Cruise Ships Banned in Key West

[RogueClimber]

Is this true? Is this a good thing???

Key West, Florida, voters opt to ban large cruise ships from visiting

 

[JesperS]

IMHO, a wonderful thing. I love visiting Key West, but not on cruise days.

 

[Wookie]

Having lived there for 20 years, I have some insight.

Key west used to be a groovy town, with funky bars and off kilter locals. Kinda like the north shore. The cruise ships come specifically because they can’t go to Havana, and it took an act of congress to allow them to make Port in violation of the Jones Act. As soon as Cuba opens up, the cruise ships are gone anyway.

Short story long, the flavor of the town changed from a funky artist town full of galleries and restaurants and Fast Buck Freddie’s to t-shirt shops and trinkets and silting of the reef. Any diver will tell you that the reefs to the east of key west are dead due to the massive amounts of silt from the cruise ships. Vis on the vandenberg is sometimes as low as 5 feet. Vis since March is consistently 50-100 feet.

Every passenger that lands pays a $20 head tax. They also pay $20 to each dock owner. So Jimmy Buffet makes $20 a head, the Navy makes $20 a head, and the city makes another 20 a head, depending on which dock is assigned. Out of that, the city has to pay to ferry the passengers on the Navy base off, the city revenue is about $110k a year.

Meanwhile the entire character of the city has changed. Wealthy Yankees have bought up many of the apartments and turned them back into single family homes. Available Housing units dropped by 500 in the past 5 years, and rents for a 2/2 is over $3500. Any restaurant on duval street is $25000 a month with lower Duval as much as $50,000. Those are Manhattan rents.

It is said that a cruise shipper spends $20
In key west. A weekend traveler spends a grand and a week long vacationer spends $3k. It would make sense to me to work to attract the folks who stay for a week rather than those who want a second home or those who stay 6 hours.

 

[100days-a-year]

If we could address the human impacts of the gentrification going on as well as the environmental impacts of cruises it would be a win win.

 

[Alekseolsen]

Is this true? Is this a good thing???

Key West, Florida, voters opt to ban large cruise ships from visiting

How can banning cruise ships not be a good thing? I mean - if people just took a flight to wherever they wanna go, we would have far less environmental damage, far more money going to the communities visited, and you'd get rid of the "cruise ship surges" - where 20000 people visit some small city for a couple hours every x days.

An island like Saint Martin is lovely - after the cruise ships leaves for the evening

 

[Kimela]

I'm gonna play 'devil's advocate'. Many of the cruisers choose that form of vacation because it's the only way they can afford to ever visit places like Key West or St Martin for half a day. I wonder where those tourism dollars would go if the cruise industry dried up - and it very well might in light of COVID and the new realization that those kinds of things can and do happen all the time.

 

[letterboy]

Having lived there for 20 years, I have some insight.

Key west used to be a groovy town, with funky bars and off kilter locals. Kinda like the north shore. The cruise ships come specifically because they can’t go to Havana, and it took an act of congress to allow them to make Port in violation of the Jones Act. As soon as Cuba opens up, the cruise ships are gone anyway.

Short story long, the flavor of the town changed from a funky artist town full of galleries and restaurants and Fast Buck Freddie’s to t-shirt shops and trinkets and silting of the reef. Any diver will tell you that the reefs to the east of key west are dead due to the massive amounts of silt from the cruise ships. Vis on the vandenberg is sometimes as low as 5 feet. Vis since March is consistently 50-100 feet.

Every passenger that lands pays a $20 head tax. They also pay $20 to each dock owner. So Jimmy Buffet makes $20 a head, the Navy makes $20 a head, and the city makes another 20 a head, depending on which dock is assigned. Out of that, the city has to pay to ferry the passengers on the Navy base off, the city revenue is about $110k a year.

Meanwhile the entire character of the city has changed. Wealthy Yankees have bought up many of the apartments and turned them back into single family homes. Available Housing units dropped by 500 in the past 5 years, and rents for a 2/2 is over $3500. Any restaurant on duval street is $25000 a month with lower Duval as much as $50,000. Those are Manhattan rents.

It is said that a cruise shipper spends $20
In key west. A weekend traveler spends a grand and a week long vacationer spends $3k. It would make sense to me to work to attract the folks who stay for a week rather than those who want a second home or those who stay 6 hours.

So, cruise ships are good is what you're saying

 

[Biotech Diver]

Having lived there for 20 years, I have some insight.

Key west used to be a groovy town, with funky bars and off kilter locals. Kinda like the north shore. The cruise ships come specifically because they can’t go to Havana, and it took an act of congress to allow them to make Port in violation of the Jones Act. As soon as Cuba opens up, the cruise ships are gone anyway.

Short story long, the flavor of the town changed from a funky artist town full of galleries and restaurants and Fast Buck Freddie’s to t-shirt shops and trinkets and silting of the reef. Any diver will tell you that the reefs to the east of key west are dead due to the massive amounts of silt from the cruise ships. Vis on the vandenberg is sometimes as low as 5 feet. Vis since March is consistently 50-100 feet.

Every passenger that lands pays a $20 head tax. They also pay $20 to each dock owner. So Jimmy Buffet makes $20 a head, the Navy makes $20 a head, and the city makes another 20 a head, depending on which dock is assigned. Out of that, the city has to pay to ferry the passengers on the Navy base off, the city revenue is about $110k a year.

Meanwhile the entire character of the city has changed. Wealthy Yankees have bought up many of the apartments and turned them back into single family homes. Available Housing units dropped by 500 in the past 5 years, and rents for a 2/2 is over $3500. Any restaurant on duval street is $25000 a month with lower Duval as much as $50,000. Those are Manhattan rents.

It is said that a cruise shipper spends $20
In key west. A weekend traveler spends a grand and a week long vacationer spends $3k. It would make sense to me to work to attract the folks who stay for a week rather than those who want a second home or those who stay 6 hours.

Sounds exactly like what Kalifornians did to all the western states. They migrated in like fleas and destroyed every community they infected.

 

[RyanT]

It is said that a cruise shipper spends $20
In key west. A weekend traveler spends a grand and a week long vacationer spends $3k. It would make sense to me to work to attract the folks who stay for a week rather than those who want a second home or those who stay 6 hours.

Sadly, the Wal-Mart model seems to be the winner everywhere.

 

[formernuke]

I think it's a win, I've never lived in a cruise ship place but I gather the are a lot like casinos, I lived close to them.

With casinos they bring in revenue but the actual cost to the community is actually higher than the amount brought in.

And then you have the environmental impact of these things. I say turn them all into artificial reefs