Last week I was on the brand-new Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) ship the Bliss on what was scheduled to be a Mexican Riviera cruise, but only got from our LA departure port to San Francisco, San Diego, and Ensanada (20 miles south of San Diego), thanks to hurricane Wilma.

If you’re a smoker, sadly, you want to avoid NCL at all cost. If I’m not mistaken, that’s still around 25% of the population, myself included. But that’s not NCL math: There is one smoking area way out of the way in a windy corner of one of the upper decks. It holds around 20 people and is standing room only the entire day. It’s, by far, the most popular area on the ship.

Plan B, if you want to light up, is a cigar lounge that holds 16 people. Plan C is even worse: It’s in a segregated and closed in area of the casino. That way you can have two smokes while also leaving behind a hundred buck donation in a slot machine….

When 20 to 25 percent of the population smokes or vapes, over 4,000 passengers include around 1,000 that smoke. With NCL it won’t take you long to figure out that you’re really not welcome on the ship.

That may well be, or become, the norm on other cruise lines, but you’re not likely to find that out until you’ve paid, committed, and are on board. If you know which cruise line still welcomes your business, send me an email as I’d love to promote them!

George Boelcke – Money Tools & Rules book – yourmoneybook.com