Attitude toward cruisers?

In researching ports I seem to have come across a lot of negative talk about cruise passengers, implying vacationers staying on the island to stay away from town when ships are in port in the Caribbean islands. What's the deal?

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We cruise and do resort vacations in the Caribbean - most people we heard saying stay out of town when there are cruise ships in port are referring to how busy town can become with people and can especially be overrun when there is more than one ship. They are not being derogatory to cruisers per se.

Also prices can be increased considerably the moment a cruise ship lowers the gangway.

My guess avoid the crowds. We live near a very popular summer destination. From a little before memorial day to a little after Labor Day we avoid going out to restaurants, shopping, etc. on the weekend because of long waits. We can go on Monday thru Thursday and not have to wait. The same as if 3000+ people dropped into small town and beaches.

We cruise and do resort vacations in the Caribbean - most people we heard saying stay out of town when there are cruise ships in port are referring to how busy town can become with people and can especially be overrun when there is more than one ship. They are not being derogatory to cruisers per se.

 

Also prices can be increased considerably the moment a cruise ship lowers the gangway.

This probably happens everywhere. I lived in Kona Ha. for awhile and ... yes the restaurants had a menu ($'s) for when there was a cruise ship in port and one when there wasn't ;)

Agree with all the above. It is not about the cruise passengers but the extra crowds and potential price increases.

M

We own a vacation home in Wells Beach, Maine and we won't go there from May to mid September because of the crowds.

Everyone is there, the beaches are packed, stores are jammed and its impossible to find restaurant parking.

The wait for seating is 2 hours but if we happen to go at this time of year we go to our frequented restaurants where the staff knows us and let's us skip the line.

It's extremely annoying and I am sure that's how cruise ship port townies feel.

Good think we like the cold weather since our summer home became our winter home.

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Same happens in Key West (which has really changed it's unique style when cruise ships started calling on the tiny eclectic town).

Also tiny town of Bar Harbor, Maine...which is crowded and busy with tourists all summer anyway. Then cruise ships dump even more tourists into the fray. :o

Can't blame the locals and land based visitors from wanting to stay away on "cruise ship" days.

One mega ship like Oasis can bring in 6000+, 3 or 4 ships can be 20,000+. Good advice to stay out of town and not fight the crowds.

Before I started cruising, I had a few incidents on land vacations in the Caribbean that gave cruise passengers a bad rep with me. The worst was when I spent a week on Grand Cayman. I could walk down to the beach, grab a lounger and relax. It was a pretty casual hotel and had no "security." On the two days that ships were in port, I would go down to the beach at the same time and find it overrun with cruise people, drinking, being loud. Apparently, word was around that this hotel was easy to sneak into and poach chairs. And, when in the USVI, nothing like having 2000+ cruisers overrun Trunk Bay and have no consideration for the coral, standing on it for photos, and then those disrupting the quiet atmosphere of Cinnamon Bay (an excellent place usually for a quiet, relaxing camping trip).

I've heard anecdotal reports of restaurants having 2 menus, one for cruisers, one for everyone else, excursion vendors having 2 prices, one for cruisers, one for everyone else.

Everywhere you travel, you will find random people behaving badly. But, when a cruise ship docks, there is a very high concentration of people and it puts stress on the locals and those there on land vacations. It's a massive concentration of people. Think about what your Main Street would be like if the Anthem dropped off all it's passengers there...

Same happens in Key West (which has really changed it's unique style when cruise ships started calling on the tiny eclectic town).

 

Also tiny town of Bar Harbor, Maine...which is crowded and busy with tourists all summer anyway. Then cruise ships dump even more tourists into the fray. :o

 

Can't blame the locals and land based visitors from wanting to stay away on "cruise ship" days.

\We had resorrt stays in San Juan every winter fo years. Days tthre wsere ship (sz) in port, Old San Juan was very diferent than days when no ships. Yes, stores cdertainly wre morre crowded and secuerity stafff spent a good parrt of their day turning cruisers away form the resoerrts beach. While the beach is public, in many cases, one has to cxross througfh the hotel or on the hotels's grounds to access the beach. Secur

ity turned them away, all day. As to locals. One has to think they lik the added jobs created to service the cruise pax in stores, restraurants, taxis etc....... That accounts for lots of revenue and job openings.

