pdmlynek

On 2/12/2023 at 7:31 PM, poocher said:

Vitamins & supplements are OTC meds, really no different from Tylenol or pepto.  Take them any way you want.  Prescription medication should be in original containers ESPECIALLY if they are controlled substances.  Many will say not necessary but do you want to take the chance some officious type confiscates your prescription meds?

Your advice that OTC do not have to be on labeled containers whereas Rx do does not make sense. How would some officious type know what types of pills in unlabeled container are? The pills my be OTC, Rx, or illegal pills. They just don't know. 

On 2/12/2023 at 7:22 PM, c-leg5 said:

Is this for a US cruise?

 

I always carry an extra 2 weeks at least and generally a month, depends on your comfort level.

Why? I usually take only what I need. I typically just throw my Rx away the last day away from home.

21 hours ago, doones2 said:

I would like to know where to purchase the magnetic signs for our cabin door.  I am looking for something to do with my grandsons graduation from college.  I have no idea where to find them.

Go to Amazon and search for refrigerator magnets with your grandson's college. 

We put these on our doors simply because we could recognize our cabins easily after an evening of drinking. We had state flags, college mascots, etc. 

They were business card sized so that they weren't garish, and had no personal information on them.

4 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

And yet scientists in controlled laboratory conditions could not replicate the fire, as pointed out earlier in this thread.

I am a Ph.D. scientist, who has done product development for a large polymer ingredient supplier.  My job was to develop better platics.  The people on our team who were studying the effects of flame retardants, have always been frustrated how incredibly difficult it is to get reliable data from methods that tries to predict fire retardancy. Fire science is not like normal, deterministic science that we are used to.  It is much more stochastic, much more irreproducable. Thus, I am not at all surprised that in controlled conditioned the fire could not be replicated. 

The discrepency between the fire and the test has been addressed in MAIB Report https://assets.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/media/547c706ae5274a4290000097/Star_Princess.pdf, section 2.3.2: 
"Although the ignition of towelling material from Star Princess by a lighted cigarette end was not reproduced during the BRE tests (Annex E), possibly due to the small scale of the samples used and the difficulty in simulating the ambient conditions experienced on 23 March, other towelling samples did ignite in this manner." 

To me, this makes sense.

But if you think that there is a better explanation for the cause of the fire that the investigators have not considered, I am all ears.

On 8/27/2022 at 6:20 AM, kaisatsu said:

It was actually weather and ice more than COVID. We were just in front of a particularly large storm, so the sea conditions made it too difficult to land in several places.

 

Once that weather system had passed, we had a four-day stretch to sail from the Ross Sea to the peninsula, but the storm had moved a patch of ice into the path of the ship. Since we were well south of the Antarctic Circle, we had no satellite internet and couldn’t get updated reports. After two days we had gone back 50 nautical miles!

 

So we were behind schedule and due in port on a certain day. We cut our peninsula visit down to one day, but then the winds were against us, and they had to cut out that one day and head straight to port. We weren’t even sure we would make it on time.

 

We did make it, but due to the start of the pandemic Ushuaia wouldn’t let us disembark (despite having not been in contact with humans for 30 days). So we tacked on another 10 days sailing to Montevideo while a bunch of governments decided what to do with us.

 

Before the pandemic, we had managed a 15-minute helicopter landing in the Dry Valleys, and a 30-minute visit to Cape Evans to visit Scott’s Hut (since we were traveling with the administration of the Scott Polar Research Center and Scott’s granddaughter). That was the entirety of the Antarctic landings we managed, and after Cape Evans we never set foot off the ship (no small boat cruising or heli flights) for the 25 days it took us to get to Ushuaia and then on to Montevideo.

 

Not the trip we were expecting, but the one we got! (If it hadn’t been so incredibly expensive, I would have no regrets!)

Thank you for the very nice report!

On 8/2/2022 at 4:35 PM, kaisatsu said:

(Disclaimer: None of my trips have been drive-bys, but my last one involved only 45 minutes ashore in Antarctica, followed by 25 days without setting foot off the ship....

Wait.  This suggests that you were in Antarctica in an expedition clas ship for about a month, yet you were off the ship only once?  Am I reading that correctly?  If so, is that pretty normal?

6 hours ago, riffatsea said:

Noone checks if you know how to paddle a kayak

You don't have to roll!!

I've done it from Skagway

First a short boat ride ,walk then kayak to a glacier in calm water

No rapids!

Wow!  That is so weird!  Given how incredibly safety concious anything about a cruise is, I am pretty shocked that they let people do that.

