Cruise Ships Still Choking Brooklyn, Not Plugging In, A Year Later

by Chris Owen on

Almost a year ago, Brooklyn’s Red Hook cruise ship terminal was to become the first East Coast cruise operation with the capability to let ships “plug in” and access power off the grid. Now, almost a year later, ships have still not plugged in to cleaner, shore-side electric power and continue to spew fumes.

Cruise ships annually bring 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide, 95 tons of nitrous oxide and 6.5 tons of particulate matter when they park and burn their diesel engines.

Last April, Gadling reported that the $15 million project would be funded with $12 million from the Port Authority, nearly $3 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant and Carnival Corporation would spend $4 million to retrofit their Princess Cruises and Cunard Line ships that dock in Brooklyn.

Now, costs have shot up another $4.3 million and the Environmental Protection Agency has not paid the extra money, according to local elected officials.

“It is critical that this project not fall by the wayside,” said Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-Brooklyn) in an article appearing in the New York Daily News.

Apparently, the cruise ships are ready to go but the system is still not in place for them to plug in, even though West Coast cruise terminals have had the ability for quite some time.

“It seems fairly pathetic that all of these things are in place but the Port Authority are twiddling their thumbs,” Adam Armstrong, 48, a blogger and father of two who lives on Pioneer Street near the terminal, told the Daily News. “I thought it was quibbling over a small amount of money considering the impact of the emissions on people’s health.”

It has been almost three years since Carnival Corporation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal Port Authority first agreed to enable cruise ships to plug in to green shore-side power.

Last year, community leaders applauded the move to shore-side power. This year, not so much.


Flickr photo by j_bary

Venice to cruise ships: Get out please

by Chris Owen on

Venice is proud of its heritage. Home to beautiful architecture, canals, bridges, gondolas, the annual Venice Film Festival, the Basilica and many other churches along with museums like the Guggenheim, its probably no surprise that cruise ships are not on the top of their list of things to add to the mix. In the wake of the Concordia grounding, considering the threat of accidents, air and water pollution, and an additional 2 million more visitors a year into a city already maxed out with tourists, Venice has a plan to keep cruise ships away.

The city does not want cruise ships in their lagoon at all but as a first step to keep them away, wants to reroute ships arriving in Venice so they stay farther from St. Mark’s and other prominent monuments as a possible step toward keeping them out of the lagoon altogether.

“This is one of the hypotheses we’re working on,” Environmental Minister Corrado Clini told the Associated Press. “In the meantime we should take precautionary measures to progressively reduce risk.”

The Venice Port Authority opposes moves against cruise traffic saying the cruise industry employs thousands of Venetians and believes Venice is not a candidate for cruise ships to run aground like the Concordia did last month, not all that far away.

In addition, a team of 25 cruise ship captains work around the clock as pilots of a sort, assigned to board cruise ships outside the lagoon and oversee their passage through Venice, accompanied by a pair of tug boats.

To deal with the air pollution, the port is exploring a system that would let ships plug in to shore side power when docked, similar to how ships plug in to U.S. West coast ports, allowing them to turn off their engines. Like U.S. systems, a green shore side power system will be costly and seems to have stalled for that reason.

Unlike U.S. ports concerned about the impact of cruise ships though, Venice is a United Nations-protected UNESCO site and Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for culture, a Venetian himself, said longer-term solutions are needed.

“The city is a very fragile city. This is a city that comes to us from the Middle Ages,” Bandarin told the AP. “It is not designed for having that kind of traffic. It is designed to have ships, and we will always have ships around Venice, but not these kind of ships.”


Flickr photo by jastrow75

Cruise ships bring nearly 700 sick passengers to shore

by Chris Owen on

Between two cruise ships arriving in Florida and one in New Orleans, nearly 700 sick passengers were brought to shore over the weekend. Norovirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea, hit passengers and crew causing hundreds to become ill, many to be quarantined and sailings to be delayed. Its a common ailment, magnified by the closed environment of a cruise ship, but avoidable for the most part with some basic precautions and help is on the way in the form of a new vaccine.

Investigators with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went on board Ruby Princess and Crown Princess to monitor cleaning procedures said Princess spokesperson Julie Benson. “We’re working in close cooperation with the CDC to identify the cause,” Benson told CNN after 499 cases occurred between the two ships, both based out of Fort Lauderdale.

In New Orleans, WDSU-TV reported Royal Caribbean‘s Voyager of the Seas returned with 200 cases of the flu-like illness.

“At Royal Caribbean International we have high health standards for all our guests and crew,” said Royal Caribbean in a statement. “During the sailing, we conduct enhanced cleaning on-board the ship, to help prevent the spread of the illness. Additionally, when Voyager of the Seas arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, this past Saturday, February 4, we conducted an extensive and thorough sanitizing on-board the ship and within the cruise terminal, to help prevent any illness from affecting the subsequent sailing.”

