To think that this looks absolutely hideous?

[KimberleyClark]

It’s Royal Carribbean’s latest cruise liner, Icon of the Seas. Don’t get me wrong, I love cruising, but on ships that look like ships, not floating theme parks or apartment blocks.

I wouldn’t be against a cruise or even a cruise with water slides etc per se. It’s just the idea of how crowded that would be that puts me off!

God that video is the stuff of nightmares.

That looks like my idea of hell

Awful! I seriously would not go on that if it was a free holiday!

It's a no from me as well. This is my kind of cruise ship. We did a mini cruise in Indonesia in this in 1996. Sadly the ship caught fire and had to be scrapped in 1999.

I think the maximum number of passengers was 120. It was brilliant.

When we had a holiday in Dubrovnik we stayed on the Lapad Peninsula opposite where all the cruise ships came in. Most of them looked like huge blocks of floating council flats. Hideous.

Well, if you're on it you won't be getting an aerial view of it.

It's very neon.

If you aren't going on it or it isn't docking in view of your home I can't see why it meaningfully matters.

I expect for some of those families who do enjoy cruises, the whole point is to find one with a range of activities that the family can enjoy and get their money's worth, so the more the better.

A cruise isn't my idea of fun so I'd not be booking but fortunately nobody is being forced to.

Just imagine all the rubbish and sewage generated by 10,000 people on one ship. Where does all that go? I'm sure it's absolutely deposited in an ecologically sound fashion, and never just dumped at sea. Oh no.

I imagine it's an overcrowded nightmare in school holidays ... yet ... I may have considered it as an option when DS was younger - lots of activities to do, plus visiting different places .

Would hate it now .

With my kids - it looks great fun

Without my kids - not a chance in hell

That second image resembles Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Okay so if you were a kid, you'd love it. But the tonnage of that thing looks immense. When we cruised (before DC came along) ships were typically about 90-100,000, although there were some far bigger leviathans circling about in the Caribbean.

But they're just getting more and more huge. You can't police people doing stupid things like leaving towels out on balconies or smoking where they shouldn't be, and the more people on board the more difficult that becomes. The things are gigantic floating fire hazards.

A major disaster on a 200,000 ship would be a major disaster indeed, despite the laws regarding evacuation drills which IME are pretty laissez faire. It's a given that the more people on a vessel, the more potential for panic and the less efficient procedures would be.

I really hope a major tragedy doesn't ensue as a result of humanity's ridiculous race to build the biggest ship afloat. History has shown how that approach can work out.

Actually I think they are floating theme parks.

I think it looks great fun.

I don't think I could go on a waterside that hovers over the edge of a ship though 🫣

MarieIVanArkleStinks - your post brilliantly illustrates why I wouldn't be going on cruise ship that size. It's terrifying really.

A floating hell

The brilliant thing is that there are so many different cruise lines that there is always one that is right for you. I can see the appeal for families.

We had a friend who worked on cruise ships. He said the stabilisers kept the ship from rolling side-to-side, but it didn't stop it from going up and down, when ploughing forward through heavy waves! 🤢

My kids would love it but that looks like my absolute nightmare.

I would rather put myself through a mincer.

The amount of people who have never stepped foot on a cruise making massive assumptions about what it’s like. I love cruises, it’s absolutely no different to a holiday resort other than you wake up somewhere else every day. There’s plenty of lovely quiet places to go, one evening we watched a string quartet in a garden space on one of these ‘big’ liners and it was just gorgeous. There’s lots of cafes and really nice bars of all different types, there’s adults only sections etc. Honestly I was sceptical but it was amazing, we loved it.

The point completely misfires for me. We wanted to travel large distances, see as many places and civilizations as possible, in relative luxury and without having to repack and unpack in between stops.

We therefore chose ours based on itineraries rather than ships, although the different ethos of the different cruise companies played a part as well. We never once went to an evening show. We were off, doing our own trips independently, as soon as the ship docked and back on with just comfortable time to spare before re-sailing. 'At Sea' days were, if not a chore to be endured, a short opportunity to catch our breath.

This is impossible nowadays. For cost reasons most ships have drastically reduced the time spent in port, and the ports were the main reason for wanting to go in the first place. The ships are mammoth. Not all the guests' behaviour is great; snobbish though it may sound to say it, this does vary from cruise line to cruise line. There was also less noise being made at that time about their environmental impact (I think the last time we went was about 2013).

We stopped because they're not ideal environments for young kids, but I'd be loathe to go again, although I did quite fancy an Alaskan one. They've lost something as 'my' kind of holiday and it doesn't look as though they're going to get it back.

Cruising days have to be numbered. They are incredibly harmful to the environment and do very little for the economy of any port they stop in.

I can't think of a worse way to travel. I like to get away from the crowds, with this you are the crowd. You're just travelling as part of one everywhere you go.

Plus i can never quite get my head around how the feck these massive things float? 😂(before anyone trys to explain, yes I understand water displacement, doesn't stop me still being confused!)

Also on our trip when we went on Royal Carribean, we stopped at a different port every day except one sea day. 6 stops in 8 days, so I’m not sure it’s true that they never spent time in port, that wasn’t our experience at all.

Agree. Not my cup of tea at all.

I've always thought of cruise ships as floating prisons.

Also had no idea families went on cruises, I thought it was all oldies.

Being trapped on a ship with a (literal) boatload of kids (and their germs), my own kids included, is my idea of hell.

Cruises always make me think of Cocoon.