Majorca protests against Symphony of the Seas.

Whilst most of the Travel Industry and it customers celebrated the launch of The Symphony of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s largest ship not the same joy could be said for a few in the beautiful City of Palma in Majorca.

A beautiful Balearic Island visited by millions each year it is suffering its fair share of pollution and as the good citizens of Venice voiced their concerns with ships and it’s alleged pollution foot print 200 protesters also felt their voices needed to be heard too.

I went to Majorca last year, to the resort of Cala D’or, beautiful resort with the potential for beautiful seas, beaches and coves, potential yes, I’ll come back to this later.

Symphony of the Seas in Palma-

Passengers were met with a demonstration on the quay, organised by two environmental groups who are against more cruise arrivals.

They claim that the large ships create pollution and more overcrowding of the “already saturated islands,” and that staff on board the ships are being “exploited.”

The mega cruise liner, weighing 228,081 tons and capable of carrying 6,680 passengers, is touring the world as part of its debut voyage.

The floating city has 2,759 rooms distributed in a total of 18 decks and seven areas, featuring 20 restaurants, ten Jacuzzis and five swimming pools.

All sounds wonderful but  the protesters were supported by the environmental group GOB, which highlighted that the ship uses as much energy in three days as the town of Sant Joan does in a whole year – burning through 15 tons of fuel an hour.

Not long after the protest, the president of the Balearic Port Authority (APB)  Joan Gual de Torrella sent a letter to the GOB, requesting their environmental studies of tourist cruises.

The Balearic Port Authority intend to react to the findings of the data.

Meanwhile, back in Cala D’or on a public beach myself and 1 of my daughters got up early and walked to a cove, we wanted to get 4 sunbeds and 2 umbrellas for the 6 of us. We got our beds and then went to the sea, it was a mess, an actual covering of plastic waste. My daughter an I spent 30 minutes in and out of the water getting rid of the plastic bottles, bags, crisp packets, you name it and sticking it in a dustbin, 2 other guys later joined us with their fishing nets on a rod and collected all the finer pieces of plastic. After an hour the sea looked beautiful, and then came a beach attendant charging 7 euros per bed and 3 euros per umbrella, there was alot of money to be made, but why is it not funding the keep of the beach? Perhaps the protesters need to look a little closer to home as well.

I am not saying this beach and sea pollution is the fault of the locals but if they are going to make 100% profit on beds and umbrellas then they need to invest too.