Defender1158

I have taken a close look at the Maryland Department of Transportation Police radio traffic (analyzing public safety radio used to be a big part of my job). There were officers at both ends of the bridge, one moving traffic into one lane for the construction and the other just happened to be there. As soon as their dispatcher received a call from the Port Authority dispatcher reporting the ship approaching that lost steering control (the Port Authority dispatcher had received the warning directly from the pilot on the ship via handheld radio), both of these officers immediately stopped all traffic in both directions. There was then a discussion about the status of the construction crew still on the bridge. The officer holding the southbound traffic stated that he would head up on the bridge to contact the crew just as soon as another officer could arrive to relieve him from holding the traffic. Another officer was enroute, but did not arrive prior to the collapse. The officer at the southbound hold point had about 30 seconds between his commitment to head up the bridge and the actual collapse, which would not have been nearly enough time to get the crew off. In my opinion, the officer was absolutely correct in holding his assigned position until relieved in order to protect those persons he was responsible for. Of course, if the officer had headed up the bridge immediately, we would only have had one more fatality. Note that if you hear the radio traffic audio being broadcast by the media, the timing of the transmissions is not accurate. These transmissions were recorded by broadcastify.com, which in this case was a collection of individual voice transmissions streams played one after the other without the actual blank space between them. A total of 45 seconds is missing in the radio traffic being offered by the media versus the actual time from when the Police dispatcher alerted his units to block traffic and the collapse of the bridge.

I have been watching this gentleman for a while. He is a licensed merchant mariner and volunteer fire department captain. He does a very good job of explaining maritime issues and his background qualifies him to discuss serious incidents.

A large container ship has struck the Key Bridge just outside of Baltimore Harbor. The bridge has completely collapsed. Rescue operations are in progress. The ship is jammed up against the remaining bridge structure. The ship was outbound at the time of the collision and reportedly had a mechanical issue that took it out of the intended lane. There was a short period of warning before the collision that allowed bridge authorities to start holding vehicular traffic. The collision was at about 01:28 AM local time and there were workers on the bridge then. Vision of the Seas and Carnival Legend are both home ported in Baltimore. Both ships are outward bound now in the Atlantic, Vision to St Croix and Legend to Bimini. Their return to Baltimore may be impacted by this event, but it is far to early to know for certain.

The concierge lounge does not have windows. We were there for a 15 night TA last year. While the lounge is a bit small, and the drink options somewhat limited (though the wait staff would go elsewhere if you asked for something not on the shelf) we had a wonderful time there. The Diamond Lounge has great views and even an outside deck space. It was very crowded during our TA and I only used it during off-hours.

I had made a reservation, but there was no one to report it to. There were not enough guests to make finding a seat any problem. My only concern was if I had wanted wine or one of the extra cost items like lobster or fillet. I suppose I could have tackled one of the wait staff who were occasionally bussing tables or gone around the corner to the Sunset bar. One couple got upset about the lack of service and left in a huff, but everone else seemed okay. It was just a bit jarring not expecting the change.

On Anthem now, great cruise and fabulous crew. Only disappointment was a rain- out afternoon at Coco Cay. One thing to mention for you. Is a change to Solarium Bristo. In the past for dinner they had a buffet for appetizers and desert, but plate service for entrees. Now everything is buffet. When I arrived for a dinner reservation, there was no one at the podium. We all treated it like Windjammer, grab your plate and drinks, find a table and take care of yourself. There was some spotty waiter service eventually, but no one came by my table. The food selections were the same as always, and food quality was quite good. You could pick up all the entrees you wanted, which was good since they came in very small portions. Everyone ended up with stacks of small plates. Solarium Bistro remains a free venue, so I guess they have decided to reduce the overhead.

For those who are uncertain whether this is really happening, I was unable to check-in on the website yesterday. I had the following screen: There seemed to be no way to reach the website check-in function. I used the Android phone app to check-in. It went quickly and there were no real problems with it. I am expecting luggage tags to eventually come with the usual "View and print your documents" function that still appears on the website page. Couple of suggestions.... I took a selfie shot of myself using the phone app, but my DW was not immediately available. I did not want to wait while the early check-ins were grabbed up, so I brought up a good face shot jpeg of her on my desktop (I have used this same photo before when you could just upload to the website for check-in) and took a photo of the desktop image with my phone using the app. It seemed to work fine. I am old-fashioned enough to want a physical piece of paper available when checking in (please wait for me, my phone just died). While I can print from my phone, the Android print formatting options are quite limited. I just did an Android save-screen function to produce jpegs of our SetSail Passes, then transferred the jpegs to my desktop. I put them side-by-side into a simple MSWord landscape page, sized them optimally and printed them out. /Greg

Well, they made my DW a chocolate then a lavender martini, but those are not very high on the scale of "fancy". I do not know about Cosmos, but they were making most stock cocktails that were requested except for ones that required a blender.

We were in a GS on the recent Explorer TA from Miami to Rome. The DL on 14 is a great venue with floor to ceiling windows and an outdoor area just aft. On our cruise the DL was very crowded during the evening so we frequented the CL midships on 9 where the drinks did not count against our D+ vouchers. We did use the DL for coffee and breakfast tidbits and occasionally just to relax during the day. Evening snacks in the DL and CL are identical as are the coffee machines. The CL has no windows and is a bit small, but on our TA they moved Pinnacles to a dedicated venue in Dizzy's (Viking Crown) in front of the DL. The DL uses Dizzy's extensive bar, so you can get about anything you want, but the CL has its own limited set of liquors, though they are generally high-end. The CL staff was great, and would go elsewhere to get you something else if you really wanted it, but obviously that would slow everything down, so we stayed with the offerings on the shelf. The mood in the CL was very nice, and we all tried to mix up seating every night to make sure we had a chance meet and talk with everyone. We ended up in the CL just about every evening on our fifteen night TA. A JS does not qualify for the CL unless you are Pinnacle, and even then I have seen Pins moved to their own venue on several recent cruises. . /Greg

Received the following from the Suite Concierge for our TA on Explorer departing Sunday: Suite guests can enjoy Flexible Arrival which allows you the freedom to check-in up to one hour before or after your scheduled check-in time while the terminal is open. We will try to bring the ship to you in good shape.

Just a point of interest... During July of 1943, the Queen Mary carried 15,740 soldiers and 943 crew for a total of 16,683 souls on board as part of the World War II troop build-up prior to D-Day. Some of the soldiers were required to sleep on deck during the Trans-Atlantic crossing. This is generally recognized as the most persons transported on a single vessel.

Still not there, but I am actually on the 23Apr TA, not the 12Mar first resumed cruise out of Miami. The menus disappeared about the time the new MDR menus were announced.

I do not see them now, but I will try the uninstall/reinstall trick

Just by the way, the menus completely disappeared from the app for this cruise several weeks ago. This includes both specialties and MDR.

The new button shows up in the bottom of the "Upcoming Cruises" box for an eligible sailing once you sign in using the website. Mine just takes me to the Royal Up status page for the bids that I already submitted for an April cruise..