arabrab

59 minutes ago, cruiserchuck said:

 

It is not really accurate to say HAL is an American shipping company.  It owners Carnival Corporation is incorporated in Panama, and Carnival plc is incorporated in England and Wales.  https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/ddd975ba-cef0-43fe-9bf9-bb4c376ed914

If they want the $$$$ benefits of flagging the ship in the Netherlands, incorporating Carnival Corporation in Panama, and incorporating Carnival plc in England and Wales, then those are the countries they should be looking to for help with their problem. 

1 hour ago, sail7seas said:

 

go to Hawaii or Alaska.  BETTER Yet.  Really bring her home  to Seattle.   🙂

 

To the   home of HAL!

 

I think   I would fly to Seattle to see her sail in and CHEER !

 

 

 

Isn't her home the Netherlands? 

Reuters is reporting it based on the Thai Minister's tweet.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-thailand-cruiseship/thailand-bars-cruise-passengers-amid-coronavirus-fears-idUSKBN20503T

1 hour ago, blackshirt said:

So anyone know how long Royal has been doing this non refundable thing? It’s been awhile, like more than a year, hasn’t it? Trying to figure out how this experienced cruiser didn’t know.

I'm sorry for the OP.  We've cruised RC, Princess, HAL, and (long ago) Epirotiki.  I hadn't heard of non-refundable deposits, and I appreciate the info as we will now be warned.  I believe that quite a few of the posters here are being unduly harsh with the OP. When you're not expecting non-refundable deposits, it is easy to miss the note -- which isn't exactly in large print on the confirmation.  It might be well known for those who cruise RC all the time, but that leaves a lot of people out. 

On 6/12/2019 at 10:44 AM, DougK said:

 

I totally understand where you're coming from. My wife has similar issues, and we were quite concerned about having a multi-hour bus trip when we were forced to do a ship swap last year (between Regensburg and Melk). The ship plan was for everybody to get on the bus, drive for several hours, then do a tour, and finally end up at the new ship. We decided to instead go on our own (after talking to the cruise director, of course). We got train tickets from Regensburg to Melk, which was much more comfortable, and allowed walking and stretching, and then we did our own little walk around Melk and stopped at a cafe, before proceeding on to meet the ship. It cost us a little more money (about $125 for the two of us), but ended up being a rather pleasant day. With luck, you won't run into any problems, but if you do, just remember that you aren't necessarily limited to what the ship company is providing.

That's brilliant.  I'd be very happy to pay that rather than sitting for hours on a bus.  Thank you for sharing your experience.  I'll hope for good water conditions, but nice to consider options. 

The video was really helpful.  

I'm worried a bit because my hip doesn't like me sitting for hours at a time without an opportunity to walk and stretch. This putting people on bus trips for hours and hours is depressing -- much, much different than a cruise missing a port. 

I guess that I just have to hope for the best. We've really wanted to do this trip. 

We are looking at doing our first river cruise (Perhaps Basel to Amsterdam?)  in May of 2020. From the helpful river cruise info stickied at the top of the forum, I learned that water levels sometimes cause rearrangement of cruises involving either a ship swap or (hopefully not) relocation to hotels with associated bus tours, or starting a cruise in a different port 

Is there any information on the frequency with which this happens?  Logistically, how does the cruise line handle a ship swap? If you get moved to a hotel, does the cruise line then cover all associated meals? Do they move you from hotel to hotel? (Ugh.)  Does trip insurance (privately purchased) come into play for this?  (We are planning on doing a weeklong hiking trip pre-cruise, so we will already be in Germany before the cruise.) Do some cruiselines do a better job handling issues like this?  (That is certainly the case with airlines!)

I'm sorry if this sounds foolish -- but is water not normally served onboard at meals? Or is this some special kind of water? (I'm looking at booking our first European cruise for 2020 and this is new info I had not considered. I like a little wine or tea or coffee, but mostly water with meals.) TIA.

I was not making reference to any passengers who were on the cruise back to NYC. I was making reference to new passengers on the cruise that left on January 6th. When they boarded the ship and got to their cabin with the missing balcony door, you would think they would take a photo of the missing door and post it on here as part of their report of the damage.

Wouldn't you expect that damaged cabins would simply not be assigned? From what I read, a number of people missed the subsequent cruise due to the airport disruptions, so NCL would not have had trouble simply blocking those rooms.

Yes, some folks were frightened, some even terrified, but as others on here have reported, they either nearly slept through most of it, or didn't notice the "horrible scenes" that others have reported. It's a clear case of the Rashomon effect, where everyone is affected by, and remembers, an incident differently.

Rather than being the Rashomon effect, it is far more likely that passengers in different parts of the ship had different experiences.

When Asiana's jet crashed upon landing at San Francisco airport, people on the front of the plane got off easily, didn't even think it was a big deal at the instant, and didn't feel a tremendous amount of movement. People towards the middle and rear had very, very different experiences, and some felt the plane had tumbled around. People were seriously injured in the back third of the cabin. People at the very rear died. And that was on a tremendously smaller vehicle than a cruise ship.

Acknowledging that where you were might have affected how it felt would be a kindness and more rational than suggesting that those who felt more motion and who had to crawl to the bathroom or who had water coming leaking in or dividers breaking are exaggerating the severity of the situation compared to those who didn't find it to be problematic at all. Add to that a notable lack of effective communication from the Captain (or his designee) and it isn't surprising that panic set it with a lot of folks.

