Liberation on a Cruise: Mass Tourism, Pollution, Working Conditions... We Spent a Week on Europe's Biggest Ship

"Vacation is a respite from the unpleasantness [of life], […] it may seem strange, then, that the ultimate American vacation dream is to be plunged into a vast machine of death and decay." In 1997, in A So-Called Thing That Won't Be Taken Back, a classic cruise narrative, writer David Foster Wallace already questioned this very particular tourism. Yet it was in prehistory: that year, there were not even 5 million tourists boarding a cruise ship. By 2024, according to Cruise Lines International Association, the industry's main lobby, there would be 34.6 million people. A historic record.

This undeniable success, however, faces multiple criticisms: air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; overtourism in port cities that want to ban them; the social model of its workers... The sector also sometimes has the image of tourism for the rich, even if a couple can easily get by on less than 1,500 euros a week, meals included.

To meet this growing demand, the cruise subsidiary of the world's leading container ship, MSC, launched with great fanfare at the end of March the second ship in its World class, which is expected to include up to six giant ships. This MSC World America has since joined the Caribbean, a region that alone accounts for 43% of the world's cruise passengers. Its older sister, the MSC World Euro