Stop Calling Cruise Ships A Petri Dish | Cruising | Advice | Travel | Cruise Line | Sailing

Hey folks, welcome back to Where's Walter? Stopcalling cruise ships a floating petri dish.

In light of the current situation, there havebeen articles, there have been a lot of posts, cruise ships are bad see people get sick.

Andwhen that one person gets sick, they pass it on to everybody else.

Cruise ship's are just bad.

They're a floating petri dish.

You know how many people have told me that? Even long before anyof this happened? Like how can you go there? You know why I can go there, because you go toDisney World.

You go to Las Vegas Conventions.

You go to sporting events.

You go to concerts.

You want to talk about petri dishes.

On land, it's the same thing.

Okay, follow along with me.

The largest cruise ships right now.

Royal Caribbean, they hold between 5500 6600passengers, something like that.

So all in on the ship plus the crew.

Right.

Now this is a bighotel.

It just happens to float.

It's a big floating resort.

Okay, let's compare that.

Nowthe Magic Kingdom, 100, 000 people full capacity.

One place, everybody all jammed together, eatingthe same food, going to the same bathrooms, kids running around licking the poles and all ofthat.

There's a petri dish for you.

Let's see Michigan's football stadium that holds 107, 000people.

There's a high school in New York 8000 students, one school.

That's incredible.

MadisonSquare Garden holds over 20, 000 people.

The CES convention in Las Vegas 180, 000 people allcoming together.

You know, we have mega churches here in Georgia 10, 000 to 30, 000 people shakinghand, hugging, sharing fellowship.

If somebody is sick in that church, they are going to passit along to anybody who they just shook hands with or hugged with.

So to call a cruise ship, afloating petri dish, and then not consider anything else where there are large gatheringsof people, just singles out the cruise lines unnecessarily.

And here's the big differencebetween a cruise ship and any other public gathering that you're going to go to.

Cruiseships, have a crew, cruise ships have a crew there could be 500 to 3000 members of the crew.

And when we get off the ship and we get to go home, they still live there.

So they are veryincentivized to make sure that ship is as sanitary and as clean as absolutely possible andthey do a very, very good job of it.

We went on a cruise one time where they actually had anorovirus outbreak on the previous cruise.

Now that's that you know, stomach ailment that doesmake you feel sick, you might get some diarrhea.

And that's the thing that everybody's, Oh, youdon't want to get that.

First of all is very rare.

But on this particular cruise, there wereover 300 passengers on the previous sailing who got sick.

And the cruise line notified us with anote saying hey, this is what happened on the previous cruise.

We're going to do things alittle differently on this cruise.

And absolutely nobody got sick on our sailing.

Andwe had over 2200 passengers on the ship.

So the cruise lines know how to deal with that and theyknow how to keep things clean.

In fact, we looked up the statistics.

Between 2008 and2014, 74 million passengers sailed on cruise ships.

74 million.

And out of that, about13, 000 met the definition of getting sick with norovirus.

13 thousand out of 74 million.

I'lltake those odds all day long.

Now, I don't work for a cruise line.

I'm not sponsored.

I don'teven have stock in a cruise line.

I probably should, based on the prices that are out theretoday.

Right? I should buy some stock.

But I just wanted to clarify for all of you who, Idon't want to cruise, I don't think you should cruise.

And here's why.

Because everybody getssick.

When one person gets sick, everybody gets sick.

It's no different than any other publicspace where there are large gatherings of people.

Look, what happened in the currentsituation.

It's just really a breakdown in the governments in my opinion, and it's a very sadstate of affairs, because when somebody gets really sick, when somebody gets really reallyinjured on a cruise ship, the first thing they do is make sure that those passengers get offthe ship to go get proper medical attention.

Just like any hotel would do, just like anysports venue would do, just like any other location on land would do.

If somebody isinjured or sick to the point that they can't treat the person at that venue, they get themoff, off site, off the ship, out of the venue.

And when the current situation, no fault of thecruise lines.

They had people who were very, very sick on these ships, they needed to getthem off the ships, but nobody would let them.

So don't tell me that cruise lines are afloating petri dish and people are getting sick.

If you're concerned about that, then don't go tochurch.

Don't go to school.

Don't go to sports stadiums.

Don't go to any convention.

Don't goto a hotel or resort.

Just stay home.

Stay in your little protective cocoon because that's theonly way to not be anywhere near what you would consider a petri dish.

I'm sure you guys have alot of comments.

I would love to hear them.

I'd love to hear what your take is, whether you'vecruised or not cruised, leave them down there in the comments.

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I'm Walter and I'llsee you next time.

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