MBP&O2/O

Our 'abandonment' clearly shows all (remaining) staff left the ship, only to return the following morning to further assess the situation. The Master was, I am told, the last off.

When I came ashore I got heavily involved in Contingency and Emergency Planning, especially with the Emergency Services. We always tried to make our training as realistic and interesting as possible. We used sneaky tactics such as concealing a heater in the 'control room' and cranking up the heat ..... quiet rumbling explosion type noises over the PA ... turn up the bass and creating a vibration. In the debriefs the 'controllers' said it was frightening but they felt it was worthwhile and better than sitting bored in a lecture theatre. For those that were 'disinterested' we often played a tape of an Emergency call of a distressed person who was drowning, and subsequently died. It usually grabbed their attention. I managed a trip to London to visit the temporary mortuary set up after the London bombings. That was heartbreaking but the information that was passed on to trainees was another attention grabber. Sometimes of course it was the old horse to water syndrome.

A few months ago I contacted SS UK to ask for help with an IT issue. They had fiddled with something and merged two "my silversea" accounts and in essence I could not check details of our recently booked cruise. Entirely their fault. The helpful reply from my PCC was that SS would not assist me as I had used a travel agent and it was up to them to contact SS? Said PCC is now aware that I will not deal with her again!

I was on a ship that sank due, in the main, to a flooded engine room. The engine room alarm sounded at 1115 .... no other alarms were sounded at that time. I went to the bridge at 1150 with a view to recalculating my 'noon' sights as we had stopped. The captain was on the bridge and when he saw me he told me to get a Dead Reckoning position and give it to the Radio Officer as we were sinking. Thirty five minutes from the initial alarm to knowing the ship was effectively lost! By 1230 we had lost all power. We were a 'dead ship'. Our plan of action was to muster all crew members to a place of safety, and literally play it by ear. We were well of the beaten track and had to wait for help and hope that we kept afloat until the help arrived. The next day, the assistance arrived and an attempt was made to transfer all non essential crew and officers wives to the ship which had come to assist. Having completed this, the lifeboat was to return to the ship and be used again, if necessary, to evacuate the remainder of the crew who would stay on board whilst awaiting a salvage tug to arrive. The big fly in the ointment was that we only had that one lifeboat as the three others had been wrecked - on the davits - due to the appalling weather conditions, and those weather conditions caused the lifeboat to flounder and fill with water, and it could not return to the Mother Ship 🙂 in fact it never reached the rescue ship so we were sat in a flooded boat for a considerable amount of time. The point is that the safety and preservation of life was paramount and all efforts were made to ensure this happened. All decisions are made with the information available at that time. Nothing is constant and each ship will have different circumstances to contend with. The master, I am told, was last off the ship.

I am trying to transfer all my own logs from my time at sea. It is a nightmare🙂 I am using Excel, with separate sheets for Ship and Crew details. Trip dates with sea time. Port to Port details with distances. Total count of all ports and how many times each has been visited. Total distance travelled. So far I am up to 200 + visited ports, over 100 different ones, with Aden as the most visited surprisingly? I am finding ports i never remembered visiting😄 Longest trip 322 days. Plenty more to go at ...

Got it in one! My Nikons are almost 50 years old and we're purchased from a Nikon shop in Kobe. They cost me an arm and a leg but worth every penny.

When at sea,, the supplied bridge binoculars were like looking through a beer glass😄 Most watchkeeping officers bought there own and set them up accordingly. There was an unwritten rule that no one would use them. I bought a pair of Nikon 7x50 which was the best for what we needed them for. That was longer ago than I care to remember but they are still going strong. Quality binoculars. I also have a small pair of 10 x 40 but they are not in the same league. My sextant used a Tamaya 7 x 50 monocular which was excellent for working with stars, but not much use for general purpose use.

You live in Manchester so you can fly from there to Rome for a reasonable amount of money. Spend several days in Rome. Then take the train to Florence. That gives you time to see both cities without rushing around. That is what we did for Florence ... flights plus hotel for three nights was £200 more that the ships cheapest excursion. Rome was similar ... budget airline, direct flight, half decent hotel. Plenty of decent and inexpensive eateries in both cities.

