Was the smoking ban a good thing?

As an ex-smoker, I know what it's like to want a cigarette. I also know what it's like to not want a cigarette and I know which I prefer.


Putting my bias aside though, with the smoking bans coming in across the globe, I find it strange that some ships still have public interior smoking areas. I was on Independence of the Seas recently and I was astonished at how much the night-club smelt of stale smoke.

People are only allowed to smoke upstairs in the two-storey nightclub but you walk in on the upper floor - so everyone, smoker or not, is greeted with the stagnant waft of incinerated tobacco. It's a shame as they've really made an effort with the decor in there but you're disinclined to stay upstairs too long to admire the cast eagles on the walls or take in the picture gallery.

Now on the other hand, the cigar lounge - I can forgive that. cigars are a timeless luxury, long associated with cruising and the higher echelons of society. A hermetically sealed room in which one can purchase and smoke such wands of iniquity would almost be a travesty not so see one. But this is a place reserved solely for cigar smokers. You wouldn't go in there if you didn't want a cigar (to buy one or smoke one) - but the same does not apply of the night-club. You go in there because you want to dance. You go in there because you want to strut your stuff and perhaps have a tipple or two. Why should we all have to leave with a cloying aroma of tar and carbon monoxide clinging to our clothes?

I say put it out Royal Caribbean. Cigarettes have seen their day - and we don't want them indoors any more.