Why Are Cruise Ship Pools So Small?
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- In this video, we ask why the swimming pools on cruise ships are so small, especially considering they may have thousands of passengers wanting to use each one.
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Those pools really show the decline in build quality of those ships. The Titanic's is full of water still today, while that on the Costa Concordia was virtually empty a week after the accident.
I’m still trying to figure out if your comment is a joke or not.
@@FlymanMSbruh.. you can't be serious
@FlymanMS I hope your comment is a joke.
@@FlymanMSisn't obvious? 😅
They just don't build 'em like the used to
Water is heavy
Pros of water being heavy: you can float a ship on it
Cons of water being heavy: You can't put much on your floating ship
Unless it's frozen of course! As they did for a while before heat pumps were a thing.
@@Croz89 Uh?
@@no3ironman11100 Ice freighters. Before modern refrigerators we used to ship ice across the world for ice houses.
@@Croz89 Ice freighters is a different deal to a cruise ship trying to save costs
@@no3ironman11100 A ship is a ship!
Wouldn't be a Casual Navigation video without the free surface effect.
“After all this time?”
“always.”
free surface effect for casual navigation is what seeing if its a fluke for lock picking lawyer
Free surface effect and avoiding it under any circumstances (except when it is needed) is the bread and butter of any naval architect. So I am not surprised.
I don't see why they can't have a system to keep the swimming pool suspended using cables and computers to keep everything nice and level. And viola, there's another seeming unfeasibly complex problem instantly solved in the you tube comment section.
I'm working together with Sanitation Engineer. We don't store water to put it on the pool, we make it everyday. There are several systems on the ship that is related to maintaining and operating the pool. One of them is cleaning the pool water before disposal. 😊
I mean, there is a reason lots of pools are salt water.. and you have plenty in the ocean
@@DB-zp9un1) Even salt water pools are chlorinated. 2) Contaminated water would have to be treated even if it was just saltwater with no chlorine
@@DB-zp9un We take sea water and then remove the salt content also we run in on many filter including UV light to insure its quality. After that, we store it on a tank and treated it with chemical to make it more safer to use.
After those whole process, we put it on the pools in different parts of the ship. We also monitor different parameters like the water temp and the cleanliness of the water.
At the end of the day. We drain the water to a tank then clean it with accordance with strict regulation before dispossing it.
Casual Navigation's (over?)simplification still applies, though, because the systems required to make, clean, and pump the fresh water take up space that could be used for more passengers, and count against the ship's weight.
Okay but, you're on a boat. Why not just dip into the ocean instead?
Queen Marys pools got around the expensive fresh water issue by making the pools salt water, they could also rapidly exchange out that salt water to keep things clean.
They didn't "get around" it, it was always done this way. Unknown to most is that even salt water pools are chlorinated. Many cruise lines switched to freshwater+chlorine because it's gentler or people's eyes and won't corrode steel as fast as salt water
Freshwater pools on a cruise ship is the stupidest thing ever. It's also easier to float in salty water.
@@tonymouannes Oh yeah, obviously you know more than all the cruise lines in the world. How many ships with pools do you have? Do you know that saltwater is 10x more corrosive than freshwater? Do you know that even saltwater needs to be chlorinated and the salt+chlorine combo is extremely aggressive on your eyes and skin? Obviously not, and yet you still have the arrogance of calling others stupid. Absolutely no words for your rudeness
If only copper ion cleaning systems were less expensive and more available, but they aren’t. :(
(Obviously not for queen Mary I mean for modern ships.)
Eh, with all those people using one pool, it's gonna be 60% pee anyways.
"With the disappearance of the class system" I dunno, some cruises are not so quietly bringing that back.
NCL has "The Haven" which is basically a first class with its own private amenities and lounging areas to separate from the riff-raff
That's not a bad thing.
@@ShortArmOfGod Got the money to pay? Get perks. Sounds good to me.
Good....tired of mingling with low class animals being bred nowadays
@@ShortArmOfGodYeah cruises are fucked now. Full of ghetto people. They need to do *something* lol
Fun fact. The SS Normandie’s first class pool still holds the record as the largest swimming pool ever installed on a ship.
Quite naturally as Ocean liners had them inside plus low and that meant u could put it lower. Modern cruise ships usually almost always stays in Warm areas.
Normandie had two swimming pools IIRC. The first was for first class, the second was for tourist and third classes.
@@CJODell12 Yes. The Tourist/Third Class pool was on the stern outside and not much to write home about. But the first class pool room was something to see to believe.
4:30 the animation caught me off guard 😂😆
I was having _Titanic_ and WW2 flashbacks. 🤣
Mee too!
He obviously was never sailing a beach cat. Those do capsize bow first, preferable under Gennacker ;)
I had to rewind that part!
I really appreciate Holland America’s ships that have a retractable roof over the main pool area. Recently sailed on Koningsdam in Alaska and they would open and close the roof depending on the weather. Made the big space continuously useable unlike Princess and Royal ships I’ve seen in that region.
I took a Princess ship to Alaska, and yea, safe to say nobody used the pools, except for the occasional madlad going for a polar plunge. XD The hot tubs were awesome though.
@@Michael-zf1koI was that madlad on my Alaska cruise earlier this year. Wasn't even that cold TBH, but I had to endure so many people with southern drawls asking me if it freezing/heated. I did the same run on the Volendam last year with the roof enclosed pool. Was always a zoo so I never ended up using it.
Royal Carribean ships have a covered pool area with a retractable roof called the Solarium. I've never seen them open the roof though.
There is another answer you've missed that was right in your question: people want to congregate around a swimming pool. They don't necessarily want to go swimming. Most people enjoying a pool day spend more time around the pool than in the pool. That means a small pool with a large space around it is actually optimal. You need a token pool in the middle or it doesn't count as a pool day (people are weird), but there is no need for a large pool. (A large pool for children is good, but that can be shallow and doesn't pose the same stability or structural problems.)
Also, the ships are not always in the tropics. Cruises to Alaska or the Baltic do not lend themselves to pool weather. Even in the tropics, the pool is not fully used all hours of the day. The ships have an expensive feature which really helps bookings but is not evenly or always used.
So, people like gathering around the pool more than actually swimming because they like they wear their bathing suits to show off?
@@SantaFe19484 They are pools and not swimming pools. Many go to the pool to see and be seen. And have a drink or 3. The pool is a focus but more for the eye but really for swimming.
African wildlife behaviour
Wut.
For me, a pool day requires at minimum a pool that's 2 yards/meters deep and 25 long.
I wanna be able to make lanes and actually swim.
Otherwise, a jacuzzi would be "pool" enough 🙃
I instantly knew it would be a video about free surface effect but I still made sure to watch because I knew you'd discuss and demonstrate it in an interesting and informative way.
As a Engine officer on ships its really nice to see someone explain this totally logical reason in a good way :D
Do passengers complain much about the size of the pools? Other commenters have made interesting points about pools not needing to be big to be satisfying.
I think I _have_ heard of a ship capsizing bow first, but it was an airship, albeit a _Navy_ airship.
Ships that capsize nose first, never surface again.
Once the nose goes down enough, it'll sink way before getting to the point of flipping over.
(although I think there were some early subs whose controls got stuck, and they tended to hit the sea bed with their noses while the tails stuck out of the water still, haha)
I might not have this 100% right, but... "pitchpoling" is when immensely powerful wave action flips a vessel end over end. It's always been rare. "Foundering" can involve (but isn not limited to) the bow getting buried under a massive wave, and flooding too hard and fast to rise back up.
Technically, neither counts as "capsizing end over end," though.
I'm sure submarines have done it too, but they are boats if you get extremely nitpicky
@@Vinemaple Pitch poling is quite common on small sailing ships. If you on put on too many sails (like a gennaker) when a strong wind is blowing right from behind, there's a real risk of tumbling front first. There are plenty of impressive videos on UA-cam if you're interested. On a cruise ship... not likely.
@@pg245091 Excellent clarification/correction. Size does matter, as the vessel has to be light enough to be thrown around like that.
Also I want to underline your point that with sailing vessels, the forces applied above the center of gravity are a large factor in pichpoling, I think that's part of how surface tension, etc. are overcome. Thank you!
If passengers want a bigger pool just have them walk the plank. 😂
Even in a home swimming pool that's lightly used, a certain amount of maintenance is required, and a pile of chemicals have to be kept on hand which require money and storage space. In a larger pool used by the public, those requirements go up 2 orders of magnitude. (The more the pool water is "used", so to speak, the more santizer and water processing is required.) If they use salt water in the pool, at least they can generate their own chlorine.
Many years ago I worked on a ro/pax ferry with an open air pool on the uppermost deck. It was filled with seawater, heated by steam from the engine room, and emergency procedures had one person tasked with draining the pool. I bet the cruise ships have that last part too.
I love it when I watch a video answering a question I think I already know the answer to, and the video goes into a much deeper explanation than the one I know!
Some ships like the new "Mein Schiff Relax" have kind of a class system: There is a special sun deck with hot tubs for suites only! Also the large 25 meter pool can be divided into two parts with a folding wall in heavy seas.
I'm always so impressed by engineering... all those things that go into building something "simple", like a pool on a ship... wow! 🤯 Thanks so much for sharing, love your channel! Much love from Germany ❤
1:17 oohh .....
1:16 most replayed for a reason
Ya, the spa is looking so comfortable, that I need to look again
There's a spa? @@uasakura
two reasons
Thank you Casual Navigation, your videos are always gold.
It's rare with ships of modern ocean-going sizes, but I *have* heard of ships being pitch-poled (flipped end over end) by large waves (and it's likely that at least a few ships that disappeared without a trace in earlier times were pitch-poled and lost with all hands, leading nobody to tell the tale).
Amazing video, as usual..You are very skilled in explaining this topic..
I watched an episode of Mighty Ships a while back where a cruise ship had a small Aquabatics show pool at the lower back of the ship, but they needed to cancel the show because they were having rough seas, which made the depth unpredictable and meant that divers might bottom out.
Thanks for all your videos, I always enjoy learning something new.
"Capsizing bow first"...kinda like THAT ship that shall rename nameless?
They could build an Olympic-sized seawater pool on the lower decks and use it as an extra ballast tank. It could be advertised as an ocean beach experience without the sunburn
In all fairness, this is something I always wondered. Especially as cruise ship pools look smaller than Ocean Liner pools. But it makes perfect sense. You don't want your £500mil booze cruise turning into the Herald of Free Enterprise
Le me sees another Casual Navigation video: OH LOOK SOMETHING ELSE THAT I NEED A DETAILED EXPLANATION ON EVEN THOUGH IT SHOULD BE COMMONSENSE BECAUSE ME APE!
I love getting new updates from this channel
I figured out the 'water is heavy, duh, so CoG worse.' part, but not the knock on effect that it would have on the structural needs or the free surface effect, so I learned something today!
Code brown gives me existential dread
It’s scarier than Jaws because it is real.
code fecal matter
It may seem insanely gross, but as long as you don't ingest any water (and aren't immunocompromised), you'll be perfectly fine.
Even if you godforbid swim up to it and it touches you, a shower will wash you perfectly clean.
So it's much more a mental than a physical problem.
a code red is just as gross but easier for a 👧 to disguise 🤮
0:55 "With the disappearance of the _class system" - waaait a sec. They defeated class division ? There actual working communism on cruise liners ?! Wow , lol.
4:34 min: Technically Titanic went under bow first, which is the best known ship sinking ever...
But of course not in a barrel roll (or rather a 180 degree pitch). 😅
Yeah no it didn’t capsize, the ship didn’t do a front flip like this Chad of a cruise ship.
@@PCrailfan3790
Yes, obviously that was meant a bit like a joke. ;)
But still going down bow first shows, that longitudinal stability on ships isn't always enough to prevent serious problems.
And yes, I am aware that floating of the front of the ship caused it and that this is not a regular condition.
But under regular conditions a ship also won't capsize by rolling sideways... ;)
I appreciate all the technology and the logistics that make possible for everyone to go on a marine cruise on such marvel of naval engineering.
I understand that a swimming pool on an ocean-going vessel is a bad idea, and you explain all the reasons very well in the video; but people pay the cruise ticket to be mindlessly entertained by a number of different past-times, and the swimming pool is one of the most important activity to pass time memorably.
In the end, I'm in awe while watching this fandango - just, it isn't my cup of tea. I'm more likely to be on a sandy beach, sat on a deck chair and facing the sea, enjoying the breeze while watching the sunset under a beach umbrella, together with the family - talking, reading a book or listening to some nice music. I enjoy the feeling naturally, without multiple frames around it - the little swimming pool, on the cruise ship, sailing on the high seas...
Safe to say every engineer hates water. It's heavy, electrically conductive (unless its pure and deionized), corrosive, a math nightmare (look up the navier-stokes equations for example) and it's harder to contain since its a liquid
Is this also why the swimming pools on the Olympic class and Aquitania were low down on the ships (F Deck on Olympic and E Deck on Aquitania)?
Probably. I would speculate it’s also because they were intended to sell the Atlantic ocean, which is not the most pleasant or warm weather on average, having the pool inside might have been more comfortable for the passengers.
A low centre of mass stabilized the ship.
If this channel has thought me one thing, its that big ships arent ships but massive floating pendulums
The concept of today's cruise ships baffles me. Thousands of people cramped together, 1/3 ofcall on board are ship's crew, all you have to see outside for days is water and sky, your room is minimal and your bathroom is microscopically tiny, when you reach land you run like hell to fastly visit tourist's hotspots. This is crazy for me, but many people enjoy that, of course.
They like the challenge of avoiding the Norovirus.
As someone that cruises annually and do typical travel trips, what i like about cruises is how chill it is. Normal traveling is almost like a job with all the planning. Cruises are way more chill. I also live in a land lock area so sea and sky view is a positive lol. Maybe an all inclusive resort makes sense too? Haven't tried one yet.
It's one stop shopping. You don't board a cruise ship for the nice bathrooms. You do it so you can see as many different landmarks as possible in one week. The food is (usually) very good. At sea you're supposed to hang out in the spa or the casino or watch a show or crowd around the little pool. IME there's so much else going on that the pools aren't that crowded much of the time. Most people gravitate toward the hot tubs.
OP -- You're correct, however a lot depends on how you manage your cruise and time. There are plenty of places on the ship you can go that aren't crowded, and if you want to spend a little extra, you can get a room with a private balcony and that isn't so cramped. (They make the average cabin on cruise ships absurdly affordable.) Different cruise lines cater to different age groups and party vs privacy preferences. There is also the appeal of being forceably detached from work, whether you like it or not. But, yeah, many of the cheap-o cruises my friends go on look like a nightmare.
It would be like going to a sold out concert at a coliseum complete with drunks, filthy people and out of control kids but you can't leave for a week.
Before watching the video: I’m gonna go with because they’re heavy and the free surface effect hurting stability? Especially since most cruise ships put them up high.
Edit: Yay! I’m learning from the channel and was right!
lesson from this video, pools in cruise ships should be below the waterline, with bottoms and sides featuring multi layered, reinforced windows
@@illdeletethismusic “people aren’t cargo, mate” - Captain Jack Sparrow
The Casual Navigation Bigno hits again
Just brilliant - as usual!
(and a couple more words - so it counts for the algorithm.)
Free surface effect is Charles Yerkes of this channel
Great animation and excellent explanation, as always.
2:14 - "Code brown on the poop deck" would be more fitting, no?
Have watched your channel enough now such that I immediately said “Free surface effect” The rest was quite interesting and enlightening as usual.
Lol, yes I have. It began with T and sank 1912.
That's not what capsizing bow first means....
Another benefit of having several smaller pools: code brown can be called on individual pools.
Capsizing bow first😂
Last time I was this early, the pool on the Titanic hadn't been filled yet
Lol
Fake news
Props to them though. They've kept it consistently filled since then.
@@Dagonus over a century, it's a good run
🙃
Another 2* things that weren’t greatly mentioned but are equally important for cruise lines.
1 - The less pool area on the sun/lido deck creates more area for sunloungers/bars/grills … which unless you’re on a carnival ship, is what more passengers would prefer to have.
2 - Pools compromise the deck below, so the smaller a pool is, the more cabins they can fit underneath.
3 - (Not as important as the others but still a good point) Most of the people that use the pools onboard ships are Kids. They don’t care about swimming lengths, so they don’t need to be super long, wide, or deep, as long as they actually have room to get in the pool. And that’s a big reason why Adult Solariums are a thing, they’re never busy and it’s the option for adults to go in a typically deeper pool.
Worked on an originally French built/operated container ship 20 years ago that had a 10x30ish (ft, not meters) salt water pool on the officer’s deck (04 deck.)
You know I want to sail to Stockholm, should look in to it, next year...
The Somali gang wars there are best enjoyed in the spring and summer.
1:17 lower left quadrant.
Great stock footage from casual navigation.
Thank me later.
I really enjoy this channel.
The capsizing clip 😂😂😂 🤣 🤣 🤣
I was NOT expecting @1:17
expecting what?
@@marianandnorbertbooba
Virgin ahh comment
Nice!
@@marianandnorbert That top is a bit see through....
I have wondered about this one for a while. Thank you.
This is far more of an interesting and complicated topic that I would've guessed.
Cool topic for a video I wouldn't have thought of.
4:30 yeah never heard a cruise ship sinking bow first but I have an ocean liner do so.
As long as the bar is large, I'll be happy.
That’s why I don’t get the appeal of cruises (especially true for European cruises): It’s worse and less comfortable than a big spacious all inclusive resort at a nice beach and the shore visits are less extensive than a city trip. Sure you get around a lot but I’d much prefer a summer vacation at a nice resort and than compliment that with shorter and cheaper trips to the cities or places I’d like to visit.
Great video!
Great job !!
@1:15 You can see it all...
This made me want to go on a cruise. 😅
So, the Ocean Liner's pools made sense - big but low down so they acted like ballast.
These are the important questions
Longshot but I got a question about anchors and the different security systems. I watched a few videos and draging anchor seems to be a common problem. From personal experience on sailing ships it is kinda hard to judge if an anchor is dragging. So maybe a video of the different systems that you can use to detect slipping might be cool. @casual Navigation
Interesting note on the acrobatics pool - isn't it the Icon that has one? And its nearly halfway down the height of the ship (in the bow) - they created a great "theater" with the position, but overcame many of your noted concerns.
I've seen ships with waterslides. I imagine there has to be some depth there
bravo on some of that stock footage 😉@1:16
The longest regular pool on a cruise ship is on the Mein Schiff 7
What software do you use for your animation? They great :)
Small pools mean people on loungers have fewer options to cool off and are more likely to buy drinks.
The oasis class ships have deep 12 foot pools on the Fantale. They are on deck 4 or 5 I believe. The diving show is absolutely amazing. I personally think those divers are completely nuts for jumping 60 feet into that tiny pool on a moving ship with a lift.
