Cruise Ship Blues: The Underside of the Cruise Ship Industry (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

The cruise line industry has a 500 million annual advertising budget. The environment, workers and customers of the industry have Ross Klein. It's a more even contest than you might imagine.-- Robert Gibson, Alternatives Journal

Cruise Ship Blues is a mine of information about what's changed, what hasn't, and what should change in the cruise industry. No cruise charm, no dull travel destination talk, no self-serving claims of corporate responsibility -- just sobering, informative, often entertaining, first-person accounting, meticulously researched. Sure to become an indispensable primer for anyone considering a cruise vacation, and a must-read for all those who endeavor to preserve the ocean realm. -- Coralie Breen, CEO/President, Oceans Blue Foundation

Come aboard the first in-depth examination of the international cruise industry, and find out why advocates for social justice, fair labor practices, equitable tax laws, environmental protection, and competent medical care have started paying attention to the ship "on the other side of the curtain." Klein's below-deck tour scuttles the "Love Boat" myth and exposes the fragile foundation supporting a multi-billion dollar industry... -- Gershon Cohen, Ph.D., Project Director, Campaign to Safeguard America's Waters, Earth Island Institute

For anyone who's ever been seduced by the cruise industry's slick ads, Ross Klein's fascinating exposé will make you think twice before booking your next voyage. The industry's dirty, dangerous and deceptive practices are more reminiscent of the Exxon Valdez than the "Love Boat," replete with scandalous tales of toxic pollution and bungled cover-ups, utter disdain for passenger health or safety, and above all, lurid accounts of greed trumping human and environmental welfare. This book causes outrage. -- Russell Long, Ph.D., former America's Cup Skipper, Executive Director, Bluewater Network

Behind all the hype and glitz of luxury cruising, there is a real story, told here by Ross Klein, whose expertise is founded on the personal experience of thirty cruises. Here "the underside of the industry is brought into daylight." Klein's readable and authoritative volume may not dim your enthusiasm for cruising, but it will open your eyes to a very troubling corporate culture that abuses both customers and workers, and threatens the environment; and it may save you some money. Forewarned is fore-armed. -- Paul Chapman, author of Trouble on Board, the Plight of International Seafarers

Cruise Ship Blues ...is well written and full of hard to get information for anyone -- cruise lovers included. It shows how millions of relatively privileged individuals engage -- mostly unreflected -- in socially and ecologically unsustainable recreational behavior. A sustainable future would call for "soft tourism," implying that the wasteful, environmentally and socially damaging cruise industry be downsized... -- Isidor Wallimann, co-editor of On the Edge of Scarcity: Environment, Resources, Population, Sustainability, and Conflict

Product Description

Cruising is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Attracting more than 12 million passengers a year, cruise ship companies are merging to become be-hemoths. And cruise ships themselves have swollen dramatically in size, now sometimes carrying more than 5,000 people on board. Not surprisingly, this growth is causing huge problems—problems that the industry would rather not acknowledge, and the potential cruiser would have a hard time discovering.

Cruise Ship Blues reveals the dark underside of this industry. Author Ross Klein first examines the contrast between passenger expectations of luxury and romance fostered by rosy advertising, and the seedier reality of meals, accommodations, and facilities on board. He then:

• explodes the myth of the cruise as an all-inclusive vacation, demonstrating that the industry’s expectation is to generate an additional $200+ per day per person

• examines cruise ship safety, ringing the alarm about accidents at sea, passenger security (including the incidence of sexual assault), on-board illnesses, and medical services

• juxtaposes the industry’s environmentally friendly image against its actual behavior and the difficulties of effective regulation

• exposes the workers’ experience in these "sweatshops at sea"

• contrasts the industry’s consumer-friendly facade with its attitude that "everything would run smoothly if it were not for the passengers"

Concluding with a discussion of what can be done to make the cruise business socially and environmentally accountable, Cruise Ship Blues offers a harsh critique as well as a call to political action. It will appeal both to those considering a cruise vacation, as well as to activists and students.

Since 1992, Ross Klein has taken more than 30 cruises in all parts of the world, comprising more than 300 days. An Associate Professor of Social Work at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he has written widely on the cruise industry.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865714622
• ISBN-13: 978-0865714625
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #296,450 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Main Lesson - Tip with Kindness, June 16, 2005

By	Lisa Shea "LisaShea.com" - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

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In Cruise Ship Blues by Ross A. Klein, you are given the gritty underside of the cruise industry world. Klein says he chooses to no longer cruise, but you have to wonder if cruise lines would let him back on!

First, let me say that I respect greatly what Klein is doing here. There are trillions of dollars being spent on convincing people to take cruises, to "live the life of luxury". Hardly any money is spent on telling people what a cruise is REALLY about, what to REALLY expect, what is not included, what the problems are. You can dig through forums, but there is no coordinated Consumer Reports of the cruise industry. Klein uses his 300 days of cruise ship experience plus research to draw together the state of cruising.