The reason that I write the above is that I am pretty comfortable being under water, but when I started kayaking, and was given instructions on how to get out of a flipped over kayak (head forward, hands front to pop the skirt, hands back to push off the kayak, do a forward somersault out, pulling your legs out), it was still pretty scary getting out for real the first time. It was nothing that I've ever experienced before -- being trapped upside down, with head hanging down, leg immobolized, flailing hands doing nothing, is pretty panic-worthy.  And that was under controlled conditions, in warm water, and I was all mentally ready for it.  Now, after kayaking for several years, I could get out of a rolled kayak in my sleep (I never did manage to learn how to upright, despite many weeks of lessons and attempts over the years).  

I cannot imagine how a person who has never been kayaking, flips over unexpectedly due to own carelessness, while wearing bulky clothes, in 4 C water, is expected to self recover. I would think that relatively few novice kayakers would be able to self rescue, and would drown very easily.  And even if they do get out of the kayak, then what?  Swim ashore?  Wait for a rescue boat?  If a person survives the shock and does not drown while exiting the sea kayak, surely he'll be dead within 10 min of hypothermia. 

But I suspect that I am wrong, and that these kayak trips are indeed safe.  I just can't figure where I am wrong.  

2 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

From the MAIB report (the horse's mouth) on the Star Princess:

 

From the Synopsis:  "It was probably caused by a discarded cigarette"

 

From the Analysis:  "it is considered that the most likely source of ignition was a discarded cigarette end."

"the ignition of towelling material from Star Princess by a lighted cigarette end was not reproduced during the BRE tests"

 

From the Conclusions:  "probably ignited by a cigarette end"

 

So, don't know what you've seen published, but the official report of the incident, as assisted by, and in concurrence with the USCG and US NTSB, uses very conditional language.

I've read the same report.

Do you understand what this report says?  The authors are saying, translated into a layman language: yeah, a tossed cigarette caused the fire.

Why do you think that all the trade publications and mass media interpreted this way?

Arguing that the report is not clear what caused the fire is like arguing about gravity, because it is merely a "gravitational theory".  

Decision makers have to make decision on incomplete data.  The decision makers at Princess and their holders had to make a decision on whether to ban smoking on balconies or not; whether the conclusion about the cause of fire used conditional language or definate language is secondary.

But if you have some sort of data that the investigators did not, that puts the cigarette theory in question, and think that it was something else, I am open to be corrected.

On 2/14/2023 at 10:57 AM, mikem1977 said:

If disembarkation is truly at 7:30 am and our flight is at 10:20 am, what is the likelihood that we will make our flight? 

I agree with others: this would be tough to do.  

It is likely that if everything works smoothly, you'll be able to make it.  The problem is that you are traveling in Greece; things go wrong much more frequently than what you may be used to.  You simply have no safety margin.  

2 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I don't know why Princess banned smoking on balcanies but you are wrong that investigators determined it was caused by a cigarette. There was speculation to that effect but the cause was never factually determined. 

I understand what you are saying, but that is not what the reports state.  Yes, they literally state that they do not have proof, but every knowledgeable person understands after reading a reports that it is clear that a thrown cigarette started the fire.  As a PhD scientist, many of my reports contained similar language.  As an attorney, much of my correspondence to clients is also written similarly. 

It is clear to me, that the reports on the fire state that it was a tossed lit cigarette.  Not an electrical short.  Not arson.  Not anything else.  Cigarettes tossed from higher balconies has been known to be a problem. 

If you have some sort of better explanation, or access to superior information than what the investigators had access to, I am prepared to listen.

On 2/13/2023 at 10:24 PM, Jenig0013 said:

Hi all - majestic Princess to Alaska in May with our 4yo. Very excited. Has anyone does a kayaking trip with a kid? Have been kayaking with him before. We will probably leave him on ship for Tracey Arm excursion but would like to not leave him for all of them. Open to other family friendly suggestions.

How do excursions in kayaks work, anyway?  Do people need some of certification to do this?  Do they conduct a test to demonstrate that you can roll a kayak? 

6 hours ago, Cruzaholic41 said:

You really need to stop making stuff up. Princess did not ban smoking on balconies because of a fire that occurred 6 years prior and that was never proven to be because of smoking. Balcony smoking was banned on Princess and most other lines because it was one of the most common complaints made by passengers in post cruise surveys. 

I am not making stuff up.  I was not on board of the ship when it caught fire, nor did I participate in the investigation.  I thus rely on what was published.  A few points:

(1) What was published is that a thrown cigarette was tossed onto a balcony caused the fire.  I am just going based on what the investigators found.  While various reports use adjectives like "allegedly", or "likely", or "suspected", it is clear that for all purposes it has been determined that it was a cigarette, and not arson or electrical fire, or like.  We've debated this point on this website ad nauseum.  

