Cruise Lines- Shame On You

“Try this: Purchase a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Pour it into a paper cup, and then go into the bathroom to drink it.”

by Steve Mott (freelance writer, December 3rd, 2024)

Most everyone enjoys the pleasure, relaxation, abundant and creative culinary offerings, entertainment, and exciting ports of call provided from the plethora of now massive cruise industry choices. Prior to the 1970s (and mainly attributed to the television show The Love Boat), most cruises were still taken simply as transportation options. In contrast, today many cruises are often “closed-loop”; embarking and returning to the same port several days or weeks later. In fact, I am writing this article on a closed-loop cruise right now. Cruising is an immensely popular and satisfying vacation option with activities for people with many diverse interests. 

Inevitably though, times change. At one point in time a cruise passenger could even use a shotgun to shoot skeet off the aft deck of a ship. This author has actually done just that, long before this option became something for the history books (for obvious reasons).

In recent years, formal attire has waned, swimming pools and hot tubs, water slides, zip lines, youthful onboard water parks, wave riding, rock climbing walls and stunning theatrical shows have been added to cruise ships; all in order to to compete amongst themselves by creating more “family friendly” adventures for passengers. 

Yet this article is an appeal to the cruise industry CEOs, CFOs, and those directly responsible for cruise ship activities available to all passengers onboard. 

The issue at hand is the treatment and acceptance of passengers who specifically enjoy the essence of cigars. Slowly and apparently intentionally, cruise lines are removing the respected cigar lounges across most all ships within most all cruise lines. Why? 

Cigar smoking is, for some reason, being removed as part of a normal passenger’s cruise experience option. It is an apparently conscious maneuver that is frankly offensive to those of us that enjoy the mini-vacation (a perfect phrase coined by the late Rush Limbaugh) that a great cigar provides. 

Prior to each cruise that I embark upon, I carefully select specific cigars to enjoy. For a typical 7-day cruise, I would likely spend $200 or so on cigars to bring with me. I would bring them along in my small travel humidor. But I am consistently saddened and confused as to why there is no acceptable place to smoke them. I am increasingly being relegated to a location outside on the poop deck of a ship to enjoy (or not) an expensive and hand-selected cigar. This does not enhance my cruise experience, it ruins it, and I know there are plenty more passengers that feel just like I do. We talk.

Outside, in the wind, heat or rain, and alongside 7-minute cigarette smokers is NOT the place to enjoy a mini-vacation. If this is ever to stop, each one of us must make sure to firmly state words of our displeasure in every single post-cruise survey. Make it a deliberate action to comment about the need for a separate cigar lounge on the ship from which you have just disembarked.

Some passengers do not want more extravagant spas onboard. We just want a room to peacefully enjoy a 1 to 2-hour long cigar (sans cigarettes and vapes). We would be willing to pay for it too, since that is what we actually do on land. I would pay $100, $200, or more for admittance to a room where I have a humidor locker and cigar smoking privileges, for example. There are more people just like me.

“Try this: Purchase a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Pour it into a paper cup, and then go into the bathroom to drink it.” Why would you do such a thing? Now you have a feel for how genuine cigar-loving passengers feel with the slow and methodical elimination of cigar smoking lounges from cruise ships. A cigar experience should include a quiet and welcoming atmosphere, stillness for deep thought and musing with the generated smoke itself, and a camaraderie with others who are randomly united within the synergy of this time-honored and respectable environment.

The cigar industry has spent millions of dollars in lobbying and in fighting the continued FDA attempts to quash cigar smoking. This started in 2016 with the FDAs ”Deeming” regulation. The US District Court blocked this initiative in July of 2022 as being arbitrary and capricious. Indeed, there are states such as Florida (with Jacksonville, Port Canaveral, Tampa, and Miami cruise ports in jurisdiction) that have actually codified cigar smoking as to be specifically exempted from smoking laws applicable at the state level. Florida Statute 386.209 is a good example of this. More states, admittedly, should follow this lead. Yet the cruise industry is seemingly running counter to this acceptance. Why? 

There are reportedly over 600 ingredients in an inhaled cigarette, yet only 1 in a cigar, which is not normally inhaled. Cigars are by no means threatening to health to the degree that a cigarette or even vapes are. Arguably, they could be compared with something as ubiquitous as even sugar or sugar substitutes when considering overall risks to one’s health. 

So why are cigar smokers being denigrated on cruise lines? If insurance regulations are driving this force rebelle, then shame on them, but until they are revealed to be the actual villain, shame on YOU cruise industry, for offending that portion of the population that doesn’t want another water slide, but desires to be respected instead of being demeaned in a passive-aggressive way. Bring back the cigar lounges. Please.