On Cruise Ships, Tourism, and Barcelona

Cruise Ships, #1 (Symphony of the Seas), Barcelona, 2018

Over the past few weeks, the largest cruise ship in the world, Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas, has been based out of Barcelona, running week-long Mediterranean tours. Later this summer it will depart and move on to service in the Caribbean.

My first reaction to such mammoth tourist machines is this: that some day we will look back on this phase of western “civilization” as (among many other things) the high point in the giant pink parabola of our hubris in the promotion of…

–massively massified mass tourism, and…

–excessive consumption and abuse of natural resources (this includes everything from fuel oil and natural gas to Bloody Marys and buffet entrees).

(OK, right out of the gate I’ll shamefully admit there is a small part of me that wonders what it might be like to partake of one of these luxury cruises and…kick back on a lounge chair by the pool…pig out at an all-you-can-stuff-down-your-piehole buffet…ride that zip line and water slide ’til I puke…see a top-notch Broadway show or concert…dine in a tux with the Captain…et cetera. But, the wonder is small and it doesn’t last long when I really ponder what exactly my money would be supporting.)

To address the environmental concerns, yes, ’tis true, the newer ships and some companies have made some nice strides over the years to improve their environmental record. Friends of the Earth even publishes a sort of report card on the different cruise lines and a few of the individual ships. Some actually seem to get decent environmental marks in many areas–recycling, exhaust scrubbers, waste treatment. Still, the rules for where and what you can dump into the sea (think oil-heavy bilge water, waste from the sewers, solid waste, cardboard, plastics, metals, etc.)…are a patchwork quilt over the oceans and we still have the mentality that our seas can easily suck it all up and process our crap with no long term effects.

Just Google the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to see how that’s been working for us.

Even ashore, cruise ships have a major environmental and social impact on their ports of call–airliners burn tons of Jet A to bring visitors in to meet the ships, lines of taxis and buses queue up (engines running) to take the pax to and fro, the ship’s engines also often run continuously to keep the generators turning (unless, perchance, they are set up for “cold ironing“), then, of course, you have the sudden impact of thousands of human beans being vomited forth all at once into a relatively small area.

Just yesterday, for example, we had in Barcelona the Symphony of the Seas (max of 6,680 pax), the Norwegian Epic (max of 4,100 pax), and the relatively diminuitive Costa Pacífica (max of 3,780 pax) all in port. Even if you go with an 80% occupancy rate, that is nearly 12,000 people (assuming none of their crews come ashore!) piling into La Rambla, the Picasso Museum, Park Güell, and the local bars and restaurants.

Yes, it is indeed good for the pocketbooks of the businesses involved…BUT

And again, BUT…

The tourist invasion is most definitely being felt here, and it is not all positive. It is not uncommon to see “Tourists Go Home” or “Fuck Tourists” grafitti around town these days. Yes, you are right, the money is appreciated by many business owners and their employees, but at what cost?

(Side note here about the “money-in-the-pockets-of-the-businesses” theme. Many of the restaurants and bars in the heavily touristed areas of Barcelona might actually be owned by out-of-the-country investors; that is, they are not really “local” businesses. How many? It’s hard to say. As an anecdote, after eating at a “typical” paella place just off La Rambla a few months back, we asked the waitress who the owner was. Her answer: a Russian company. Ask before you sit down and do your best to frequent places owned and operated by locals–support the small, local businesses!)

Some neighborhoods in Barcelona are now populated almost entirely by tourists, especially at high season, which pushes up rent for the locals (owners make more money renting weekly to tourists than renting yearly to locals). Other areas are being gentrified by real estate speculators and well-to-do foreigners bargain-hunting for a vacation home, thus pushing up sales prices and the long-time local residents out (see, for example, my June, 2017 post about the Vallcarca barrio). Walk down La Rambla these days and it might be hard for you to find an actual born-and-bred Catalan in the midst of the mingling masses (unless, by chance, they be walking home from a performance at the Liceu Opera House, or returning from yet another independence demonstration). Renting apartments to tourists has gotten so out-of-control that the City has started cracking down on illegal rentals and now has inspectors dedicated to the task of checking apartment tourist licenses.

