Smoking on cruise ships has got even tougher.

Back in July I did a blog on smoking on balconies, more specifically that Holland And America cruise lines still allowed it, there was a strong reaction to this by very pre-smoking and those very much against it.

Holland America, the last major US owned cruise company were praised by smokers for their stance on this but now they have decided in the interest of guests wishes and health smoking on balconies is no longer allowed, please click here to view cruise.co.uk story on this.

There will also be several designated smoking areas where tobacco products will be permitted, whilst smoking will still be allowed in outdoor public areas. And while smoke-free casinos are a growing trend in the industry as MSC, Celebrity and Cunard’s entire fleet prohibit it, HAL passengers playing slots in on-board casinos will actually be permitted to smoke. However, the Oosterdam and Eurodam will boast entirely smoke-free casinos.

The consequences of violating this new policy are high too, $250 per day cleaning fee and for persistent offenders removal from the cruise ship.

Smoking in the last 20 years or so has always been a very unsociable habit, unless you are a smoker yourself and with health warnings on packets, shops closing off the visibility of cigarettes to the public, advertising bans and now new designed packets is the message not clear enough, stop smoking.

Of course it is everyone’s right to smoke and they should not be told otherwise, although I did tell my mum and dad when I was a kid to stop smoking, my mum did eventually but not before my 4 younger siblings started smoking. This brings me onto an opinion of mine, if you think it is ok to smoke are you happy to see your children smoke.

Always a controversial subject and one that brings on lots of opinions.

So as I have asked before, what are your views to this?