We own a vacation home in Wells Beach, Maine

Stop in at Congdon's Doughnuts and then come up to the Seashore Trolley Museum for a ride on a real antique trolley with me!!:D

We spend a couple of weeks on St. Maarten every January. There are days when five or six ships will add more than 20,000 people to the island's population. Of course, they want to shop, see the island, spend time on beaches, etc. That means the towns are jammed, the traffic on the roads is magnified - with lots of big busses slowly navigating the narrow roads, and hordes of people crowding beaches.

We simply modify our plans to avoid too much interaction. The only real complaint is when a group hits our favorite beach - and either because they don't know any better, or just don't care because they figure they'll never be there again, they'l drop their empty beer bottles, and other debris, on the beach or in the water - this seems to happen once every January.

The main reason is to Avoid The Crowds!

I cannot comment on Caribbean ports however I can on places like Dubrovnic and Santorini.

The entire atmosphere changes when there a are cruise ships in town. It is especially noticable around 4PM when the cruisers leave.

This is not a complaint about cruisers. We cruise. It is simply that some places are not designed for an influx of what can be 5000 plus cruisers when multiple ships are in port. This is particularly noticeable with the two ports noted above.

When we are on land trips in smaller port cities that are popular with cruise lines we pay attention to the port schedules and try to avoid those days when there will be several ships in port.

I also live in an area where people like to come for a day or a weekend. It can be pretty crowded. But, I noticed on our Alaskan cruises how many people were in town with 3 ships. Way more crowded than our little corner of the world, even on a 3 day weekend with awesome weather. Can't imagine what it would be like with 5 or 6 ships in a port on the same day. I would love to go to the Caribbean one day, but can totally understand the locals wanting to avoid town on the days the cruise ships are there.

Yep, crowds and prices.

Before we cruised, we were amongst those who vacationed in Caribbean hotels - and cursed the arrival of a cruise ship ;)

Here's me, the archetypal tightwad, at a market stall patiently negotiating the price of T-shirts down to $10 for 5 when along come a bunch of cruisers

- "how much for the T-shirts?".

- "$7 each".

- "I'll take ten, here's seventy bucks".

Gee, thanks, cruiser :rolleyes:

You'll see from the prices this was a few years ago.

Nowadays I'm one of the enemy ;p

JB :)

On the topic of different menus, they are not necessarily only for cruise ship passengers. Another poster mentioned Kona - we had a condo there for years and learned very quickly to ask politely for a 'local menu' in some restaurants. Everyone who looked like a tourist, cruise ship or not, got the higher price menu. I suspect the same thing happens in other tourist areas.

The price thing sort of happens many places.

Some restaurants at some SC beaches do a "locals card" giving locals a discount rather than increasing prices for vacationers or any without the card. :)

The OP has it right. The attitude in many places is avoid cruise ship passengers. We are long time (over forty years) avid cruisers who understand the cruise ship passenger mentality. But we also do a lot of land trips (including living in Puerto Vallarta a few months a year) so we also understand that anti-cruise ship passenger issue. For example, when we stay on the island of St Maarten (we stay in Grand Case) we never go into Philipsburg on a weekday. There are just too many people (mostly from the ships). We also avoid the cruise passenger-popular beaches (such as Orient) when there are ships in town. Weekends are generally cruise ship free (or perhaps one smaller ship) which are fine. On the island of St Barts...nobody seems to like cruise ships of any size. We noticed a post last year about how all the toilets in town were out of order when there was a cruise ship visiting....and everything was working as soon as the last tender departed.

As to St Thomas, we call this the island that has been ruined by cruise ships. There is no way we would rent a house or vacation on that island that has been ruined by too many daily cruiser ship passengers. If we want to take a vacation in the Caribbean we now try to choose an island that has few to no cruise ship visits.

Cruise ships are less of an issue in Europe because most of the large cruise ports are located near very large cities that can easily absorb the cruise ship folks. 15,000 cruise ship passengers in Rome...hardly make a difference.