At what point will we see the many centuries of historic patina of Barcelona get worn completely away under the thundering hooves of the tourist hordes? When will Barcelona cease to be a historical and cultural icon and become instead just another Disneyland or Partyland?

It seems to be this way all too often. Folks find a pretty place they like–a wilderness area, a climbing area, a hiking trail, a lake, a river, a beach, a nice retirement town in the mountains or by the sea, a wonderful vacation destination in Europe or Southeast Asia–and they love it to death. The locusts descend. Massification commences. Suffocation ensues. And the once beloved locale soon ceases to be what it once was.

And so it goes.

Could the current embrace of massive cruise ship tourism be just one more tiny and wobbly toddler-step toward an eventual Holocene Extinction?

…Maybe…?

Anyway, if you are fog-bound and determined to take a cruise, at least do your “green research” on the ship and the company involved.

As a P.S. and a by-the-way, here is an interesting comparison to see how far (low?) we have come with our ship building prowess:

—RMS Titanic (1912): 46,328 gross tons, 9 decks, 2,435 passengers, cost of $300 million (today’s dollars)

—MS Symphony of the Seas (2017): 228,081 gross tons, 18 decks, 6,680 passengers, cost of $1.35 billion

—USS Gerald Ford (2017): our latest aircraft carrier: 110,000 short tons, 25 decks, crew of 2,700 to 5,000+, cost between $11.5 to $18 billion

And yet another postscript. I just ran across a CNN article that nicely summarizes the 15 largest cruise ships in the world with all their myriad amenities, along with some commentary on the industry. Check out The 15 biggest cruise ships in the world, CNN, May 22, 2018. This linked article also includes a short video tour of Symphony of the Seas which is…uh…impressive, I guess.

Some cruise ship pictures from yesterday at the Port of Barcelona…

That’s the Norwegian Epic on the left (2010, Norwegian Cruise Line, $1.2 billion, 156,000 tons, 1,081′ long, 19 decks). The biggest, though, is in the middle: Symphony of the Seas (2017, Royal Caribbean, $1.35 billion, 228,000 tons, 1,188′ long, 18 decks). In the distance is the smaller and older Costa Pacífica (2009, Carnival Corporation, $500 million, 114,500 tons, 952′ long, 17 decks). All three are being fueled by tankers in this image. The amount of fuel burned by a cruise ship can vary greatly depending on the size of the ship, the motion of the ocean (had to say that!), the ship’s speed, the efficiency of the engines, and the type and condition of hull coating. The range is probably somewhere between 130 to 250 tons of heavy fuel oil per cruise day:

Cruise Ships, #2, Barcelona, 2018

Here is but a small slice of the ginormous layer cake that is the Symphony of the Seas as she sat at the dock in Barcelona. Some 200 staterooms are visible here (and just half of the total deck count)–and that looks like maybe a gym on the uppermost floor. For their entire (and amazing) deck plan with diagrams, pics, and video, go to THIS LINK. The ship is so huge they actually divide areas up into “neighborhoods”. You’ll find a zip line, water slides, laser tag, a wave simulator for surfing, a climbing wall, a live orchestra, a Broadway show, and “aquatheater” for Cirque-like performances, as well as the usual multitude of restaurants, bars, pools, and shops:

Cruise Ships, #8, Barcelona, 2018

The lines start to form at the ship terminal at boarding time:

Cruise Ships, #7, Barcelona, 2018

The harbor pilot comes on board to guide the ship out of port. Good thing there are elevators to help the pilot get to the bridge!

Cruise Ships, #11, Barcelona, 2018

The first to leave was the Costa Pacífica. In this image, the Symphony of the Seas is now on her way out–backing up through much of the channel before manuevering to put the pointy end forward toward Palma de Mallorca. No tugs or other boats monitored things, despite the very strong sea-to-shore breeze (L to R) which, I would think, would push pretty hard against the side of such a big object; their engine controls must be quite effective. Norwegian Epic left shortly after this. I love the name of the oil tanker in the foreground, “Greenoil”: