Democracy is not all about money, the majority of citizens who voted to cap the massive polluting ships know that the town and a few businesses would lose money. Beating a dead horse here won't change anyone's mind.
Hi Jim. No sorries whatsoever. We welcome your comment!
The story does not comment on whether or not the cruise industry is an undue burden to townspeople's health or welfare. It's just about potential budget impacts, of which, as I wrote, there are many variables. I welcome you to let me know what you think in my article is inaccurate so that I may triple check it and update my article as soon as possible if there is a needed correction.
Ahhhhh, am I missing something here? Far as I can recall the bulk of the money raised via cruise ship fees has to be spent on things "directly benefitting the cruise ship industry." Thus if the cruise ships ceased coming to Bar Harbor we would "lose" money that would only have been used for/by the cruise ships. But since the cruise ships were no longer coming...well then there would be no real financial loss to town government.
The cruise ship funds do pay for many things that the town would be paying for regardless. Wages (part of the Harbormaster's salary), insurance (the Harbormaster's boat and marina insurance) and contributes to many, many other things that would have to be paid from property taxes if not for being able to attribute them, at least in part, to cruise ship passenger's experience.
Very interesting and than you for your timely response. Perhaps you could do some additional research and publish another article fleshing out the "many other things" aspect of where cruise ship funds are actually spent. Seems like Bar Harbor citizens would better be able to evaluate potential budgetary impacts were such a listing to be published. Line by line details always beat "many other things" types of assessments.
The article contains many of the cruise ship budget expenditures as published in the town's budget. I hope you can see those images. Please let us know if you can't.
If anyone wanted to explore every single budget line that benefits from cruise ship funds, they can look at a further expanded view of the town's budget here, https://www.barharbormaine.gov/423/Budget.
I definitely would be interested in the deep dive article if the town ends up losing a sizable chunk of cruise ship revenue in order to show what expenditures have returned to taxpayers so that people can stay informed.
Thanks again for the prompt reply. I can see the budget sheets but I'm a math phoab and they make me dizzy. I guess I was kind of hoping you folks would do the work for me. but can't say I blame you for taking a pass. Still I have a hunch that losing the cruise ship industry would not impose additional financial burdens on Bar Harbor citizens. The strong relationship between income and expenditure tends to represent a see saw ride where expenditure always hits the ground first. Simply put there are basically two choices when it comes to money 1) You can continually sacrifice quality of life in order to earn more or 2) You can spend less. I've noticed an alarming trend towards the "sacrifice quality of life to earn more" in Bar Harbor of late. All well and good for those flocking to the area from cities with high incomes. Not so good for local working folks and those living on fixed retirement incomes. While the cruise ship industry is of course not entirely to blame for this it has played an important role. And then, of course, we'd be breathing cleaner air to boot.
Money to a few seems to be the most important thing to some around here, health and welfare for the citizens take a back seat to money grubbing for a few.
Thank you for publishing this information. I hope you will continue to publish it in the Ellsworth American as well as the MDI Newspaper....please make the headlines huge so residents truly know that negative effects lie ahead from the small number of people who voted to kill the cruise ship business. I visit the town often although I cannot afford to live there. My only issue is with the car traffic and parking; not with any foot traffic. I would think having all the passengers on cruise ship busses and not driving their cars is a much-preferred way for townspeople to welcome the folks that choose to visit Acadia!
In looking at what the town needs for revenue, and now finally publishing real facts and figures on a rational and unbiased format to the townspeople and taxpayers I certainly hope that each one realizes what extreme cuts will have to be made to the town's budget all the while the Town Council seems to ignore these facts and encourages voters to continue in this vain with huge projected tax increases for all residents and especially businesses. I hope that more of the residents will petition now to reverse this decision. (maybe the Judge will take care of it) or ...maybe when they receive the town's legal bills, along with their new tax bills they will begin to see how wrong it is.
We don't have any say in what goes in the Islander and the American, but hopefully, they'll also have this information in a future story.
Thank you so much for reading and for telling us how you feel. We appreciate your support very much and are so sorry that you can't afford to live here.
I'm no expert on cruise ship births but having ferried customs and ships agents out to Bar Harbor's cruise ships for something like 10 years I did pick up some tidbits. Far as I know "lower births" are the permanent births in the cabins. "Upper births" are usually fold out births that can be added if required. Many folks probably aren't aware of this but guest carrying capacity for many cruise ships is "adjustable" via sliding partitions, etc. Ships have maximum capacities of a given number for each setup. Thus a ship's actual capacity can vary considerably depending upon how it is configured for a particular cruise.
Carrie's answer is accurate but in more simple terms, of the 10 or so ships that I checked on the corresponding cruise line websites, the lower berth capacity exactly matches what they publicly advertise as the guest occupancy amount.
Lower berth capacity is the standard double occupancy numbers of a room within the ship. I hope that helps a bit. I feel like that still seems a bit jumbled as a definition.
Not all cabins have upper berths, fold down beds, for extra guests or children. Most ships have them. There can be as many as a thousand extra upper berth beds on a ship.
Cruise ships have an Upper Berth Cap. too, but they don’t use that term in their advertising.
I sat and counted the disembarkation of the Anthem of the Seas and 150 more passengers got off than the lower berth capacity. It was advertised as a family cruise and all kids were free. I had counted 7 different ships and it was the only one that was over the LBC. The other 6 large cruise ships disembarkation numbers averaged only 66% of their LBC.
However, I appreciate this one just a bit more because when I was trying to respond to Winston Shaw last night about LBC, the most recent study that I could find for disembarkations was from 2017. Your research is in line with the research from 2017 in that it shows that approximately 30% of cruise ship passengers do not disembark at any given port.
We here at the Bar Harbor Story wish everyone to be well and stay safe tomorrow and want to say that if we do not respond to you for the next day or two it is because we are busy with storm preparation coverage and/or storm coverage. We are not ignoring you.
Thanks for the additional info Jim. As I understand it passengers are charged a port fee for every port visited on a cruise whether or not they actually get off the ship. Someone told me that this fee was $25 per passenger, per port, but that was quite a long time ago. Seems like this fee would more than cover the fees charged by Bar Harbor. Do you know if the port fee is still charged each passenger and has it increased over the years?
As one of the few who voted against the ordnance I kind of suspected that this will be the result. There are debts that have to be repaid regardless of the outcome of the litigation. Then there are the attorney fees.
Over $200,000 has been volunteered from the public so far. It is not the Cruise Lines who are suing the town. It is a small minority of businesses who joined with OP to thwart the majority of businesses and citizens who found after years of experience that cruise ships have an overall negative impact on Bar Harbor.
Democracy is not all about money, the majority of citizens who voted to cap the massive polluting ships know that the town and a few businesses would lose money. Beating a dead horse here won't change anyone's mind.
Sorry, but there are too many factual mistakes in this article.
The town voted on facts. 58% to 42%. Most businesses and citizens found the cruise industry to be an undue burden on our health and welfare.
Hi Jim. No sorries whatsoever. We welcome your comment!
The story does not comment on whether or not the cruise industry is an undue burden to townspeople's health or welfare. It's just about potential budget impacts, of which, as I wrote, there are many variables. I welcome you to let me know what you think in my article is inaccurate so that I may triple check it and update my article as soon as possible if there is a needed correction.
Shaun
Ahhhhh, am I missing something here? Far as I can recall the bulk of the money raised via cruise ship fees has to be spent on things "directly benefitting the cruise ship industry." Thus if the cruise ships ceased coming to Bar Harbor we would "lose" money that would only have been used for/by the cruise ships. But since the cruise ships were no longer coming...well then there would be no real financial loss to town government.
Hi Winston,
Thank you for your comment, we appreciate it.
The cruise ship funds do pay for many things that the town would be paying for regardless. Wages (part of the Harbormaster's salary), insurance (the Harbormaster's boat and marina insurance) and contributes to many, many other things that would have to be paid from property taxes if not for being able to attribute them, at least in part, to cruise ship passenger's experience.
Very interesting and than you for your timely response. Perhaps you could do some additional research and publish another article fleshing out the "many other things" aspect of where cruise ship funds are actually spent. Seems like Bar Harbor citizens would better be able to evaluate potential budgetary impacts were such a listing to be published. Line by line details always beat "many other things" types of assessments.
Hello again, Winston!
The article contains many of the cruise ship budget expenditures as published in the town's budget. I hope you can see those images. Please let us know if you can't.
If anyone wanted to explore every single budget line that benefits from cruise ship funds, they can look at a further expanded view of the town's budget here, https://www.barharbormaine.gov/423/Budget.
I definitely would be interested in the deep dive article if the town ends up losing a sizable chunk of cruise ship revenue in order to show what expenditures have returned to taxpayers so that people can stay informed.
Thank you again!
Thanks again for the prompt reply. I can see the budget sheets but I'm a math phoab and they make me dizzy. I guess I was kind of hoping you folks would do the work for me. but can't say I blame you for taking a pass. Still I have a hunch that losing the cruise ship industry would not impose additional financial burdens on Bar Harbor citizens. The strong relationship between income and expenditure tends to represent a see saw ride where expenditure always hits the ground first. Simply put there are basically two choices when it comes to money 1) You can continually sacrifice quality of life in order to earn more or 2) You can spend less. I've noticed an alarming trend towards the "sacrifice quality of life to earn more" in Bar Harbor of late. All well and good for those flocking to the area from cities with high incomes. Not so good for local working folks and those living on fixed retirement incomes. While the cruise ship industry is of course not entirely to blame for this it has played an important role. And then, of course, we'd be breathing cleaner air to boot.
