chengkp75

You have to remove your glasses for passport photos as well. And, yes, this has to do with facial recognition.

I've read some articles from the California agencies dealing with service dogs, and their wording is very similar to the ADA. The animal must be trained to do a specific service for the disabled person, but that training can be performed either by the disabled person or a third party, and there are no standards that must be met for this training. As I've noted, I've seen stories of dogs that spontaneously learn to alert or signal, or guide a PTSD sufferer to a calmer setting. These are considered to be "trained" to do this function, and therefore allowed both under the ADA and California law. To the best of my knowledge, a state cannot pass a more restrictive law than the pertinent federal law.

Where do you draw the line of distinction? Suppose someone is new to a particular line, but has sailed 50 times on another line? Are they "new"? How do you segregate those required to attend the drill from those who aren't while trying to direct traffic at stairwells, etc. Sorry, it has to be all or nothing.

Sure, during the weekly fire and boat drill, crew will be sent to their stations at the stairwells and passageways, and to muster locations, but there will be no one to direct. The actual "herding of the cats" is what is needed to make the training realistic, and realistic training is what leads to "muscle memory" taking over from conscious thought in an emergency, overriding a crew member's natural self-preservation instinct.

I equate the new muster drill to "writing off" a lot more than first time cruisers, since the crew is deprived of realistic training, and things could go sideways real quickly. The old muster was beneficial to both passengers and crew.

Most countries require a pet passport when bringing any animal into the country. It takes the place of the previously required quarantine period.

What Andy is saying is that while in the US there is no requirement for a true service dog to have any documentation, or specialized training, in Canada, if a dog that a family discovers "signals" when their son's blood sugar is low, and declares that dog as a service dog (which under the ADA it is), were to try to travel in Canda, it would be considered an ESA, not a service dog.

Fortunately, it is not a popularity contest with the passengers, nor is feedback from the cruise lines important. The maritime safety experts on the various IMO committees are the ones who will decide if the old muster comes back

No, what you don't understand is that in order to be effective, training needs to be as realistic as possible "train as you would fight" is the saying. What the old muster drill provided was hands on training for the crew to learn to handle thousands of unwilling, and sometimes unruly guests. How/when could this be simulated? Take a day out of service for the ship, and hire a bunch of day labor to act as passengers? Have other crew act as passengers on a port day? You know, as well as I do, that that would not pass the "smell test", as the crowd reactions would be totally different than a cruise ship's "herd of cats". Getting passengers to muster in an orderly and safe manner is probably the most important training the crew can get, since muster is all about accountability, and not about boats, as accounting for everyone is the basis of cruise ship safety. Training for this in as realistic situation as possible, meaning thousands walking down stairs and passageways, and getting directed to their proper locations, is crucial to the training actually sticking in the crews' minds and becoming second nature when an emergency happens.

Cell signal from land towers generally drops off at about 10-15 miles offshore. You will be that far offshore most of the nights.

And the crew aren't learning anything in the new drill. I dread an actual emergency.

To the best of my knowledge, even those ships with a viewing room no longer open them.

I'm starting to suspect that this was a case similar to Texas, where only liquor with a state tax label on it (whether Michigan or Minnesota) can be sold while docked or within that state's waters, not a liquor licensing issue. Cruise ships get liquor that is "out of bond", meaning that no federal, state, or local liquor tax has been paid on it, and no import duty. Some states don't allow this out of bond liquor to be sold, and only liquor with a state tax seal on it can be sold, and the ship did not buy any of this taxed liquor.

First off, there is no package other than what a travel agent has cobbled together (unless you can show otherwise). As such, Cunard has no liability to accommodate passengers when they are not on Cunard ships. Could this cause problems for Cunard, if people cancel because they can't do the middle leg? Sure. Whose fault is that? The travel agent who sold the idea, not NCL's. That agent would likely find it difficult to make Cunard bookings in the future. Would the travel agent have problems? You betcha, but you know what? That travel agent should have disclosed the terms and agreements in the NCL ticket contract that state that NCL can cancel the cruise for any reason, and what, if any, compensation they will give for a cancelation. Otherwise, the travel agent is liable for selling a fraudulent product to their clients. NCL would have no liability to anyone, unless this was a contractual agreement between NCL and Cunard.

I have never heard of any foreign flag cruise ship needing a local liquor license in the US, whether docked or not. States can enforce the state liquor laws (not local ones) (especially if the vessel sails only within that state) on US flag vessels, but not foreign flag ships.

