Smoking Policy on Mercury

[cruising with marti]

Well said mark, I guess I will have to get my class through osmosis, I am a smoker, but my very classy wife is not:) :)

 

 

Phil

[tserface]

In my book being so judgemental is not so classy. And you also said that a smoker should quit for the week of the cruise? Nothing like adding a LOT of stress to your vacation. I'm taking a wild guess in saying that you have never smoked before?

 

<snip>

 

Mark

 

Hi Mark,

 

Nice attempt at justification, but none of those things has anything to do with smoking. I don't like smoking. I agree it's a judgement call, but I have yet to see any logical reason to "like" smoking. It makes my head swell, it's killed several of my close relatives and friends, and it just seems dumb to me.

 

Like I said, I'm not trying to prohibit you from smoking or taking all the pain medication that you may want to take. It's your life. I just just don't want to smoke along with you.

 

Perhaps you can build a case that smoking is somehow a classy habit. I've never been able to do that, thus, my "judgement". I don't know you, but I'd guess you have made a judgement or two in your time to go along with your straw man debating style.

 

I didn't attack any "people group or person". I don't like smoking, especially in shared places, but I put up with it and even with the one particularly bad experience I've managed to have great cruises. I simply posited an opinion that smoking bothers me and I find it an unclassy habit and I was hoping that Celebrity would enforce their own rules better than RCCL has on past our past cruises.

 

Tom

[cruising with marti]

What rules are you referring to? Of all of my many Celebrity cruises I can count on one hand where people were smoking in prohibited areas. or or maybe because I am a smoker I just didn't notice

 

 

Phil

[tserface]

What rules are you referring to? Of all of my many Celebrity cruises I can count on one hand where people were smoking in prohibited areas. or or maybe because I am a smoker I just didn't notice

 

 

Phil

 

I was reacting to the original post in the this thread and other things I've read on this board. I've never been on a Celebrity cruise yet (first one is in May) so I'm only banking on what I read earlier here. If I'm wrong then that would be great. :) The booking guy at Celebrity did tell us all of the rooms were non-smoking and in this thread I was told that all of the rooms are, in fact, smoking so... I guess it's tough to figure out what the rules are really.

 

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the reactions to my posts. I thought we were supposed to post opinions here. I'm also new to Cruise Critic. I never attacked anyone or even tried to restrict anyone. I just posted a preference and a story about how a particular set of smokers were not so courteous. In retrospect, maybe I should have offered to switch rooms. As it turned out we only used the balcony very late at night and when everyone else was on shore.

 

Oh well... time for bed... as much fun as this is all good days come to an end.

 

Tom

[frchteaze]

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the reactions to my posts. I thought we were supposed to post opinions here. I'm also new to Cruise Critic. I never attacked anyone or even tried to restrict anyone.

 

Tom

 

I think the problem with your original post was the comment about smokers just quitting for a week. Us smokers tend to get very defensive about our habit. We know we shouldn't do it, but it is an addiction, and one that many of us find pleasureable.

 

By suggesting that we can just quit for a week, you've implied (unintentionally perhaps) that you don't understand the nature of addictions and that you are unsympathetic to how smoking affects us (good and bad).

 

First of all, it's our vacation too. Right or wrong, some of us consider smoking as something pleasureable that naturally goes along with the pleasureable cruising vacation.

 

Second, most of us smokers try to be as respectful of non-smokers as we can possibly be. I walk away from areas where there are people not smoking. If someone walks in front of me, I never blow smoke until they've passed. I don't smoke in my room and I almost always go outside to smoke if I can. I also never smoke in restricted areas, or even areas where I'm not 100% sure they are designated smoking areas.

 

The balcony issue is another story, however. Many smokers get a balcony because they smoke. They are trying to avoid smoking in the room and avoid smoking in public areas. Even though smoke drifts past the balcony walls, this space is still viewed as a "private" sort of space. It's unfortunate that you were next to a balcony of smokers but where else should we smokers go so that no non-smoker has a problem with us?

 

If we smoke in our rooms, the non-smokers after us complain. If we smoke on the balcony, our neighbors complain. If we smoke on the port side of the bar or in the casino, we get complaints. If we go outside (on the smoking side) we get complaints. You see our dilemma. At some point we have to just start ignoring the complaints, because not smoking for a week is really not an option for most of us.

 

Please don't take offense to these comments, Tom. I'm only trying to shed a little light on why your comments may have been received negatively by some of us here. And hopefully you can better understand that some of us smokers at least are trying to do all we can to help you have a more pleasureable vacation as well.