I follow Capt Kate on Celebrity and it seems they specifically extend stabilizers during performances (even though they add drag & affect fuel efficiency) and don't perform in choppy sea.
@@jonathanbott87 the show is about an hour-ish long. If I remember correctly.
Wouldn't it be neat to just fill the pools with ocean water? No chemicals needed, and with virtually infinite amounts you can just continuously circulate all the water to maintain it fresh!
It'd basically be just like swimming in the sea, only lifting the water a few stories up!
When I worked on cruise ships in the early 2000's the used sea water (SW) in stead of fresh water (FW) but the reason they switched to SW is because of maintenance on the pumps and piping.
Is it free surface movement? I bet it's free surface movement above the metacentric height
Aside from the physics you mentioned, economics is another big reason why pools are kept to a minimum! Cruise ships much prefer to use deck space to add bars ($) and shops ($) and fee-paying activities ($) instead of pools where kids will swim for free.
A couple corrections:
- I don't think the cost of the freshwater is an issue (1:51). Some pools on cruise ships are actually saltwater and get emptied every night.
- at 1:15, you mention that pools allow 'overheating passengers to cool down'... while showing a hot jacuzzi.
- at 0:56, you mention that modern cruise ships operate on a single class system. Sadly, not anymore. Increasingly, portions of modern cruise ships (including open decks) are cordoned off to the hoi polloi.
My favorite pool on a ship is still the converted gun tubs on USS New Jersey. Confused the hell out of the Soviets trying to figure out what these weird blue spots were.
Most cruise liners use sea water in the pool. But they do use fresh water for the water park slide.
Great video
Do they have a rapid drain capability? It seems like it would be a good idea to have a huge pipe at the bottom that can be opened if the ship becomes unstable so they can jettison that weight very quickly. One port, one starboard depending on which way the ship is leaning.
NCL Breakaway would drain to tanks at night or in rough sea - I think they could drain fairly quickly, but also relied on forecasts to preempt concerns.
The pools drain automatically during an emergency. Our ship lost power and when we came out on deck all the pools were empty.
@2:09 it’s not so bad 🍫
Also, if passengers want a bigger pool, they just have to wait until the ship docks at one of the ports of the trip, as they tend to be places with beaches
Small volume, more code yellow and code brown, per volume!
BTW, I'm fine with my local lake in Switzerland
Do it like in Star Trek - get sonic showers + pool
On the ships I went to (MSC), the pool is always emptied at night. I always assumed they pumped sea water in and out through some treatment plant.
NCL stored the pool water in tanks when drained at night & in rough sea.
The ships desalinate their water for drinking, bathrooms, etc. and the NCL I was on could make 2-3x the water consumed. (Only exception to desalination is they had to be a certain distance out to sea to know the base water was clean enough - in Alaska they had to hook up in ports and it seemed it was much more expensive)
Got rid of the class system. That's funny 😂.
Yo casnav posted🔥🔥
I wish they could find a way, so you could swim in the ocean water (in a safe way of course).
Thanks!
4:27 Not too often yes but there was one particularly famous incident....
The whistle sound made me tab all my tabs. Really unsettling
Many RORO’s have a pool. The trick is it use a harness so you can swim in place
To the man who takes a shit so large it requires draining an entire Olympic size swimming pool, I just gotta say I’m impressed no cap. That was an accomplishment
marketing too!!!
if you were all day in there
you wouldnt visit the casino, the teather, the jewerly, the restaurants, etc...
If you are looking for a larger pool, look around you, its practically infinite in all directions!
Just use saltwater. We have it here in our local communal pool. :)
I barely ever use the pool on the cruise even now have a kid I don’t.. so having massive pools doesn’t make sense when not everyone wants to go swim. Also not always hot on the ship on sea days
I've been on a ship where the pool had been drained.
A glance over the side would have told anyone why. If I had gone into a pool there the water would have been throwing me against the sides all the time.
I don't know what other explanation I expected when clicking on this video