US-Owned Cruise Lines: Guaranteeing Misery at Sea

So many people to poison, so little time

American air lines and cruise lines are renowned worldwide for their absolutely abysmal standards (if they have any). There is nothing as soul-destroying as taking a flight on American, Delta, United. US carriers are rightly regarded as utter garbage by global standards, and these purveyors of human misery will never win any global travel awards.

Not content with immiserizing American flyers, Yanquis dabbling with the travel industry have expanded operations to cruise lines. Carnival Cruise Lines are famous for sickening passengers on their pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap misadventures to parts of travel misery unknown. And, of course, they recently decided to go one step further by grounding one of their vessels on the Italian coast and sending paying customers to the Great Port of Call in the Sky. The Costa Concordia may have fooled some into thinking it was operated by a "safe" European line, and people literally paid with their lives for this error.

So it is with the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas turning into the Vomiter of the Seas as it somehow managed to sicken 600 passengers. Again, the Royal Caribbean name may have fooled some into thinking they were journeying on a decent European liner. Actually, Royal Caribbean used to be a pretty respectable liner.  It was founded by Norwegians after all, but it was purchased by US-based Celebrity Cruise lines in 1997. Celebrity, of course, is also famous for sickening its passengers in that quintessentially American style. It thus comes as no surprise that Royal Caribbean would adopt the same sort of, er, "management techniques."

Bottom line: Stay away from all these race-to-the-bottom American cruise lines. The Carnival-Celebrity axis of sink 'n' spew is justly derided, but they also have subsidiaries that try to dissociate themselves from their horrid US owners. Nice try, but I think the global public is [pardon the expression] catching on.

UPDATE: Royal Caribbean is now lowballing its ghastly cruises to $32/night. Classy, huh?