With the recent fuel supplement increases at RCL and CCL brands, and ever-rising green consciousness, cruise ship fuel consumption has been on my mind.

Realistically, the lines do all they can to improve fuel efficiency but it's not easy to move a great mass of metal and people through water, and run a floating hotel. Especially when guests prop open verandah doors while also blasting the A/C. (You know who you are. Tsk, tsk.)

But that's pretty vague, so when I came across some stats I decided I'd play with them....

According to the Cruise Log for a recent sailing on HAL's Noordam, the ship uses 80,000 gallons of fuel per day for 10 days, and traveled 3,752 statute miles (3,263 nautical miles). Divide that by 1,979 guests and 795 crew aboard and, per person, we get 13 miles per gallon.

Worse than my car, but better than a typical RV!

Disclaimer: This analysis is just for fun and has serious deficiencies. For example: (1) "13 mpg" for a ship is gallons of marine bunker fuel, which is different from what we put in our cars. (2) 80,000 gallons per day is a suspiciously round number. (3) The Cruise Log has some obvious errors, including a total average speed of 92 knots -- methinks they added rather than averaging.