{"id":10526,"date":"2011-12-12T01:31:23","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T09:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=10526"},"modified":"2011-12-12T01:31:23","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T09:31:23","slug":"alaska-about-that-head-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=10526","title":{"rendered":"Alaska, about that head tax…"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Venice<\/a>, the locals are talking about charging cruise passengers a head tax for visiting Italy’s pretty and most unique city.<\/p>\n

We realize it’s on the other side of the world but…have they heard of Alaska<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem…or the first one anyway:<\/p>\n

The astounding growth of cruise ships visiting Venice is becoming an environmental mini-disaster. Because the waters in the city of canals is so shallow, the wake and undertow of the huge ships is damaging the banks that support Venice.<\/p>\n

While green people have been complaining about this for years, Venice has gone from 10th to 4th as Europe’s busiest cruise ports. According to a story in London’s Daily Telegraph<\/a>, 200 ships went to Venice 11 years ago and that number is well over 500 today.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Venice is upset, as is Italy’s environment minister. A bar owner says he’d like to see passengers pay 50 euros (about $67) for the privilege of seeing his city. Would you? When they tried that in Alaska, with a smaller head tax, it eroded something else.<\/p>\n

The cruise industry.<\/p>\n

It will take four years for Alaska to recover, after backtracking and charging cruise companies a modest tax.<\/p>\n

Another possible solution, while not ideal, is to have cruise shops dock at Porto Marghera on the mainland and be ferried or bussed the five miles from there to Venice. The cruise lines would have to run shuttles back and forth, increasing their costs.<\/p>\n

Our colleague Phil Reimer of Ports and Bows<\/a> may have a solution. He loves Venice so much that he thinks all cruise ships should spend the night there…fewer in and outs, and probably just as many visitors.<\/p>\n

DAILY DEAL:<\/span><\/strong>
\nCarnival Conquest<\/a>
\n7 nights
\nJanuary 1, 2012
\nNew Orleans<\/a> (return): Key West,<\/a> Freeport,<\/a> Nassau<\/a>
\nInside $529
\nwww.carnival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Venice, the locals are talking about charging cruise passengers a head tax for visiting Italy’s pretty and most unique city. We realize it’s on the other side of the world but…have they heard of Alaska? Here’s the problem…or the first one anyway: The astounding growth of cruise ships visiting Venice is becoming an environmental… Continue reading Alaska, about that head tax…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,31,15],"tags":[72,312,123,26,2208,27,747],"class_list":["post-10526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-ports","category-stories","tag-cruise-deals","tag-finding-bargains","tag-head-tax","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-venice","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}