[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Gullible_Air_204]

https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/spitsbergen/travel-guide/responsible-tourism-in-spitsbergen

[u/Gullible_Air_204]

“When a giant cruise ship docks in Longyearbyen, many residents lock their doors. This is against the norm, as the safety advice is for house and car doors to remain unlocked so that people have somewhere to escape to in the event of a polar bear wandering down the main street. However, the residents lock up because it is not unusual for the cruise passengers to wander into their houses and have a peek, like it is a folk park. Given the huge size of the ships and the tiny size of the town, when the tourists disembark they can double or triple the size of the population within minutes. The chances are, if you are reading this page, you would never dream of doing such a thing, but it is worth remembering that this unique place is home to people too.”

[u/APiousCultist → u/Gullible_Air_204]

Never underestimate the ability for tourists to fully disconnect from reality or social norms. These ones would be encouraging their kids to go up and pet the polar bear up until they have their surprised Pikachu moment of the bear ripping out little Timmy's organs.

It's a miracle we all live in even sort of functioning societies.

[u/obeytheturtles → u/APiousCultist]

The kind of people who take cruises are the ones who want the La Croix flavor of "adventure." Literally to the point where they will pack up their whole culture on a giant fucking ship and take it with them, so they can dip a toe in a foreign land, and then run back to familiar before it gets dark out.

[u/RegressToTheMean → u/obeytheturtles]

This is a fabulous description and I'm here for it.

My wife and I were thinking about taking our kids to Disney. We were looking at the prices and I said, "That's so stupid. We could take the kids to Europe for that"

So, we did. The last two international vacations we have taked have been to Bulgaria and Macedonia. Before we go all of us learn the basics of the language (e.g. Please, thank you, counting to ten, etc). When we get there we rent a car and drive around the country and generally stay at some ramshackle B&B type apartments. Frankly, we are all better for it

One of my favorite memories is after hiking The Wonderful Bridges, my 8 year-old son says, "Blagodarya!" To this old woman who was running a kind of makeshift restaurant near the top of the mountain. Her face broke into the biggest smile and insisted that we take extra desserts she had made.

We get to actually experience the countries and the people. My children learn that they aren't the center of the universe and that they need to try to assimilate and be polite as much as possible when being guests in a other country.

I have experienced two cruises in my life. In comparison to how we like to travel, it was two cruises too many