That being said, I think that exposing the cruise ship industry as one that is doomed to fail because it is socially and environmentally irresponsible is alarmist. These things have been going on for CENTURIES. If you look back through resort life and travel, it has always been the wealthy that go, and the extremely poor that serve. That is hardly the "fault" of modern cruise ships! I've been on trips through europe, Costa Rica, Cancun. You have mega-hotels with gorgeous foods - and you have incredibly poor waiters and housekeepers who grind day and night to scrape out a living and survive in a one-room shack.

I'm not saying that is good! But I'm saying to blame the cruise industry for it makes no sense. It's a matter of supply and demand. Resort travellers - be they on land or at sea - whine if the price is too high. So the resort supplier tries to find the cheapest employees that they can. Those employees tend to come from third world nations where there is little hope for money in any other situation. Those people WANT to work at the resorts, because the peanuts they make is still better than the starvation they face otherwise. The resort then makes money because they pay little to the employees, but get good money from the visitors.

On lines where they employ waiters that demand higher salaries, the fare is therefore higher, and people pay more. Those expensive lines certainly exist. But as long as people demand bargain-basement prices and push for those low fares, the lowest wage individuals are going to be hired.

I do think this at least makes it clear to cruisers why they MUST PAY GOOD TIPS. Those poor waiters and room cleaners are barely making $2/hr in many cases. They work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for tiny amounts of money. You whine about your $10/day tip - but to those workers, that is their life's savings that is going back to support their entire family at home. In many cases they are away from that family for a year or more, working hard daily to support them.

Yes, cruise ships dump waste into the sea, that is what boats do. It's allowed by law. We can change the laws if we want - where will the waste go? Will local ports "accept" that waste for free, to process it? Can they even handle the waste if they were paid to do so? These are issues that can be debated, but again to yell at the cruise ships for doing something legal and normal makes little sense to me.

Certainly, small towns have a love-hate relationship with cruise boats. The cruises bring in money, but bring in large volumes of tourists. This is hardly unique with cruises, though. I see this *exact* same thing at small skiing towns, at local islands, at Cape Cod. Just about anywhere that there is natural beauty, you have the locals and the hordes that come in on vacation. It's always been something I've pondered, but what can you do? Lock the tourists out? Insist only locals can enjoy the natural beauties?

This is a good book to rent from the library, to feel that you've gotten the whole story about cruising. But I really don't see this as an indictment of the cruise industry as much as a commentary - ongoing for centuries - about how the middle-class and wealthy are so tight fisted that they whine about tipping the staff even as they spend hundreds of dollars on "leisure activity" - while around them people starve. A cruise is never necessary. If you're going to cruise, at least consider the people who make it possible and reward them as liberally as you can for their part in your experience.

42 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Let him walk the plank - You go read something else, August 2, 2005

By	Bernard M. Patten "Book worm" (Seabrook, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At the end of this diatribe, the author admits that they don't want him back cruising. And I don't blame them. He is just one of those passengers that you can't please no matter what. Is he fussy? Let facts be submitted to a candid world: Quote: "On the ultra luxury Radisson Diamond, the same waiters that served my partner and me were also serving a table of senior officers and VIPs. Their mineral water was poured from a bottle wrapped in a white napkin; our mineral water - the same brand (how did he know if theirs was wrapped?) -- was poured without the napkin." Holy cow! Mineral water without a napkin - How dare they! At the same sitting, the author complains of a fish head that has fish eyes staring out at him and, guess what, the fish smells fishy! That's an earthquake! More complaints: The food isn't any better than a three star hotel! (Ever stay at a three star hotel in France? The food is super.) More whines: The VIPs get special treatments and special parties (Shocking!), the music around the pool is too loud, too rap and hard rock, the free wine on board only costs the cruise line only $2, he cracked a tooth and the cruise line wouldn't pay his dental bill until he got a lawyer friend who obtained the money plus "a meager compensation." But the thing that bothered me the most was his inconsistency. He berates the industry for alleged mistreatment of their employees and yet he himself seems to cause those employees more trouble that 99% of the other passengers and he can't figure out why those employees, like the bartender on page 157, whom he nagged for several days, hate him so much. He berates the passengers and ships for causing pollution, yet he himself has taken (and presumably will try to take) multiple cruises. The massive improvements in waste management and sanitation and pollution control and fuel efficiency are dismissed as not enough. He nitpicks about occasional oil spills but fails to mention that according to the US Coast Guard 99% of the oil pollution of the seas comes from natural sources, mainly undersea vents. But what's this? The author's website which is billed as a "noncommercial site regularly updated with links to reports, investigations, and new developments regarding labor, ship safety, and security" is not functioning. The website isn't function just the way this book isn't functioning. The best treatment for the likes of him is to throw him overboard or make him walk the plank. If you want to know about cruising, instead of reading this piece of junk, get a hold of any book by John Maxtone-Graham. His "The Only Way to Cross" is a classic.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An easy read, July 27, 2005

By	Robert Mason (Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A bit self-serving, over simplfied, and in the genre of alarmist, "National Enquirer"-type of journalism. At least it was a very easy read....finished it cover to cover in a couple of hours. Good airplane or beach reading material.