Anyone who has attended a Cruise Shipping Miami convention knows that cruise executives make comments which hype the cruise industry. 

It’s interesting to attend the convention and watch the cast of characters. Who will say the greatest whopper in their efforts to promote the cruise industry? The executives are all type A personalities, full of energy, often talking off script, with no one fact checking their comments. They get carried away at times with their hyperbole.

Cruise Ship - TerrorismSo who made the most outlandish statement this week?  

I was tempted to give the hype award to NCL’s Frank Del Rio who first bragged that his cruise line is way ahead of competitors Carnival and Royal Caribbean in preparing to do business in Havana. He then remarked that "Libya, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon could be more lucrative than Cuba." Huh? I couldn’t help tweeting "have you heard of ISIS?

Well today the news broke that Islamic terrorists targeted and killed tourists in buses attending a museum in Tunisia while the Costa Fascinosa and MSC Splendida sent thousands of passengers ashore to Tunis on excursions. CNN reports that some of the tourists came from the Costa and MSC cruise ships. Unfortunately, thinking of how "lucrative" but ignoring how dangerous a port may be is a trademark of the cruise executive mindset. 

Carnival CEO Arnold Donald came close to winning the award, saying "wherever we go, we have a responsibility to those places we go to." Someone needs to remind Mr. Donald that his Carnival Magic cruise ship destroyed around 12,000 square feet of an ancient reef when it dropped an anchor on a protected seabed in the Cayman Islands. It will take millions and millions of dollars to try and restore the reef. Caymans’ Department of Cayman Islands Crushed ReefEnvironment concluded that Carnival together with a local pilot and the port agency are at fault. But Carnival denies responsibility and refuses to pay for the damage (it made a token $100,000 contribution as a "donation.") The Caymans is afraid to disrupt its business relationship with Carnival and is dropping the matter. Unfortunately, Carnival bullies another weak U.S.-dollar-dependent Caribbean island.    

But the winner is Royal Caribbean’s Adam Goldstein. Referring to the environmental issues of waste, recycling, and emissions, he said that these were "areas in which the industry has led the world." Wow, that’s delusional.

The fact of the matter is that Royal Caribbean has a history of being one of the worst cruise ship polluters in the world, with an embarrassing history of dumping plastic and discharging oil from Biscayne Bay to pristine waters of Alaska. It was fined $27,000,000 after pleading guilty to multiple counts of felonies including lying to the Coast Guard. It received an "F" in the Friends of the Earth (FOE) report card for air pollution reduction. 

Carnival has an even worse environmental record. Carnival has received an "F" in the FOE report card for its sewage treatment for six consecutive years. 22 of Carnival’s 24 cruise ships don’t use modern equipment and utilize ancient (35-year-old) waste treatment technology which leaves fecal matter, Bunker Fuel Cruise Ship Pollution bacteria, heavy metals and other contaminants in the water.

Royal Caribbean and Carnival are no worse than other cruise lines. Last year I posted videos exposing MSC cruise ships dumping garbage and plastics overboard in the night in a marine sanctuary. The cruise industry presents an endless nightmare to the air and the oceans. The cruise lines routinely burn cheap high-sulfur bunker fuel, dump untreated human waste in international waters, and destroy old coral reefs as a normal course of its business. 

It’s painful to hear the cruise executives’ hyperbole after seeing cruise tourists attacked in North Africa and the damage which cruise lines inflict on the environment. But they can’t help themselves, it’s Cruise Shipping Miami. 

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Photo Credit: Top – AP via Mail Online; middle – Don Foster’s Dive Cayman via Cayman Compass; bottom – http://stoppollutting-cruiseships.blogspot.com/