least once.  While I’m uncertain whether I agree with numbers and analysis, the sense of what was written is easy enough to understand.

[d9704011]

14 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

That’s been my strategy for years. 

 

I’m glad you grasped my point regarding percentages because the way you used them was a bit disingenuous. 

 

But it rather than argue about how likely I am to get sick on a ship, let’s leave it at this: I do not want to eat from a communal trough of ANYTHING. I do not want to carry around a reusable cup I have to clean in the bathroom sink. I don’t want my pat of butter to come from a bowl 300 people before me have picked over and whose serving utensil has been who-knows-where and touched in ways I can only imagine. 

 

Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?

Pretty easy concept to understand.  It’s all the things you’ve imagined as being some sort of common practice that are a bit incredulous.

[The Mikado]

5 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

A rather obtuse interpretation of what was written.... 15% of Americans have cruised at least once.  While I’m uncertain whether I agree with numbers and analysis, the sense of what was written is easy enough to understand.

Once again, my silly “real world” stuff interferes with an attempt to compare apples to pears. 

 

I’m not surprised I seem to have to explain this. 

[AmazedByCruising]

3 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

I believe your statistic for pax is the total berths, but you have to figure that each berth is filled every week (roughly), so multiply your 550,000 by 52, so you are hosting 28.6 million passengers.  That is about 8.7% of the US population.  While, as I stated above, 15% of the US population has cruised at least once, 7-8% have done so within the last 2-3 years.  So, 1% of the 8% that have cruised recently have contracted noro, or 1 in 8 chance.  Outside of cruising, 99% of the 92% that don't cruise have had noro, or 10.7 in 10 chances to contract noro.  Looks to me like the odds are higher off the ships.

 

Usually, you explain and I learn something. Now I'm completely confused . The 1 in 8 is way too much, a ship with 2500 pax doesn't have an average of 300 pax sick. The 1% you mentioned is not 1% of the 8% cruising population but 1% of the whole population.

 

How did 99% of the non cruising population have Noro?  

 

Anyway, I think we're talking about the metric "how much chance do I have to contract Noro today", and then it doesn't matter (much, except when people would get immune or learn to wash their hands) if it's the same population on the ship for the whole year, or if the population is changed weekly. It's just "how many wake up on a ship and contract Noro that day" and "how many wake up anywhere else and contract Noro that day", and in that case, on average, it's better to wake up somewhere else.

 

 

 

[JimmyVWine]

19 minutes ago, The Mikado said:

I do not want to eat from a communal trough of ANYTHING.  I don’t want my pat of butter to come from a bowl 300 people before me have picked over and whose serving utensil has been who-knows-where and touched in ways I can only imagine. 

People place salad greens on their plates with tongs from a large bowl.  They dispense salad dressing on said greens from a container with a ladle.  They place sliced fruit on their plates with tongs from a large plate.  So too with the bacon.  They serve themselves rolls from a large pan.  But , Oh my god!  How dare they replace individually wrapped pats of butter with chilled balls of butter in an iced down tray where we will have to use a butter fork to serve ourselves!  How are communal rolls OK, but communal butter is a health hazard?

 

I do not want to carry around a reusable cup I have to clean in the bathroom sink.

At least this way, I know that my cup has been cleaned, when it was cleaned, and who cleaned it.  The juice glass in the  buffet area?  Not so much.  

 

Why is this such a hard concept to grasp?

Because it is riddled with inconsistencies.  If one never visits the buffet because 90% of the food is "communal", I get it.  But then again, most of the changes wouldn't apply to that person, so they can stop carping.  But if one does visit the buffets and does plate food from serving pans with a spoon, ladle or serving fork, then the change over from wrapped butter to open air butter should be a pretty easy thing to adjust to.   Here is a photo of a typical buffet.  Most of the food is "communal", unwrapped and not individually portioned.  Seems like the pats of butter are merely joining the ranks of every other food item up there.