If you have a better explanation, and have superior information to what investigators into the incident had, I am prepared to listen.

(2) Pretty much all of the trade publications and news organizations see a link between the Star Princess fire and the banning of smoking six years later.  Again, I am going by what is published.

If you have an explanation why all the publications are wrong, and have some evidence that why Princess banned smoking on balconies is unrelated to the fire, again, I am prepared to listen. 

1 hour ago, ldubs said:

 

Don't most states still issue DL's that are not real IDs?  Not to confuse with facts, but there are no states out of compliance with "REAL ID laws".   Real ID is not required until May 2025.  Those few states that currently do not issue Real IDs state that they will be in compliance by the deadline.  

 

The saga of the how the implementation of the provisions of REAL ID act has been continuously kicked down the road is well known.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act#Implementation . It seems pretty weird to me that it would be so difficult to implement it, but maybe there are some legitimate reasons.

My point is that it is taking many, many years to implement REAL ID.  Heck, implementation of the metric system in the US has taken 50 years, and we are not getting any closer to adopting it, then we were in 1979.

The reason why I wrote about the long time that it takes for some things to be implemented, is to illustrate the implementations of "no smoking on balconies" rule may have indeed taken 6 years after the 2006 Star Princess fire.  Based on what I've read, there appears to be a nexus between fire and he ban on smoking on balconies.

1 hour ago, gerryuk said:

You could also argue that it would be a kindness for cruise lines to ban alcohol to save peoples livers. Alcohol causes far more problems than smoking has ever done, but it is not happening.  

😄😄😄

You are correct, of course. 

Even worse than that is overeating. Overeating and eating unhealthy foods leads to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc. Heart disease is the number killer. If the cruise lines should ban smoking because of health concerns, then they should ban drinking, fatty foods, large portions, etc.😄😄😄

The cruise lines should also make people exercise by banning the use of elevators, not providing the bus shuttles at ports, etc. 😄😄

Finally, we should just cruise lines, because they pollute, are harmful to the environment, waste people's money, are unhealthy way of spending one's time, etc.  😄😄😄

On 1/29/2023 at 2:55 PM, kaisatsu said:

One thing that has changed is the hot pools. Around 2011 IAATO realized that digging out the beach pools was disruptive to the local environment and they changed their guidelines to discourage the practice.

...

I've heard of that as well, and it seems really silly.  Digging up a beach pool, taking a dozen square meters to the depth of half a meter in an island with a diameter of 12 km, a single tiny island within millions of square kilometers, is not going to be noticable.  Who cares?  Just exactly what is IAATO trying to achieve?

I'd say that the tens of thousand of penguins that poop on this island do millions of times more damage to the loal environment, and IAATO doesn't go after the penguins.  Neither does IAATO go after the volcano which has over the past tens of thousands of years erupted several times, wiping out all the local population, and releasing 30 cubic km of magma.

Trying to protect the environment by prevent beach pools, is akin to trying to prevent the use of wind energy, because it slows down the rotation of the Earth, making days longer.

On 12/12/2022 at 12:00 AM, Parachute07 said:

...

I completely understand that it is impossible to predict sea conditions, I'm just hoping that someone here is familiar enough with it to help me make a more educated decision rather than winging it thinking "It'll probably be fine". ...  

The above well-intentioned query generated these responses: 

On 12/12/2022 at 9:01 AM, scottjeanne said:

No one here is going to be able to give you a definitive answer.  We went to Antarctica last February/March.  The first Drake Passage was very rough.  The return was fine. ...

On 12/12/2022 at 3:40 PM, kaisatsu said:

Sea conditions in the Drake Passage vary more from day to day than from month to month. You will experience anything from a perfectly calm sea with no waves to ...the opposite.

 

On my first Drake crossing, we experienced a perfectly calm Drake Lake with virtually no waves at all. My most recent crossing was completely the opposite. 

On 12/12/2022 at 11:41 PM, donaldsc said:

I am going to give you the same answer that everyone else gave you.  It depends.  When we did our trip we had reasonable seas going over and mostly reasonable seas coming back.  Then when we got close to Cape Horn we hit a storm w more than 70 mph winds and high seas. ...

I totally understand that this very common question is met with the standard answer that it is unpredictable, and go into "Drake lake" and "Drake shake" explanations, etc.

However, I believe that such answers are unsatisfactory.  Altough it may be correct that noone can predict when they book what the weather will be on the Drake Passage at the time of the cruise, surely there is enough data gathered over the years to give an expected value, or a distribution curve of the expected weather. 

