Cruises bring thousands of passengers and crew members closer together. In many ways, it's like living in a college dorm where the rooms are small, people are crowded together, and one person's inconsiderate actions can affect many people.
If, for example, you choose to make noise in the hallways late at night or have a loud argument (or loud, happier activities) in your cabin after others have gone to sleep, you will wake people up. The same logic applies to how public spaces are treated.
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Leave a mess in a shared bathroom or be lazy at the buffet and your actions will have an impact on other people. Some actions, however, are not an attempt to be rude, but still affect other passengers.
In many of these situations, the affected party simply has the option to move. If you don't like the smell of whiskey or banana daiquiris and the person next to you at the bar is drinking either of the two, you just have to move away a little so as not to be shocked.
However, smoking cannot be avoided so easily. That's why Royal Caribbean and Carnival, at least in their namesake brands, impose fairly strict limits on where you can smoke.
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet
Where can Royal Caribbean and Carnival passengers smoke now?
Generally, both cruise lines offer a section on the pool deck where people can smoke. This can impact passengers who have to walk through that area, although they could cross the ship and turn around, but many times when they realize it they have already been hit by the smoke.
Sometimes Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Carnival also offer smoking on the lower deck, which is less of a concern because you don't have to go through the area to get anywhere.
Both cruise lines also offer smoking sections in their casinos. In theory, you are supposed to actively gamble to smoke, but in practice, that is very difficult to accomplish.
Smoking in the casino causes problems because the smoke does not stay with the smoker. Even with high-powered air filtration, smoke travels and some sensitive non-smokers become upset when exposed to secondhand smoke.
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Both Royal Caribbean and Carnival have been experimenting with adding smoke-free secondary casinos on select ships. Royal Caribbean has done this with all of its Oasis-class ships, turning the former “Jazz on 4” space into a small smoke-free casino, and Carnival has done the same on 10 of its ships.
Carnival brand ambassador John Heald shared on facebook that the cruise line's newest Excel Class ships, Carnival Jubilee, Carnival Celebration and Carnival Mardi Gras offer smoke-free secondary casinos. Six other ships, Carnival Firenze, Carnival Venezia, Carnival Vista, Carnival Dream, Carnival Magic and Carnival Breeze, also have smoke-free secondary casinos.
Allowing smoking on cruise ships is a financial decision
Las Vegas Strip casinos remain largely smoker-friendly despite labor-led efforts to change that. The reality is that some players like to smoke and would bet less (or not at all) if they were not allowed to smoke while playing.
That's a lesson Royal Caribbean International learned the hard way, according to its CEO, Michael Bayley.
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“The dilemma is that there are a lot of people who do want to smoke in the casino. I know that's not a popular answer, but it's the truth. I'm not judging anyone or anything, but there is a large group of people who do. “I want to smoke in the casino,” he said during Royal Caribbean's 2022 presidential cruise, the Royal Caribe Blog reported.
Royal Caribbean's sister cruise line, Celebrity Cruises, does not allow smoking in its casinos, but that is unlikely to happen for its namesake brand.
“I would say that every two years we try this and take one, two or three ships and ban smoking in the casino. And the result is that fewer people come into the casino and that is the reality,” he added.