[LHP]

We are looking into other cruise lines. And since I am not a smoker, I "popped" on this thread to see what the policy on Celebrity was and how it was implemented. Thank you for sharing your comments.

 

IMHO, perhaps if we channeled our energy into a mutually satisifying solution by demanding that cruise lines build "smarter" ships, with proper air filtration and ventilation systems, we could all get what we want. The technology is out there. But as long as we settle of less, that is what we will get. Just an idea.

[dkjretired]

We are looking into other cruise lines. And since I am not a smoker, I "popped" on this thread to see what the policy on Celebrity was and how it was implemented. Thank you for sharing your comments.

 

IMHO, perhaps if we channeled our energy into a mutually satisifying solution by demanding that cruise lines build "smarter" ships, with proper air filtration and ventilation systems, we could all get what we want. The technology is out there. But as long as we settle of less, that is what we will get. Just an idea.

 

on Cruise Critic re: smoking policies of cruise lines.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/features/articles.cfm?ID=225

[tserface]

I think the problem with your original post was the comment about smokers just quitting for a week. Us smokers tend to get very defensive about our habit. We know we shouldn't do it, but it is an addiction, and one that many of us find pleasureable.

 

By suggesting that we can just quit for a week, you've implied (unintentionally perhaps) that you don't understand the nature of addictions and that you are unsympathetic to how smoking affects us (good and bad).

 

I meant that sort of tongue in cheek, but I just reread it and it does come off totally wrong. FWIW, I do understand smoking. I grew up in it. My dad used to say if people don't want to smoke they can just go out on the back porch... I apologize for coming across as unsympathetic. I also confess to being incredibly sensitive on the issue since our unfortunate cruise on the Brilliance. I've been on lots of cruises and that's the only one that we ever wrote any negative comments on.

 

First of all, it's our vacation too. Right or wrong, some of us consider smoking as something pleasureable that naturally goes along with the pleasureable cruising vacation.

 

I can't argue with that. Even if I don't understand smoking, I can understand that some people like it and have convinced themselves that they pleasure outweighs the risk.

 

Second, most of us smokers try to be as respectful of non-smokers as we can possibly be. I walk away from areas where there are people not smoking. If someone walks in front of me, I never blow smoke until they've passed. I don't smoke in my room and I almost always go outside to smoke if I can. I also never smoke in restricted areas, or even areas where I'm not 100% sure they are designated smoking areas.

 

The balcony issue is another story, however. Many smokers get a balcony because they smoke. They are trying to avoid smoking in the room and avoid smoking in public areas. Even though smoke drifts past the balcony walls, this space is still viewed as a "private" sort of space. It's unfortunate that you were next to a balcony of smokers but where else should we smokers go so that no non-smoker has a problem with us?

 

I can understand that and your efforts, even though I don't know you, are appreciated. I try to recipricate by not complaining, very often, about people smoking and often just moving away or simply overlooking it whenever I can.

 

If we smoke in our rooms, the non-smokers after us complain. If we smoke on the balcony, our neighbors complain. If we smoke on the port side of the bar or in the casino, we get complaints. If we go outside (on the smoking side) we get complaints. You see our dilemma. At some point we have to just start ignoring the complaints, because not smoking for a week is really not an option for most of us.

 

Yeah I can see that dilema. My dad said quitting was easy though. In fact, it is so easy he did it 10 times last year.

 

Please don't take offense to these comments, Tom. I'm only trying to shed a little light on why your comments may have been received negatively by some of us here. And hopefully you can better understand that some of us smokers at least are trying to do all we can to help you have a more pleasureable vacation as well.

 

Yeah I understand. My personal opinion, still, is that smoking is not a classy habit (maybe in the 50's it was), but I know a lot of good people, including family members, that I respect a lot who are also smokers so... I'm not trying to be judgemental and I confess that I got a little caught up in the spirit of the debate. Maybe we'll meet on a cruise one day and we can shake hands. You can blow downwind first ... :rolleyes:

 

Tom

[fllady]

on Cruise Critic re: smoking policies of cruise lines.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/features/articles.cfm?ID=225

Great link, thanks for posting.

Tom, I guess you have now been officially "anointed" on CC! :D

FYI Celebrity used to have non smoking cabins on their older ships, as did most of the ships, surprisingly they stopped it, when I really think now it is needed more than ever. Don't flame me, I ain't coming back here.;)