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Which Ships are Non-Smoking?
Oceania Cruises
and Royal Caribbean (including Celebrity and Azamara) consider
themselves practically smoke-free. Aside from a single bar or
a small designated area located on a higher deck, smoking is
forbidden throughout most cruise ships (even in staterooms and on
balconies**)
**On my last trip, on Mariner of the Seas, they said that guests
could smoke on the balcony.
The casino is "smoke free" on Formal Night!
|
No
smoking - and they mean it!
The Star
Princess fire has prompted one cruise line to tighten
its smoking regulations. Oceania Cruises said it had begun
to enforce a "zero-tolerance" policy on passengers caught
smoking outside designated smoking areas on its ships. The
penalty? Being taken off the ship at the next port of
call. "Smokers are wondering whether it it is worth
risking a $20,000 vacation," said Oceania spokesman Tim Rubacky.
He said the
line was giving letter to passengers warning them about the new
enforcement
policy
at embarkation
The cause of
the Star Princess fire is still under investigation.
Los Angeles
Times, April 16, 2006 |
|
Regent Seven Seas Cruises
New Smoking
Policy
Update as of July 5, 2007
In light of continuing
legislative changes in smoking policies around the world as well as the
comfort, health and safety of our guests and crew, both in terms of the
proven dangers of second hand smoke and the fire hazard that smoking
presents, Regent Seven Seas Cruises will be changing our policy of
smoking in staterooms, suites and on private balconies. Not only does
smoking present a fire hazard, but it is also an inconvenience to other
guests as the smoke, or its odor, invades surrounding suites, balconies
and public areas, creating discomfort for the guests in these areas.
Smoking will therefore be prohibited in
all staterooms, suites and balconies fleet-wide.
More...
All Donations
Appreciated
SmokeFreeCruise.org was started by a webmaster who had a bad
experience with a cruise (see letters).
It is being funded entirely out-of-pocket. Contributions of any
size are greatly appreciated. $5 to $25 is suggested. This money
will be applied to:
- Web hosting fees
- Annual domain
name registration
- Web site
maintenance
-
Postage/envelopes and the like
- Miscellaneous
expenses associated with managing a web site
- Long distance
phone calls and other expenses associated with contacting
interested cruise and travel organizations who will assist us in
eliminating or at least containing smokers on cruises
Please submit your
donation through Paypal (a secure web site). Donations to Smoke Free
Cruise are not tax-deductible for federal income tax
purposes.
Smokeless Sheration
February
16, 2007
Los Angeles Times
Sheration
Hotels & Resorts and Four Points by Sheration hotels brands will ban
smoking at more than 300 hotels and resorts throughout the U.S.,
Caribbean and Canada.
The new
policy follows one implemented at Westin Hotels & Resorts, which became
smoke-free in 2006. Westin and Sheration are both owned by
Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Some 8,000
rooms at the hotels will be cleaned, including treatments for air
conditioning, walls, rugs, upholstery and hard surfaces.
Smoking
will also be banned in public areas in the hotels, but there will be a
designated outdoor area at each property
for guest who smoke.
Smoking
Ban May Broaden
A City Council committee
proposed Tuesday broadening Los Angeles" anti-smoking law by [banning]
smoking in most public areas, including common areas where people
gather.
City Councilman Bernard
Parks said the ban -- similar to those imposed in unincorporated Los
Angeles County and in other cities -- could apply to indoor and outdoor
businesses, parks, restaurants, bars and common areas of apartment
buildings.
the Arts, Parks, Health
and Aging Committee asked the City Attorney's Office to draft the
language for the measure. Parks said his South Los Angeles
district is particularly impacted by health problems from second-hand
smoke.
Councilman Tom LaBonge
asked that the review include the impact on bars and nightclubs. |
Princess Bans Smoking in Staterooms & Balconies
Effective January 15, 2011, smoking will no longer be allowed in
passenger staterooms or balconies onboard the Princess fleet.
See full story...
Look What RCCL Has Done!
(Click image for full text)
The new policy, by RCCL, is the closest I have seen to a "no smoking" policy on
any of the major cruise lines. Upon entry at the cruise terminal a notice
was posted which said, "For the comfort and enjoyment of our guests,
our ships are
primarily designated as non-smoking...."
