Nicky Mouse

I bought mine via Robinhood, easy signup and instant funding.

I later transferred them to my Schwab account.

25 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

I will make this one post, based on my 46 years of seagoing experience, and my several years experience on the Norwegian Sky (sister ship to Sun).

 

First off, the only thing the Captain "has a duty" to inform you of is if there is an emergency.  All else is customer relations, and I don't comment on that topic, as it has never been in my wheelhouse.

 

Second, unless you are privy to the NCL SMS (Safety Management System), as required by the IMO's ISM (International Safety Management) Code, and what it says about handling a ship in rough weather, or leaving port in heavy weather, you cannot possibly say whether or not the "Captain blew it and NCL blew it".  The Captain has to adhere to the policies and procedures written in the SMS, based on both industry best practices and NCL's corporate history, and these policies and procedures govern virtually every action any NCL employee takes in doing the business of operating a ship.  Now, the ISM does also give the Captain "overriding authority" to make decisions that affect the safety of the ship, crew, passengers, cargo, and the environment.  This "overriding authority" means that no one, not NCL corporate, not the USCG, not anyone, can countermand the decisions made by the Captain at the time of the incident.  Now, if that decision violates the company's SMS policies and procedures, then the Captain will have to justify his/her actions at a later date, but if it is found that he/she followed the SMS to the letter, there is no blame, nor punishment.  I am not qualified to judge the Captain's decisions, and there are only about 2 other members of CC that actually have the experience of being Captains, and could make a judgement, if they knew all the facts.

 

Some have questioned leaving port in the first place.  As a seasoned Naval sailor has mentioned, the best place to be in a storm is out to sea.  In fact, just a couple weeks ago, the USCG ordered ships to leave the Florida ports ahead of a storm, since it was more dangerous to remain in port than to stay.  Whether the decision to leave port was the ship's (based on the SMS policies), or the harbormaster's, or the USCG, we don't know at this time, and I guarantee that no one on this forum will ever know.

 

Some have questioned whether the ship could have "sailed away" from the storm.  The last option a Captain wants to take in a storm is to put the wind and waves on the stern (i.e. running away from the storm), as the stern of most ships, and cruise ships in particular are more prone to damage from seas than the bow, the bow handles seas better than the blunt stern, and you tend to lose the ability to steer the ship when running with the waves.  All of which could have led to a much worse outcome.

 

Some have questioned why other ships stayed in the "Inside Passage", and didn't suffer the same seas as the Sun.  Could the Sun have made it to the Inside Passage in time?  If not, then the question is moot.  Yes, the other ships were heading northbound, while the Sun was southbound, so those ships could simply slow down and stay within the lee in the Passage, where the waves and wind would be less, and the ship still have some room to maneuver.

 

A broken balcony door/window on deck 8 is not "taking on water", as there would only be possible water ingress if a sea reached that deck, and only during the time the sea was there.  We don't know whether the glass broke due to a wave impact, or the flexing of the ship.  Also, some water leaking through the "weathertight" doors on the promenade deck is not "taking on water".  Those doors are not "watertight", and if a wave deposits enough water on the deck to overpower the drains, then some can leak under the doors.  "Taking on water" means that something below the waterline has broken, and a continual flooding of water is happening, or that the ship has taken a sufficient list (in the case of the Sun, about 40-45*, so no one would be walking anywhere) that the weathertight doors are continually in the water and leaking.

 

The slamming that the ship underwent was likely unavoidable.  The Captain will try to slow the ship down to where the period (frequency) of the waves matches the speed and length of the ship, so the ship rides up one side of the wave and down the other.  However, there is a limit to how slow you can go in a storm, as ships don't steer when going slow, so at some point you have to realize that you can't slow any more, and you are going to have to accept some slamming, which is mostly the bow not being able to rise up the front of the wave, but slamming into the wave.  The ability to steer in a storm is paramount, as if you take a wave bow on, the sea wants to throw the bow to one side or another, and if the ship cannot steer to counter this turning of the ship in one direction or the other, the next wave will do the same, but turning the ship further, until the ship is "broadside" to the sea, and is now not running up and down the waves, but rolling up one side and down the other, and this is where a ship can become damaged, and truly start "taking on water", and taking on a consistent list, leading to worse flooding.

 

You all can take this post any way you like, these are facts, not opinions, and there are some on this thread who will not be convinced otherwise than NCL placed their lives in danger for some nefarious reason.  I would think that everyone who cruises, after the Costa Concordia, would know that the Captain is personally responsible for every passenger and crew life, and decisions like this are not taken lightly, nor for economic reasons.

Thank you @chengkp75, I've always enjoyed your posts and your insight, going all the way back to the NCL Project America(Hawaii) days. (btw, had great dinner with Brian Walters (our GM) last year on the Sun and had great convo about early days in Hawaii)

It's refreshing to get the insight and perspective from people with actual experience of what is involved behind the scenes.

9 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

Some sort of announcement or acknowledgment other than the standard, “ as always at Sea, there is the chance of ship movement due to inclement weather, so please take care of your safety and use the hand rails” type of announcement that came out a couple of times at regular announcement times would have been appreciated. Even if it had to be the next day.