Money to a few seems to be the most important thing to some around here, health and welfare for the citizens take a back seat to money grubbing for a few.
Thank you for publishing this information. I hope you will continue to publish it in the Ellsworth American as well as the MDI Newspaper....please make the headlines huge so residents truly know that negative effects lie ahead from the small number of people who voted to kill the cruise ship business. I visit the town often although I cannot afford to live there. My only issue is with the car traffic and parking; not with any foot traffic. I would think having all the passengers on cruise ship busses and not driving their cars is a much-preferred way for townspeople to welcome the folks that choose to visit Acadia!
In looking at what the town needs for revenue, and now finally publishing real facts and figures on a rational and unbiased format to the townspeople and taxpayers I certainly hope that each one realizes what extreme cuts will have to be made to the town's budget all the while the Town Council seems to ignore these facts and encourages voters to continue in this vain with huge projected tax increases for all residents and especially businesses. I hope that more of the residents will petition now to reverse this decision. (maybe the Judge will take care of it) or ...maybe when they receive the town's legal bills, along with their new tax bills they will begin to see how wrong it is.
Hi, Lynn!
We don't have any say in what goes in the Islander and the American, but hopefully, they'll also have this information in a future story.
Thank you so much for reading and for telling us how you feel. We appreciate your support very much and are so sorry that you can't afford to live here.
I'm no expert on cruise ship births but having ferried customs and ships agents out to Bar Harbor's cruise ships for something like 10 years I did pick up some tidbits. Far as I know "lower births" are the permanent births in the cabins. "Upper births" are usually fold out births that can be added if required. Many folks probably aren't aware of this but guest carrying capacity for many cruise ships is "adjustable" via sliding partitions, etc. Ships have maximum capacities of a given number for each setup. Thus a ship's actual capacity can vary considerably depending upon how it is configured for a particular cruise.
What does the term lower berth mean, i.e. just the number of passengers on the lower berth or does it have another meaning?
Hello Kathy,
Carrie's answer is accurate but in more simple terms, of the 10 or so ships that I checked on the corresponding cruise line websites, the lower berth capacity exactly matches what they publicly advertise as the guest occupancy amount.
Hi, Kathy!
Lower berth capacity is the standard double occupancy numbers of a room within the ship. I hope that helps a bit. I feel like that still seems a bit jumbled as a definition.
Not all cabins have upper berths, fold down beds, for extra guests or children. Most ships have them. There can be as many as a thousand extra upper berth beds on a ship.
Cruise ships have an Upper Berth Cap. too, but they don’t use that term in their advertising.
I sat and counted the disembarkation of the Anthem of the Seas and 150 more passengers got off than the lower berth capacity. It was advertised as a family cruise and all kids were free. I had counted 7 different ships and it was the only one that was over the LBC. The other 6 large cruise ships disembarkation numbers averaged only 66% of their LBC.
Hi Jim,
As always, thank you, we appreciate your comment.
However, I appreciate this one just a bit more because when I was trying to respond to Winston Shaw last night about LBC, the most recent study that I could find for disembarkations was from 2017. Your research is in line with the research from 2017 in that it shows that approximately 30% of cruise ship passengers do not disembark at any given port.
We here at the Bar Harbor Story wish everyone to be well and stay safe tomorrow and want to say that if we do not respond to you for the next day or two it is because we are busy with storm preparation coverage and/or storm coverage. We are not ignoring you.
Thank you!
Thanks for the additional info Jim. As I understand it passengers are charged a port fee for every port visited on a cruise whether or not they actually get off the ship. Someone told me that this fee was $25 per passenger, per port, but that was quite a long time ago. Seems like this fee would more than cover the fees charged by Bar Harbor. Do you know if the port fee is still charged each passenger and has it increased over the years?
As one of the few who voted against the ordnance I kind of suspected that this will be the result. There are debts that have to be repaid regardless of the outcome of the litigation. Then there are the attorney fees.
Hi, Jim!
We really appreciate your comment and you being here with us. Thank you so much.
Over $200,000 has been volunteered from the public so far. It is not the Cruise Lines who are suing the town. It is a small minority of businesses who joined with OP to thwart the majority of businesses and citizens who found after years of experience that cruise ships have an overall negative impact on Bar Harbor.