We were on the Rome-Ft Lauderdale TA on 11/27/22 on the Island Princess. The cruise was listed as "14 Day Moroccan Passage", as one of the stops was in Casablanca, along with Cagliari, Malaga, and Madeira. Well, leaving Malaga, the Captain gets on the PA to tell us that we will not be stopping in Casablanca (nor Madeira) but will have to head south to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The reason? Two tropical depressions in our original path. In the Atlantic, in December, long after storm season was supposed to be over. Sailing through that, with the median passenger age somewhere in the eighties, would not have been a good idea. So our "Moroccan Passage" consisted of us passing Morocco right on by.
We kept getting pushed further and further to the south, almost to the equator. At those latitudes, weird things happen that don't normally occur on a cruise ship. The cold water temperature (which is pulled from the ocean and desalinated with no refrigeration) was 91 degrees Fahrenheit. (Thankfully enough we had a great room steward who kept us supplied with ice.) The pool was drained halfway for the duration of nine sea days because the choppiness of running at full speed (to make up the additional 2000 miles of the voyage) the entire time overflowed the pool and flooded the spa the first night.
Other known problems became worse. They told us the internet would be bad; it was virtually nonexistent. Our entertainment schedule had to be reworked due to missing the appointed pickups in Casablanca and Madeira.
And then the boat tried to kill us. We were enjoying a nice lunch in the MDR when a very large, very heavy piece of window trim (which apparently was being held on with Velcro) detached itself and nearly crashed on top of us, which if not for the drapes holding it up, would have. We have decided on a policy of never sailing on a ship older than 20 years again.