We should add that we also try to get away from most other passengers when we are ashore. DW and I prefer to do our own thing (rent cars, use trains, buses, etc) rather then be part of a large group of passengers being led around like a herd of cattle. If we do take a tour it will likely be a small group private tour. Being off on our own allows us to move at our own pace, enjoy decent restaurants, move through museums at our own pace, etc.

Living in Puerto Vallarta (for the past 11 winters) has really given us a new perspective on cruisers (we have also been to PV on ships). DW likes to sit on our balcony which looks down on the sea, beach and part of the popular Malecon (our local pedestrian walk). She can usually pick out the cruise ship passengers from 5 stories up by the way they dress, walk, carry water (no reason to do that in PV), etc. Put 10 cruisers in a group of 100 gringos....and it would usually be easy to pick out the cruisers. Of course the easiest ones to spot are those who wear their cruise cards on a lanyard :). Yep...plenty do it even when off their ship.

Hank

Cruise season pricing differences are not just for restaurants and shops. We've learned very quickly since moving back to the Seattle area that airline prices hike big time when the ships come back (like this coming weekend) for the Alaska season. Not that the airlines are gouging people it's just supply & demand. Same with restaurants and seasonal menus so we avoid going downtown until the ships leave and the rain returns.

I did forget the latest place that cruise ship passengers are ruining - Cinque Terre in Italy. I was fortunate to be able to stay in Vernazza for 5 days before the ships really started porting in La Spezia. 4 of the days were kind of busy during the day with day trippers from Florence, Pisa, or Genoa. But, the one day, it was WAY more crowded - hard to even walk down the walkway from my apartment to the train station. Turns out one of the Disney ships was ported and it seemed every passenger came to Vernazza. At night, Vernaza was magical and very quiet. Restaurants were pleasant and not rushed, locals were happy and willing to talk with the few visitors who were staying. CT is now looking to put a limit on the number of day visitors...

Cruise passengers are like boxes of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

But for certain you’ll be sick of chocolates after the first 5,000 boxes.:D

On the topic of different menus, they are not necessarily only for cruise ship passengers. Another poster mentioned Kona - we had a condo there for years and learned very quickly to ask politely for a 'local menu' in some restaurants. Everyone who looked like a tourist, cruise ship or not, got the higher price menu. I suspect the same thing happens in other tourist areas.

It happened to us in Paris. We were in a rather small dining room with tables very close together. I could see the menus being read by the locals seated at a table beside us. theirs, of coursed, was in French but the price were not the same. When I scanned down my 'neighbors menu, I saw onion soup on our menu we pric ed considerably low er than on our menu. We ordered, dined, enjoyed our meal and whenour bill was presented, we asked to see the menu again; when the English menu was presented to us, my DH asked for the French menu. They knew we were on to them but so what, they didn't care. We paid and left.,,, never to return nor recommend their restaurant to others..

It happened to us in Paris. We were in a rather small dining room with tables very close together. I could see the menus being read by the locals seated at a table beside us. theirs, of coursed, was in French but the price were not the same. When I scanned down my 'neighbors menu, I saw onion soup on our menu we pric ed considerably low er than on our menu. We ordered, dined, enjoyed our meal and whenour bill was presented, we asked to see the menu again; when the English menu was presented to us, my DH asked for the French menu. They knew we were on to them but so what, they didn't care. We paid and left.,,, never to return nor recommend their restaurant to others..

WOW! DW and I have been going to Paris for years (it is DWs favorite city) but have never run into this duel menu issue. But it is not surprising....for some of the places that cater to a lot of tourists. If that ever happened to us, we would walk out of the restaurant and trash them all over the internet. The good news (for us) is we generally choose restaurants that do not have English menus.

Hank

Same happens in Key West (which has really changed it's unique style when cruise ships started calling on the tiny eclectic town).

 

Can't blame the locals and land based visitors from wanting to stay away on "cruise ship" days.

Agreed. I lived in Key West 20 years and I was conflicted. I love cruising, but I hated the days when multiple ships were in KW.

And to be clear, it's both about the crowds and the people...more so from certain cruise lines than others.