The CDC notified officials in Louisiana Friday that a cruise ship might be coming in with a Norovirus outbreak, state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard said Sunday, reported CBS News. Putting the illness into perspective, Ratard said that on any given day about 10,000 people in the New Orleans area are likely to have diarrhea and about 30 percent of them because of the Norovirus.

“In a closed space like a cruise ship, in a nursing home, in a hospital, you want to be extra careful,” Ratard said.

On the horizon, new a new medical breakthrough might have the answer to cruise passenger concerns over Norovirus incidents.

“It is possible to prevent infection and illness with a vaccine for Norovirus,” Dr. Robert Atmar, a professor of medicine and molecular virology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston told Medicine Plus. But many questions remain unanswered, he said. For example, “we have to figure out the best way to give it and how long protection lasts.”

Tested on 98 people who received the vaccine or an inactive placebo, all of the participants tested positive for a gene that makes them more susceptible to the Norovirus. But those who received the new vaccine were less likely to develop the illness than their counterparts who received the placebo, the study showed.

Administered as two doses three weeks apart via a nasal spray, there were no safety issues seen in the study and side effects were minimal.

“Further study is needed to answer questions such as who should get the vaccine and how long the protection lasts,” said Dr. Thomas Hooton, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine noting the Norovirus is “a mess and spreads like wildfire.”

When will this new treatment be available?

No timetable has been set but Atmar suggested the likely initial candidates would be people in nursing homes, health-care workers, the military and segments of the food industry.

How to avoid Norovirus while we wait for the new miracle medicine? Here are some tips to maximize your chances of not getting the Norovirus bug while on your cruise:

  • Wash your hands- Like on land, our hands contact all sorts of things and people, many of which may have horrible sicko germs, waiting to attack us. Do you know how to wash your hands? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the people that police these things, have instructions on how to do it.
  • Don’t count on the hand sanitizers– Those hand sanitizer dispensers all over the ship are mostly for show in the grand scheme of things. They help but there is no substitution for a good hand washing.
  • Avoid touching things– Hand rails on stairs, elevator buttons, walls are all things that some sick person might have touched before you.
  • Don’t pick your nose– I know, gross, but a really good way to get germs on your fingers into your body.
  • Avoid closed spaces– Cruise ships themselves provide the closed environment that the Norovirus needs to multiply and thrive. Elevators then, are almost like a closed environment within a closed environment and should be avoided. It won’t kill most people to take the stairs and get some extra exercise either.


Flickr photo by SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget

Nat Geo presents five cruise ship disasters that changed travel

by Kraig Becker on

Over the past week, the Costa Concordia story has been a prominent one amongst both the mainstream media and travel outlets alike. The sinking of a cruise ship is not a common occurrence and ranks amongst the worst travel nightmares imaginable. While questions about exactly what happened aboard that ship remain, it is clear that the accident will likely have far reaching consequences and bring change to the cruise industry.

With that in mind, our friends over at National Geographic have put together an interesting article, along with some very compelling images, of 5 cruise ship disasters that changed travel. Each of the entries on the list, and the Costa Concordia is not among them, left an indelible mark on how cruise ships operate today. For example, not surprisingly, the Titanic earns a place on Nat Geo’s roll call of infamy thanks to the fact that when it went down, there were only enough lifeboats for about half the passengers on board. As a result, 1500 people perished, and cruise ships were later mandated to begin carring enough lifeboats for everyone.

The four other entries on the list had a similar impact on the industry, although not all of them resulted in such a massive loss of life. It is an interesting study of how a disaster at sea can make a lasting change for the better, and end up making travel by ship a lot safer in the process.

Interesting indoor spaces around the world

by Laurel Miller on

I love the outdoors, to the extent that I tend to bypass or overlook exceptional indoor spaces when I’m traveling or recounting a great trip. Fortunately, Lonely Planet author/former Gadling contributor Leif Pettersen’s recent list on LP’s website has reminded me that—as many a grandmother has said—beauty is on the inside.

Pettersen says only in recent years has he developed a special appreciation for the indoors. He had ample time to contemplate his new interest “during two sadistically cold weeks last winter when I voluntarily confined myself to the Minneapolis Skyway System as a livability experiment for an article I was working on.”

He’s since started a list of “singular, practical” indoor spaces (traveloguebookdealforthewin!) of note, including (obviously) Minneapolis’ Skyway System (“The largest contiguous skyway system in the world, connecting what may be the largest contiguous indoor space anywhere.”); Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar; Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest structure; NYC’s Grand Central Terminal (aka Grand Central Station); St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and the Queen Mary 2. Here’s to keeping warm indoors this winter.

[Photo credit: Flickr user davedehetre]