I did hear them make these type of announcements, but the issue is they won't be heard in the rooms unless you had the tv on the bow cam channel or one of the others that plays announcements.  They will usually only do announcement in room if it's serious emergency, or the 3:30am announcement for a code alert. (People get cranky if their nap time is interrupted, even if it is to tell them they should strap themselves to the bed to prevent ceiling collisions)

18 minutes ago, PurpleKa said:

Thanks for this info. Do you know if there’s a way to see historical data on wave and wind measurements easily, and how to find where exactly we were during the night and early morning Oct 8-9?

I don't know about historical, I think some websites might have that data. (the Carrot weather app is supposed to)  I started watching the weather and ship position after we left Glacier Bay. Instead of staying in the channel and following Encore, we went out to open sea and did a loop on Thursday night, and it got a little rough. I couldn't get an answer for why we were heading that way, but I was asking folks who's main jobs are beverage related and not navigation related. They just said that's what we have to do.

My theory is that because the Seabourn ship was leaving Skagway, and the channel is narrow, the captain was giving her time to get out of the channel before we entered. 

As for the weather once we left Juneau, since the wind maps were showing the winds were a little rough in the channels as well, my guess is the captain chose to stay in open water where at least we couldn't be pushed up against the rocks, but IANAMN. 

(I Am Not A Maritime Navigator)

4 minutes ago, PuertoPollo said:

"But did you die?"

No, but I did learn there is a very good reason late season Alaska cruises are only about $350 for 9 days.

3 minutes ago, PuertoPollo said:

My take on the whole lack of captain communication is he/she had way too many fires to put out to give any reassurances. Perhaps they were always in a situation of "this could get much worse..." IDK I guess people just like to be lied to.

I agree completely and figured this is exactly what was going on.

I chatted up a couple of officers and the CD to get a few updates.

55 minutes ago, duck_keeper said:

 

I didn't have any time left on my wi-fi to monitor the weather and I had no cell service out in the middle of the ocean. I was monitoring the weather the whole week before we left to see if anything nasty was coming our way and it only showed rain and cooler weather. I guess this system came out of no where and surprised everyone. I like to travel in the fall when there are less crowds in ports. I probably won't do any more Alaska cruising for sure. I bought cruise next before the storm and will have to decide when/where we can go with the least chance (knowing there isn't a zero chance) of repeating this experience.

The weather did kinda come out of nowhere, I was watching it onboard on the wifi. It didn't have much in the way of rain on radar, but the winds were doing a very large rotational pattern.

Even in Juneau while docked I could see the winds pick up and the water surface get worse before we left. I heard the crew talking about the incoming weather, so I'm inclined to believe this was not expected.

4 hours ago, phillygwm said:

I know as much about sailing as I do brain surgery.  I try not to second-guess the captain (or the neurosurgeon.)  I assume they know more than I do.  Should there have been a shipwide announcement, as opposed to the captain's daily briefing which some people don't hear?  Yeah, probably.  But I'm otherwise inclined to give the captain the benefit of the doubt; he's probably choosing from a series of sub-optimal scenarios.

Thank you for this, I agree completely. Lots of armchair quarterbacking going on.

13 hours ago, PurpleKa said:

Although they were already boarding people for the next cruise by 8:45 AM when we were getting off in Seattle yesterday, so there must not have been very extensive repairs needed to the ship. Hopefully.

They were boarding new crew arrivals. Passengers aren't allowed on that early.

15 hours ago, PurpleKa said:

Also, the communication from Norwegian cruise lines to the passengers was not great. For example, we departed from and left our vehicles at Pier 66, but when we arrived back in Seattle, they just dropped us off at Pier 96 without even telling us we were at a separate pier, or giving us information about where to go or how to get back to our vehicles. There was no mention of the fact that we were arriving at a separate pier than we had departed from at all. And I listened carefully to all the announcements and read everything we were given. 
 

it was a 15 to 20 minute drive from where we were to where our cars were, and we spent a long time trying to figure out how to find our vehicle before we finally asked around among people milling around and found out there was a shuttle from where we were back to Pier 66. It was a couple of hours ordeal in cold, rainy, windy weather with my grandmother in her 90s to get to our car from where the Norwegian Sun dropped us off with no information or instructions about how to get back where we started.

They had to do pier 91 in order to use the crane. (66 does not have one) This might have been to fix something caused by the rough seas, so it was not known they wouldn't be returning to pier 66 when we sailed.  The port of Seattle website also showed that we were supposed to return to 66, so I'm thinking this was unexpected and uncontrollable.  I had heard there were shuttles to take people to 66, but it was confusing. We ended up in a shuttle that ran all over the place.