Editor's Note: Finally, there are bars that we can approach without the invasion
of smoke! I enjoyed the piano music in the Schooner bar, smoke-free.
Holland America Gets Bad Marks
I
loved every detail of our first cruise to the Inside Passage, Alaska, on Holland
America's Amsterdam ~~~ with the exception of their smoking policy. Smoking
was allowed in the staterooms so when folks were coming & going, the hallways
were filled with very thick smoke and there was no way you could hold your
breath long enough to get out of it.
More...
 Editorial
by Tim Corey
This Christmas, I traveled on the Vision of the Seas (RCCL) out of Los
Angeles for the seven-day Mexican cruise. I must say, that overall, RCCL
seems to be doing a better job of reducing the smoke from cigarettes on this
ship. The one major weakness, is the lack of signage on the port side of
the ship, on deck, letting the smoking passengers know that they should only
smoke on the starboard side. When I confronted one of the passengers, he
was very nice and immediately complied. But you always run the risk of
confronting a belligerent passenger and getting into an unpleasant
confrontation. That should not be necessary. The cruise lines need
to do a better job of letting the smokers know about the restrictions.
Photo Above
Smoker "lighting up" on port side of Vision of the Seas.
Fire damage is seen on the Star Princess
as the ship pulled into Jamaica.
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (AP) --
Friday, March 24, 2006
Princess
Cruises was flying more than 2,600 passengers home with full refunds on Friday
and Saturday after a fire -- possibly caused by a neglected cigarette -- killed
a Georgia man, injured 11 other passengers and charred 150 rooms aboard the Star
Princess.
A
smoldering cigarette is suspected as the cause of the blaze, said Horace
Peterkin, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, who toured the
ship after it docked here.
(excerpted from
CNN.com)
Carnival Gets Bad Marks for Smoke
(Letter to the Editor, submitted 12/06)
This was the fifth
cruise my wife & I have taken. We had been on Princess twice, and Royal
Caribbean twice. We took Carnival this time because of the itinerary.
It seemed as
though people smoked everywhere but the dining room. People smoked in the
theater, every lounge, every deck, and especially in the casino, which was a
major thoroughfare to all other areas of the ship.
I saw guests
smoking while walking in the passageways, & because the air is recirculated
throughout the A/C system, the smell of smoke was readily apparent in our
stateroom also. We both woke up with sore throats twice from the pervasiveness
of the smoke. This is probably because of Carnivals get drunk/stay drunk/spend
cash policy. This is too bad because the staterooms and ship were very nice.
Lenny Mosse
Orlando
Los
Angeles County Prohibits
Smoking in Parks
September 16, 2009
Los Angeles Daily News
RULE:
Supervisors cite risk to public from cigarette use in recreation areas.
The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to prohibit smoking in county
parks, with some exceptions.
...
Oceana Restricts Smoking
According to the Los
Angeles Times (January 20, 2008), "Smokers are relegated to a pair of
small, unattractive spaces on the Regatta [one of Oceana's ships] which
is a huge plus for everyone else. No smoking in cabins or on private
verandas."
More... |
Our Mission
CDC:
All states likely to ban public facility smoking for 2020
L.A. Daily News, April 24, 2011
By
2020, every U.S. state may have bans on smoking in restaurants, bars and
the workplace, federal health officials predicted Thursday, based on the
current pace of adopting anti-smoking laws.
More...
Smoker
Causes Fire
[and Displaces Five Residents]
L.A. Daily
News, Aug. 2, 2010
A smoker started a fire that caused $60,000 damage to a three-story Echo Park [CA]
apartment building Sunday, a fire spokesperson said.
Mission
Statement
I
passionately believe that non-smokers have the same rights as smokers.
That is, to enjoy the cruise experience, but smoke-free. It is a
sad commentary when a very small minority of thoughtless individuals are
permitted to compromise the lifestyle and health of others with a known
deadly variety of chemicals. It is up to the cruise lines to
create, define and enforce a clear policy that protects the non-smokers
from encroachment by those who do not care enough to curtail their own
self-destructive habit.