Each of us understands that when you roll a fair die, to borrow a frequently used analogy, nobody can predict what the result will be.  But each of us would advise a novice to take a 1:10 payout gamble, and to avoid a 1:3 payout.  Why?  Because we understand that there is a 1 in 6 chance that a certain number will be thrown.

Likewise, I am confident that there is a database which lists how many days in a particular month the Drake exhibits each of the WMO Sea States.  Determining the average Sea State and standard deviation thereof, or a WMO Sea State population graph would help @Parachute07 and others to determine whether to make the gamble or not.

On 10/20/2022 at 8:57 PM, K32682 said:

Formal nights are nonsense. I have no desire to play childish dress-up games on a cruise or relive my high school prom. 

 

Well, for some cruises that I took a formal night was something that we looked forward to, on other cruises we had no interest in formal nights. 

Different strokes for same folks. And, different strokes for different folks.

On 10/22/2022 at 1:08 PM, pete_coach said:

I cannot understand some cruisers obsession with who the Captain is. Do they also care who  is flying their plane to the departure port??

Or who the Cruise director is? Why?

Or the Hotel manager is? Again why??

I agree.

I think that knowing people in charge is meant to be a flex. It makes the people seem more connected, more serious. 

But I am ready to be corrected. 

On 10/20/2022 at 8:57 PM, K32682 said:

Shared dining with strangers is a non-starter. I have more than a sufficient number of friends and I have no interest in sharing my table or my life story with you. 

I agree with you. That is because in your country sharing a restaurant table is unheard of. Every party gets its own table. 

But in many countries, you simply sit where there is room. It seemed strange when I came to the US that you had people waiting in front of a restaurant when there we're perfectly good seats at tables that were not full.

On 10/22/2022 at 6:20 PM, Hlitner said:

DW and I actually prefer cabins forward of the forward elevators.

...

Forward of the forward elevators you have much less foot traffic since most of the eating venues are aft.  There are also very few major mechanical systems on the forward quarter of the ship (with the exception of the bow thrusters) so we generally find the forward cabins very quiet ...

Thank you for this contribution. This is very helpful to us.

9 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

According to Sir Google Princess banned balcony smoking in 2012. 6 years after Star Princess.

Well, it may have taken that long to put into place the necessary protocols to ban smoking on balconies. 

Just take a look at the implementation of security measures after the events of 11 Sep 2001. Many recommendations have been agreed to, yet, 22 yrs later, have not yet been implemented. For example, some US states still issue driver licenses that do not comply with REAL ID laws. 

2 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

Of course, the bottom line is:  not only does smoking represent a (possibly small, or unproven) safety hazard, it is an acknowledged health hazard - even to non-smokers who are near smokers.  Cruise lines might be well advised to ban it absolutely - in all areas.  While perhaps upsetting to some dedicated smokers, such action should be seen as a kindness if it helps them bite the bullet and just quit.  

Although I don't care for smoking (several family members who were heavy smokers died of lung cancer), I understand that there are people who enjoy it. To me, it is their choice. Trying to force my views, even if right, on them, forcing them to lead onto a path of quitting, seems overbearing and morally wrong. 

It is a no win situation anyway.

Smokers will still continue to go on cruises, and they will find ways to light up. And they may light up in places on the ship that are much more hazardous then a place that is dedicated by the cruise line to be a smoking area or a "cigar lounge". Banning smoking totally would be a poor decision because some smokers will break rules about smoking, and put the ship in greater danger.

On the other hand, those smokers who obey rules about no smoking, will be less likely to choose to cruise. Not only themselves, but their partners and their families will thus be less likely to cruise. By banning all smoking will cut a large portion of population (20%, 30%?) from cruising. That will lower the demand pressure, driving the prices down. 

On 2/8/2023 at 3:55 PM, Flatbush Flyer said:

“Control” of a booking?  LOL

When things go bad, the cruise line is pointing fingers at the TA, and the TA is pointing fingers at the cruise line.  It is just easier to deal with the cruise line directly.

16 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Which is why Hank (and I [for many years] and most airline crew) uses TravelPro luggage.

Duffel bag? ROTFL

AFAIK, Airline crews don't check lugage; they just use carryons.  

18 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

The guarantee is hardly “worthless” if it gets wheels put back on. (Loss of a wheel happens to be one of the most frequent damage suffered - so focusing on the contents being spilled is not really relevant).  In any event, the better made luggage is less likely to have that happen.

So if you were in the Navy and served on six ships, how did the repair of wheels on your luggage work if the wheels broke?  Did the luggage company sent your luggage back to your ship, or, if your wheels on your luggage broke, did you take it to the ship's machine shop to get it fixed?