Nobody panicked on our incident. Many were annoyed as the incident started just before lunch so that was cancelled, and within two hours we had zero power and no galley so no hot food.

I have just come back from Florence. We went early March and it was heaving. 2hr queues for the Uffizi! You mention dates around peak season to if you go it will be horrendously busy.Florence is reasonably compact which exaggerates the crowds but if you know what you want to see you can plan accordingly. Bear in mind the journey times to and from Livorno will eat into your day.

Yes .. on a merchant ship .. we sank🙂

Seriously I would rather not go than fly via Miami again. Awful experience whenever I have been. Rude and unhelpful staff who seemed not to be able to cope with the number of passengers. I fancy the Dublin option but flying from NCL means an overnight there, unless schedules change.

The first company I worked for was flying people all over the globe every week. At that time they has 100+ ships so crew members were changing all the time. They got fed up with using a third party so they bought out a small travel agent and installed them in head office next to the personnel offices. So yes it could be done, in theory. Present a good business plan to your boss and see what happens.

I agree with you. Last SS we had a meet and greet with the butler, and after pointing out ... quite nicely that I had more sea time than him, I suggested he went and looked after Mr & Mrs Demanding and I would seek him out if I needed him🙂 He indicated his understanding....with big grin. The one before that was 'intrusive' ...opening drawers to find and clean specs etc. We had to have words🙂 I have only used the butler once .. a very early breakfast for a stupid-o'clock excursion😒

Have a look at the first few pages on this forum. There is an abundance of advice and information there. Everything from weather to route to clothing.

Unless you watched the series Benidorm 😁😁

Post cruise: Our last one was Seabourn. Kicked off at 0830 for a flight at 1800, which was the only flight of the day. The only available excursion was $250pp for three hours. As it was DIY flights we had no options. As an aside the flight was $1000pp cheaper than SB offered.

John Bull. I agree with you. Is it under the Package Holiday Regs or similar? They must have a valid excuse ... sorry a valid reason .. to make " a significant change. If they don't then you can claim a refund. Minefield area🙂 I sympathise with the OP ... we have one booked for November and it was booked purely on the itinerary. If they mess about with it I will be seriously dischuffed!

Interesting comment about the staff. We returned from an SB cruise a few months ago and found the same problem with them🙂 The highlight was asking someone behind the bar for a drink only to be told the bar was closed, so if I wanted a drink i could go down to the pool bar and fetch it myself .... from two decks down and at the other end of the ship. It would have then been served in plastic glasses and probably been watered down by the the time I had struggled back with two glasses as it was raining heavily at the time.

FB can prove useful with the private groups. With public groups it is a matter of using common sense. Idiots and WUM's will post on FB and some people will believe without question😄 I would also suggest that there are some very VERY vociferous people on CC who will defend their beloved cruise line to the death 😏 and accept no criticism whatsoever.

The last few flights we have done have been classified as 'multistop'. Fly to destination 'A' and home from 'B'. I researched Google Flights and found what I wanted and passed the details to my TA.

I would have thought, that with the crowds, a walking tour could prove frustrating at best? Not something I would entertain. As stated earlier, tube and bus will get you everywhere.🙂

Wait until the start changing the ships names😁 Aura of the Silver Ray? Magic of the Silver Spirit? Poetry of the Silver Muse? The list could be endless. Of course there will be a small price increase to pay for this but hey ho the esteemed guests will oblige. If it is of any consolation I was talking to a manager in a local supermarket .. part of a chain, and he said their corporate head office was well aware that customers did not like the way they did things but that was the way they chose to and that was the way it would stay.

Silversea have a few that fit your criteria. However, recent reports are somewhat conflicting with quite a few people saying a drop in standards is happening. We have one booked in the Med for an off season November cruise .... 10 nights visiting Italy , Sicily, Malta, and Spain. We avoided Croatia but there were plenty covering that area. The pricing structure needs good research as to what floats your boat. A good TA would be worth their weight in gold.

600/700 or less ..... nothing bigger than 12000 Age immaterial. Adopted the same policy when at sea. Always accepted the smallest 'deep sea, non UK / European coast' ship I was offered.