Back when smoking was first banned on U.S. airlines there was absolutely no outrage, or even discussion about the policy, on any online travel community.

Then again, there were no online travel communities – or no public internet for that matter.

Surely those would have been some active and volatile discussions. Sadly we can only imagine what those threads might have included.

Hold on a second, maybe we don’t have to just imagine – as it seems Carnival Cruise Lines has recently implemented a “No Smoking on Balconies” policy that has stirred quite the firestorm among cruise lovers, with many supporters:

I sincerely hope that smoking ban is true! That would ease my secret worry that I’ve been keeping from my husband. LOL ~momof3cruisers

I hope this is true too, I have kinda avoided balconies for fear of the smoking, i have asthma and already limit my time in the casino, but have splurged on an aft balcony. ~Danacat222

If this is true, I will do a happy dance all the way to Port Canaveral for my October cruise!! To be able to enjoy my balcony without the smokescreen from surrounding balconies would make me ecstatic. ~Lovefuninthesun

And quite a few strong dissenters of course:

I am a smoker and a considerate one at that…if this is true..which I am hoping it is NOT…I will be seriously re-thinking the 3 cruises that I take every year and hope other smokers do the same..may as well make the entire ship non smoking while you are at it and let’s see Carnival scampering trying to fill all those ships with non-smokers and an empty casino ~PittsburghGirlee

We don’t get to cruise very often, but we do love to cruise when we get a chance and love Carnival, but if they make balconies non-smoking, we’ll be sticking to land vacations. … I’ll probably get “flamed” for saying this, but I have the same problems (allergies, coughing, and sinus issues that trigger massive headaches) from strong fragrances that so many say they get from cigarette smoke and I know others that are affected the same way but I’ve never seen complaints about that on here. I just hope this is just a rumor but if it ends up being true, goodbye cruising. ~pghsteelerfan

…to be honest try to stop me. I hear a knock on the door, I’ll fling the butt and say I smelled it too, I think it was the room below me. ~pbsteve

At the time of this writing the thread contains over 850 posts. All in all a pretty good discourse, with some strong opinions on both sides and some reasonable compromise suggestions.

And for flyers, it’s kind of fun to read through it and replace words – ship=flight, balcony=window seat, cruise=fly – and imagine how the smoking ban discussions for airlines might have went.

Read the thread in its entirety: Smoking on your balcony is out! Gratuities are going up.