Monday, April 21 2008
By Spud Hilton
The San Francisco Chronicle
It's difficult to truly appreciate smoking restrictions on cruise ships until you've sat in the late-night dance club on an Italian ship packed to the ceiling with 300 chain-smoking Italian high school students.
The dance floor had a fog machine, but it was completely unnecessary.
Just two years after I witnessed that scene, however, the world is a different - and increasingly smaller - place for smokers. Public buildings in the United States, cafes in Paris, pubs in Dublin, Ireland - all post signs forbidding cigarettes. And the cruise lines are starting to follow the wave - a little at a time, anyway.
Last week, Celebrity said it will eliminate smoking from staterooms and, more significantly, all balconies, in October, becoming the first major North American line to ban lighting up in both areas. (Italian line MSC Cruises enacted a similar ban in September.)
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