While it may be faster, unless the patient is ambulatory, and the seas outside the port are mirror calm, docking the ship is safer for the passenger, and probably presents less risk to the medical condition.

Anything magnetic would not likely be of value.

I think that the hull would be the only thing he catches

Has he ever traveled with this magnet before? Are you flying? If it is a rare earth magnet, he needs to check the restrictions on these magnets on airplanes.

And, since they have to make so much profit, is it wise for them to add to costs by making new port agreements, new agent contracts, finding new excursion and supply vendors, and at the same time alienating those vendors, suppliers, and governments where they currently cruise to? I don't think setting up a new itinerary including new ports is as simple as getting into your car and saying, "lets go to Florida instead of Michigan".

They can make a partial canal transit from the East because the Canal is a bigger draw than the Mexican Riviera. I know the lines dropped most of the Riviera years ago due to violence in the ports, and even if that has been cleared up, not sure there is a public perception that it has. Probably for one or two ships, but their fleet does not exclusively do longer cruises, nor do they want a reputation for higher prices than other lines, so I don't believe they rely entirely on the older demographic. Sure, they could do more Mexican ports, but can they fill the ships on a weekly basis doing this? I think their marketing department is smarter than both you and I put together on whether this is true or not, and since they don't do it, they have found it's not true. Just like all the folks looking for a repeal of the PVSA, the cruise lines have stated that they "don't see any benefit to the bottom line" if allowed to do these cruises, so they don't bother. Carnival started a one way cruise between Puerto Rico and the mainland US after PR got an exemption from PVSA (took 10 years of lobbying), but it only lasted less than two years due to low demand. There are many proposed itineraries that some might find interesting, but the cruise line is not about interesting, it is about making money, and if interesting doesn't make money, they go elsewhere.

That would not be real feasible, due to the nature of the canal. Either they would need to get special permission from the Canal Authority to turn the ship around between the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks (and I'm not sure that is feasible), and schedule the two lockings at Miraflores one right after the other, or they would need to transit all the way to the Gatun Lake anchorage, await traffic, and then return down the cut and the two locks. This second option would be traveling 90% of the canal both ways, and would likely be charged as two transits. From San Diego to Seattle would add about 3 days each way, without port stops, so you would be talking about a 14 day minimum cruise. The cruise lines know that there is a different demographic for cruises longer than 7 days, and the market share drops considerably. And, with that increase in size comes an increase in distance between ports, therefore more sailing time, longer cruises (with the diminished demographic) and more fuel costs, so costlier cruises. Are there "do-able" itineraries out there that aren't being done? Sure. Can the cruise lines sell enough tickets to make them profitable? Likely their marketing department has looked at what has shown interest, through focus groups, etc, and have decided they won't make money.

Lat to this party, but: Below the passenger decks, below the waterline, the ship is divided into watertight compartments. The ship is designed to be able to survive flooding of two adjacent watertight compartments and stay afloat. These watertight compartments (probably 10-15 on a ship this size), have doors at all the decks (most likely 3 decks) to allow traffic to pass through them while in port. The doors are closed the entire time the ship is at sea, unless the bridge gives an okay for a short term opening (the engineers pass through them all the time, opening and closing each time, or the provisions staff needs something from one of the walk in coolers). These doors are closed by hydraulics, and the hydraulics jam the door into a wedge shaped jam, which provides a watertight seal of the door. The automatic feature of these doors is that one switch on the bridge will close all the doors on the ship, and they cannot be overridden. You are conflating the "automatic fire doors" with the "automatic watertight doors". The fire doors in the passenger areas are "fire tight", but not "watertight". And, I don't know where you read this about ships not checking the operation of the doors, but they are tested every crew fire drill, which is weekly. So much for the vaunted Kevin Sheehan management.

Someone's anecdotal example of having brought one onboard is not a guarantee that it is allowed, especially as it is specifically called out as prohibited.

You can't just plug a cruise ship into an outlet for "shore power". A cruise ship needs 10,000 volt supply, even sitting at the dock, as the AC chillers require this. The infrastructure to provide about 6-8 megawatts of 10kv power is in the several million dollar range, for the port, let alone whether or not the ship has spent the $1 million or so to have a shore power installation built. This is why there are very, very few cruise ship shore power stations outside of California, where the law mandates it, and they wouldn't be at an unused Navy dock.