14 hours ago, PurpleKa said:

Also, I don’t know if this is standard for cruises or not, but we had someone in our party got sick during the cruise and when we called the health center we were told it would cost about $350 for an exam and testing, and there was no way to get a Covid test or even Over-the-counter medication different than what was carried in the main ship store without doing that. And they don’t accept or bill any health insurance and couldn’t tell us whether our travel insurance would cover it or not. So our only option would be to pay out-of-pocket and then hope either our health insurance or travel insurance might reimburse us. There was no way to get any sort of testing or treatment  other than that. 
 

We at least self-isolated as much as possible and took precautions to try to avoid infecting others. But there were so many people all over the ship and excursions that were very obviously sick and coughing and taking no precautions.
 

We all tested as soon as we got home and three of the four of us tested positive for Covid.

 

On the bright side we thought the food was amazing, the staff were kind and friendly and generally mostly helpful, and our housekeeping staff made daily towel animals for the child in our party, which was greatly appreciated.

Three of the four of us also tested positive after getting home.

As for the ship 'health center' that's not uncommon, and why I always get separate travel insurance for stuff.

15 hours ago, PurpleKa said:

We were told this current week (the next cruise after ours) is the last week of the season and there are no more Alaska cruises after this. A lot of the attractions and stores were already closed for the season or open only short hours on certain days.

Not exactly correct. The Sun has two more Alaska sailings. The one on the 11th (after ours) and then one on the 20th (10 day) and then on the 30th she does her repositioning to Orlando. I had booked that but cancelled today due to some obligations that came up.

21 hours ago, duck_keeper said:

I guess I have been told to run along because the adults are talking.

You guys are real peaches.

There were lots of scared passengers at the end of this voyage. We're any of you on this ship? So you have no idea how it felt. Do you know how big a 10 meter wave is... that is 32 ft. You tell me how it feels to be lifted and slammed down from 32 feet.

And yes I was on an Aft stateroom...I didn't choose the location because it was less than a month out and it was a balcony guarantee and was assigned later.

 

Once again I ask if others that were on the same trip to speak up.

The others of you who have been less than helpful go away because you have made yourselves more than clear that your opinion is superior because your so well traveled.

Some of us don't get to travel that often and it is quite expensive for us and want to get the best trip for our dollars.

 

I was on the same cruise, was the roughest I've been on so far.

Don't believe ship gossip, we didn't take on any water.

The announcement at 3:30am was about something had shifted in a store room and they need things secured for safety.

My friends tested positve for covid when we got back home.

Just now, dad son team said:

These questions always stump me as to why you would want to know.  Does it make a difference in your cruise, or which one you book?  I have been on 20+ and I don't remember 1 officer or whether they made a difference in my experience or not.  

 

Please don't be offended by my question, I'm just being curious.

I was on the this ship last year and made friends with several of the crew and a couple of the officers. I will be on the ship again soon, it's simply a curiosity if some of the folks I met last year are back on board. I've been on almost 2 dozen cruises and there are several of the cruises where I remember some of the crew and officers.

Can someone post the current officers on the Sun?

Thanks.

Henry Morgan resort does day passes, and it's really nice. Did this back in 2019.

Not sure what this is, but there is soot/carbon coming out of the stacks that falls on the decks and chairs and coats everything. Sometimes it's big chunks. You've got to watch where you sit at times.

1 hour ago, mommycruiser said:

Nicky Mouse,

 

Would you happen to know which restaurant is dedicated to Aurea guests? and how much is spa pass for a week. 

 

Thanks,

Laura

Skyline restaurant is for Aurea guests for dinner. 
 

Spa I will have to hunt for the price. 

15 hours ago, Teibban said:

Going on the Seascape on February 26th. 2 canadian families with kids. Any staff speaking French you have encountered?

I can confirm that several of the cruise staff know how to count to three in French at a minimum. (dance lessons)

17 minutes ago, sidari said:

Luv2cruzuk ... Could you find out the Emergency Telephone number for the ship please, I have someone on my MSC page who needs it urgently. MSC were unable to help them ... 😱

This is what’s on my wrist band for emergency number: 00870 773301077

8 hours ago, Lee Thargic said:

Could you please tell me if the ship is decorated for Christmas? Thanks

 

Yes it is. 

Just got off of 41 days on the Sun, and we ran out of Zacapa 23, Buble, Dows 2005 Port, and a couple of other things. (the Zacapa, Buble and Dows were my fault almost entirely)

I got on in Barcelona, her 2nd embarkation point after Rome, on board until NYC. 

Things seem to be fine, entire ship smells like "new car". There are little missteps now and then, like no clean coffee cups in buffet for breakfast, but otherwise, all seems to be going fine.

Feel free to ask questions, I'll answer what I can.

4 hours ago, Rmeister23 said:

Anyone know if you can do the free at sea plus bundle on board using my OBC or do I have to buy the upgrade bundle beforehand with a cc?

I don’t think it’s avail on board, it has to be purchased before, but confirm with your pcc, or Guest Services.

6 hours ago, pbenjamin said:

As of 10/9, Breakaway had no Zacapa 23, no Hendricks and only Johnny Walker Black and Red.  That was the Haven Bar, didn't check Maltings.

The Sun is also out of Zacapa 23, except for a few partial bottles in a couple of bars.