Hopefully, this captain and senior officers get some training in more effective communications during times like this, and that it becomes part of the training for other crews. More effective communications might have helped significantly reduce the anxiety level and stress.

Let's say an amazing job was done by the staff of the Norwegian breakaway during a storm that no one predicted was going to be as intense as it was. The captain the crew and all of his officers are very highly trained but never enough for an event as intense as a ginormous bomb blizzard storm. I give them extreme applause for bringing that ship back to New York Harbor with Every passenger safe and sound yes they were shaken up yes it was harrowing and yes it was scary and maybe they didn't communicate but obviously they had a job to do and that was to keep the Magnificent ship and all the souls aboard it safe and sound. So I applaud the staff the crew the captain the officers and every single person who did their best to try to keep everyone smiling or safe and sound during this journey. I do however believe that the national weather center needs an upgrade.. Because they never predicted the storm to be as intense as it was .. They Never warned anybody on Long Island until we were in the thick of the storm about the intense hurricane winds and I know they did not give any heads up about significant flooding to Boston Long Island So I'm sure this captain was not apprised of any hurricane winds they were approaching otherwise he would have the stayed South. Again what a Testament to beautiful ships that the Norwegian breakaway withstood a Jinormous storm with no injuries. Yes there was damage to the cabin doors but they made sure every passenger was safe and sound the same as the Captain of the Royal Carribean during the anthem of the seas Storm event.. Out standing service to the captain of the breakaway thank you for getting everyone home safe and thank you to Romeo and Benji and Alvin as well as the magnificent hotel director Vuk.. For keeping everyone smiling or comfortable to the best of their ability

Well, maybe it was because you were expecting the National Weather Service to tell you that a "Jinormous" storm was coming. :confused: They were posting warnings of severe weather - including Long Island - beginning January 2nd. "Major east coast winter storm is expected to bring snow, ice, rain, strong winds, and tidal flooding to coastal locations from the southeast U.S. to New England Wednesday into Thursday. Hazardous travel is likely."

On the 3rd, they said: This rapidly intensifying East Coast storm will produce strong, damaging winds - possibly resulting in downed trees, power outages and coastal flooding. These strong winter systems are notorious for packing big winds and waves to go along with heavy snow!

Later on the 3rd there was a supplemental warning of blizzard conditions, high winds and flooding.

Meanwhile, the marine forecast included: "SEAS...Followed the higher WAM wave guidance throughout much of

the forecast period. Waves should increase dramatically with thelow pressure system. Waves should be well into the 30s feet inthe far eastern mid-Atlantic zones near the Gulf Stream. Valuesclose to 40 feet are quite possible there Thursday afternoon andThursday evening.It also included warnings of gale force winds, and advice that mariners should avoid heading into the storm.

I'm glad you had a good cruise, and I'm sure that the staff did everything they possibly could to help with the situation. You might try actually reading the NWS forecasts before complaining that they didn't give enough warning.

This was a really helpful thread. We're looking for a luxury trip next spring to celebrate a big anniversary, and Seabourn sounded like a big step up. However, I don't want to run the risk of being unable to use my balcony due to a neighbor's smoke.

Maybe in 5 years the policy will have changed, but I think for now I'll look at some of the other luxury lines. Every line has things that they do better and things that are not so good. I would be fine with a poor drinks selection, but really despise smoke.

A diabetic interviewed on WNBC NY said that he did call the Coast Guard from the ship.

I cannot imagine what the Coast Guard might have been able to accomplish given Anthem's size and passenger/crew count even if they forged into the storm with the ship :confused:

Maybe they could have gotten a few more engineers on board, though a ship-to-ship transfer in that storm sounds remarkably unlikely, and helicopters wouldn't have been flyable.

Tugboats aren't going to be plunging through that kind of storm, and setting up lines that would snap given the forces wasn't going to happen either.

Love the Coast Guard, but I just can't see what they could have accomplished in this situation.

If it is a serious allergy, I wouldn't trust Carnival (or any other cruiseline's) children's camp staff to be fully aware of hidden ingredients. Maybe last week the buns didn't have egg, but the supplier they got them from this week does use egg.

Several weeks ago I participated in a thread on this subject and set up a database including all groups I knew about at that time. I added groups mentioned in that thread and now have added groups mentioned in the two most recent threads. It is located at www.wa70.com/hdisplay.php. I will add any groups emailed to me, and any I happen to find. I will also add any other common HAL info anyone feels is would be appropriate.

 

Rich

Thanks for all your work on this -- our (potential) cruise is features a dermatology group, which should be fine. I think I may put deposits down on two different cruises and make a decision before final payment since the charter issue will probably be known by then.

4 doors, room for the family, space for hauling cargo, able to go where you want to go and robust. Not fancy, but has all the functionality you need -- and maybe some fancy wheels -- and I suspect a whole lot more of Carnival's guests have pickup trucks than PT Cruisers.

I'm bothered by loud music when you can't find a indoor lounge in which to have a quiet drink and some conversation. I'm hearing impaired, so background noise is always a problem, but I'd say that there are quite a few places onboard where the decibel level exceeds the OSHA 8 hour maximum (not that OSHA rules apply on a foreign-flagged cruiseship.)

Solved that problem last cruise with a balcony. Peace, quiet, and no fighting for a chair!