Cruise boozing slammed

Celebrity Cruise Line has once again received flack for ‘promoting a binge drinking culture’ after launching an 'all you can drink' offer on a number of its cruise ships. These special packages are designed to let cruise passengers to drink as much as they wish, during a cruise, from as little as £20 per night.

The packages range from £20.75 per night for a much beer as you can swallow, through to £89 per night for the ‘Captain's Package’ which includes specially selected premium wines. A drinks package that offers such strong choices as bourbon and vodka, costs £31 per night. While Celebrity says that it wishes to promote sensible drinking, several charities and anti-alcoholism groups have criticised the cruise line for encouraging people to drink excessively. Their concerns are based on the fact that it can be very difficult to keep track of who much you have drunk if you’re simply showing a pass to a bartender, and that the effects of over-drinking can lead liver damage, infertility, a range of cancers and depression.

However the results don’t have to be long-term to be disastrous: it’s claimed that recent problems in Antigua where cruise passengers fought with police and were left behind in custody when their ship sailed, may have been due to alcohol. And of the 130 people who have jumped off cruise ships in American waters in the past 15 years, at least half had been drinking heavily before they chose to enter the water, and while many are recovered, some are never found again: in March 2008 a woman jumped from a cruise ship off Key Lago during an argument with her boyfriend. Her body was never found.