We
dedicate this site to all those non-smokers who would like to enjoy a
cruise experience without tobacco smoke, and to those who have
contracted cancer or related illnesses from second-hand smoke. Our
mission is to lobby the travel, and more specifically the cruise
industry, to curtail and confine tobacco smoking to those areas that
will in no way infringe on the rights and health of non-smoking
passengers. In addition, this policy needs to be clearly spelled
out and defined, along with strict passenger enforcement and penalties.
This is a
not-for-profit site. Funding to develop, maintain and promote this site is
accomplished through personal contributions, your donations and
advertising. All
advertising will be clearly identified as such with the word "Advertisement".
Other News About
Smoking
France gets on the global bus with plan to ban public smoking
By Kathleen Doheny, LA Times
When John Banzhaf III, an
executive for an anti-smoking group, was in Paris for the ninth World Congress
on Tobacco and Health in 1994, he couldn't help but notice the irony.
After sitting in meetings, lobbying for nonsmokers' rights, he would walk
outside into clouds of smoke.
More...
Royal Caribbean is Paying Attention
Editor's
Letter
I was on
the Monarch of the Seas (RCCL) over Christmas (2006). They have
significantly increased their signage and put smokers on notice that
they are limited to smoking only in certain areas. It was
virtually smoke free! Thank you Royal Caribbean!
Tim Corey
SmokeFreeCruise.org
(Sign on starboard side of Monarch of the Seas)
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Report Says Bans On Smoking Reduce Heart Disease
October 16, 2009
Los Angeles, Daily News
WASHINGTON - A major
report confirms what health officials long have believed: Bans on
smoking in restaurants, bars and other gathering spots reduce the risk
of heart attacks among nonsmokers.
"If you have heart
disease, you really need to stay away from secondhand smoke. It's
an immediate threat to your life," declared Dr. Neal Benowitz of the
University of California, San Francisco, who co-wrote Thursday's report
from the prestigious Institute of Medicine.
More than 126 million
non-smoking people in the U.S. are regularly exposed to someone else's
tobacco smoke. The surgeon general in 2006 cited "overwhelming
scientific evidence" that tens of thousands die each year as a result,
from heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
That's
because within minutes, the smoke's pollution-like small particles and
other substances can start constricting blood vessels and increasing
blood's propensity to clot -- key heart attack factors.
(see "Heart
Disease" next column) |
(Heart Disease, continued from
previous column)
Yet many people don't know they have heart disease until they their first
heart attack, making it important for everyone to avoid secondhand smoke, Benowitz said.
Yet
smoking bans have remained a hard sell, as lawmakers and business owners debate
whether such prohibitions are worth the anger of smoking customers or employees.
Thursday's hard-hitting report
promises to influence that debate here and abroad.
"The evidence is clear," said
Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the federal Centers of Disease Control and
Prevention, which requested the study. "Smoke-free laws don't hurt
business ... but they prevent heart attacks in nonsmokers."
Among the report's conclusions:
While heavier exposure to secondhand smoke is worse, there's no save level. It
also cited "compelling" if circumstantial evidence that even less than an hour's
exposure might be enough to push someone already at risk of a heart attack over
the edge.
Many of the IOM committee
members initially were skeptical they'd find much benefit from the bans, sais
statistician Stempen Feinberg of Carnegie Mellon University. He proclaimed
himself "the resident skeptic" who changed his mind. "There was a clear
and consistent effect of smoking bans," he said.
(see "Heart Disease" next column) |
(Heart Disease, continued)
Since New York led the way
in 2003, 21 states plus the District of Columbia now have what the CDC
calls comprehensive laws banning smoking in both public and private
workplaces, restaurants and bars -- with no exception for ventilated
smoking areas. Some other stats have less restrictive laws.
That means 41 percent
of people in the country are as protected in public from secondhand
smoke as possible, Frieden said. The report found just 5 percent
of the world's population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws.
While the public mostly
connects smoking with lung cancer, heart disease is a more immediate
consequence. About a third of all heart attacks in the U.S. are
related to smoking , Frieden said. |
