How Loud Are Cruise Ships and Motorboats?

Hey, I hope everyone is doing alright. I will have to travel on a cruise ship in the near future (around 8 hours), however most of the time I will spend sleeping in a cabin.

Anyone has any experience how loud the ship and the cabin will be?

I will wear foam earplugs like always but I hate sleeping with them in, so I would like to take them out during the night.

And another question, does anyone know how loud motorboats are? I tried Googling, but I would like to hear some experiences from people with tinnitus.
I would like to travel with one to a remote beach, of course always with foam earplugs. I don‘t think it would take too long to arrive to the beach, but I don‘t know that yet. If it‘s too loud I will skip it.

Thanks for the help

 

I've been on the Vancouver Ferry and I never even noticed any engine noise.
I would assume if you are in the bow section it's quiet, but what concerns me on a cruise is the foghorn when sailing off and arriving or passing any vessels... God forbid if you are on deck when it goes off.

As for motorboats, I researched it before and any motorboat at full throttle will be loud, at least 85 dB, and if it's an outboard it can go up to 100 dB. It also depends on the motor technology.

If you must travel by boat make sure it's a cabin cruiser and not an open air boat.

A lot of the noise is wind noise in addition to the motor. Speed boats are not really concerned with excessive noise.

Safest boat is a sailboat.

 

Foghorn is 150 decibels. That’s game over if you’re next to it lol.

 

Thanks for the advice. We travel by night so we will probably go from the car straight to the cabin, however I will stay away from the foghorn. I wear foam earplugs when outside the cabin.

For the motorboat unfortunately I don‘t know which one they want to take, probably a smaller one (I think one of these with a small cabin on board) or maybe one of these rubber boats with an engine. No idea. I will wait if anyone here has some experience, otherwise I will skip the boat tour, even if it would be a shame not seeing some beautiful islands and beaches.

 

I will wear earplugs outside of the cabin and keep away from the foghorn or stay under deck. I traveled a few times with a cruise ship years ago but never remembered the foghorn as particularly loud on deck.

 

Oh, the memories before tinnitus...

 

Back from holidays, the ferry for 10 hours was super quiet, no noise whatsoever. Especially the cabin way totally quiet. Also no foghorn (at least I didn’t hear one).

We didn’t use a speedboat/motorboat on our excursion but a sailboat. The skipper just used the motor for a few short times, so also no problem there. All in all holidays went really well.

@dan, thanks for the advice

 

Glad you had a great holiday and good to know about your experience!

 

Some boats are really loud when disembarking.

The boat ramps will open so that cars can exit and in some ferries that mechanism is super loud.

 

Thanks man, I always try to update my questions so people who search for similar topics know the outcome

 

I was in my car with the windows up and did not notice anything loud while disembarking.

The only remotely loud thing was a beeping when one of the ramps moved down, but then I just kept my windows closed. And of course the noise from the other cars in the ship. If someone wants to be on the safe side, they could just wear foam earplugs while embarking or disembarking.

 

I mean if you are outside the car... actually workers on those ferries (Helsinki - Tallinn), (Bodo - Lofoten) were wearing earmuffs when the ramp was going down.

 

Ah got it, yeah that could be loud, luckily as a passenger you can keep away from that.