re: How does the cruise ship industry survive repeated norovirus outbreaks?

I never had a desire to go either. A few years ago my wife talked me into going on a Disney Cruise and I can say it was one of the most relaxing vacations we’ve ever been on.

Cruise ships are my personal nightmare.

I go on vacation to get away from people, not be trapped on a boat with thousands of them.

If I was trapped on a cruise ship with norovirus, I might end it all.

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Forget the rare outbreaks. Why would you want to spend your vacation floating with society's trash on a buoyant Golden Corral?

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This is how I know youve only been on a Carnival Cruise.

I mean you can call it Norovirus, but it’s just a 24 hour stomach bug. It’s not like these people are getting HIV or some long term disease

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I don’t see how they manage repeat customers but the ships are only getting bigger and more plentiful. Everyday when I go to lunch I pass by the heards getting off the boats for their daily excursions and I think how I would not want to be stuck on a floating trailer park with that crowd.
My guess is as wealth is increasing more people are able to take cruises. It’s a relatively simple way to take a vacation for the masses.

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It's an easy way to travel.

You pay a price. That price covers most of what you will spend on the trip and includes most if not all of your meals, your hotel, entertainment, etc.

You can visit different locations without having to travel between spots, change hotels, etc. No driving in a foreign country. Get drunk, just gotta make it back to the boat.

For the ones that leave out of NOLA, we pack our bags, call an Uber who brings us to the port, walk on the boat, and then when we get back, get our backs and an Uber brings us home.

My kids have been to Mexico, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, all before age 9. That's 4 countries and a territory. No way they would have done that without going on cruises.

The "floating trailer park" and "Golden Corral" comments are really stupid. Are their some trashballs on a cruise? Yes, just like most places. Is there a buffet? Yes. But there are also, great shows, great activities, great food options, etc. And lots of quiet spaces if you know where to look.

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So, I either pay double for everything (buying a meal in the city when I've already paid for a meal on the ship), or I leave a place never having eaten a meal on their soil and never having truly experienced anything except the locations tourists are herded into. I probably don't even know what the place looks or sounds like at night.

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Outside of the tourist areas, almost all of those cities are massive shitholes and full of poor people. I’ve been all over both on cruise ships and not. I would not recommend straying too far from the resort/port area, especially in Mexico.

As far as the meals go, there’s food available 24/7, so it’s not like you’re losing meals per-say. I’ve never got off of the cruise ship feeling like I didn’t get my money’s worth in the food department.

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While true, as someone who has traveled extensively, for the most part, a beach is a beach. There's a reason I don't spend money to routinely travel to any of those places

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We can agree to disagree about the “beach is a beach” part. I like to dive and explore, and the water in the Caribbean is lightyears better than the US.

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I'm not disagreeing with you. My point is that the "traveling" part seems superfluous at that point.

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My point about the food is that you can skip “meals” on the boat and not feel like you’re losing money.

We would eat breakfast on the boat, lunch in the port, maybe a snack in the port, dinner on the ship, late night meal and snack as well.

You’re burning so many calories walking and doing things that you’re hungry pretty much all the time. At least that was my experience.

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Went on a Alaskan cruise in September, it was great, with shipboard purchases, excursions, and airfare, it cost me right at $20,000 for 4 people, maybe that's "for the poors" by some people's standards, but not mine.

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The New Orleans Cruise experience and the Alaskan cruise experience are wayyyyy different. Just like the Miami cruise experience is different from the New Orleans experience.

I would say the short cruises (2-4 days) out of New Orleans and Mobile are probably the trashiest ones, while Alaskan and transatlantic are top notch.

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We can agree to disagree about the “beach is a beach” part. I like to dive and explore, and the water in the Caribbean is lightyears better than the US.

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That's non-responsive to a beach being a beach. With that said, I don't see why I wouldn't simply travel to the diving location instead of incessantly bouncing around. But, I'll concede the possibility that a cruise might make sense for someone like you.

I would then posit that your argument applies to maybe 5% of cruise patrons, and that's my being generous.