chengkp75

I gather this question is about the heating system on the ship? Most of the air is recirculated through steam heaters, similar to what hot water baseboard heat is like in Mass. The fresh air is slightly cooled by the AC to drop the humidity, and then heated by steam heaters, much like a mini-split heat pump does in Mass. Relative humidity will be in the "normal" range.

As others have said, not sure exactly what you are looking for. For "cruising around America", I assume you mean the US? If so, there are virtually no cruises that go "around the US" and those that do are limited to US flag ships (very limited lines, very small ships). For "cruising around Canada", again these would be limited to Canadian flag ships (again, very limited lines, very small ships). As noted, there are cruises that combine Atlantic Canada with New England, but these are fall cruises, while your Alaska cruise would be a summer cruise. Also, "round trip" or "closed loop" cruises to Alaska are generally from Seattle, while one way Canada to Alaska or vice versa, must start in Canada (Vancouver), or end there, or both. These are legal issues, and beyond the cruise lines' or your control. Not sure what you mean by: Are you talking about flights from UK to Alaska? Then you would be starting with Alaska, not ending. Or are you thinking of starting the Alaska cruise in Vancouver and ending in Alaska, and flying home from Alaska? What may work would be to fly to California, take a California Coastal cruise from LA to Vancouver, then take another ship on a Vancouver to Alaska (either one way or round trip), then fly to NYC or Boston for a New England/Canada cruise (again, either round trip or one way).

Which countries are these? Both Philippines and Indonesia treat gratuities, received from the employer, as opposed to directly from the customer, as normal income. India does as well. The real fact as to why the cruise lines do this is two fold. One it allows them to advertise the absolute minimum fare they can. Two, it gives a "stick and carrot" approach to team building for good customer service. It ties them all into a team that shares the rewards of the DSC if they all perform well, and that suffers the consequences of one or two poor performers resulting in decreased DSC. It is a way to remove management responsibility from the lower level managers, by making the crew "team" police themselves. As for cruise lines avoiding taxes by having a DSC plan, the cruise lines pay almost no corporate tax anyway, so this argument does not pass the sniff test.

I think he was happy to get out of the CEO hotseat before any further environmental sanctions were place against him personally. He came within a whisker of criminal contempt.

For us it was grab your license and overtime sheet.

Here is RCI's link to kosher meals: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/aus/en/faq/questions/can-we-offer-kosher-meals As noted, all meals are prepared on shore in kosher kitchens, double sealed and frozen. They will serve them to you in original double sealed packaging with disposable flatware. This, however, is a no charge service. What you are referring to is the Yeshiva Week package, described here: https://cruisefever.net/royal-caribbean-offering-kosher-meals-for-yeshiva-week/

Actually, eight of those ten states' laws regarding surcharges are still on the books, but unenforceable due to court decisions. Currently, only Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico have surcharge bans. California's law was made unenforceable in mid-2021. And, merchants can get around a surcharge ban by using a "cash discount", which sets the credit card price as the baseline, and discounts the cash price, which is legal throughout the US. The case law is Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman, which went to SCOTUS, but was remanded to the 2nd Circuit Court, which subsequently found that posting a surcharge (as long as it is posted along with the cash price) is freedom of speech, and therefore allowable. This is not Wiki, it is Justia Law. The 9th Circuit Court affirmed that the law in California is unconstitutional: https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=ee9c154a-1221-4d88-9193-d84605a4e04b This was in 2018 in Italian Colors Restaurant v. Becerra

You were the one who brought up "commandeering" them. No one else said anything about it not being a contractual agreement.

Actually, it is the shallow water that caused the Concordia to roll over on her side. She touched bottom again, on one side (underwater ridge), and as the ship continued to fill with water, this "free surface" water went to the side that was not supported by the seabed, and caused the ship to roll over. In deep water, the ship would have sunk later than she did, upright, and down by the stern. Not sure what you mean here. There is required to be 125% lifesaving capacity (boats and rafts), for the maximum number of souls that are allowed on the ship.

The Queen Mary's certificate of documentation and certificate of registry (think of your car's title and registration) expired decades ago, and she is no longer a ship, nor registered in a foreign country. As BruceMuzz says, the crew's visa allows them to work on the ship, provided the ship does not move a passenger from one point in the US to another, or engage in a "voyage to nowhere". So much to try to unpack in this. Of course they cannot be "commandeered" since they are not owned in the US or registered there. Can they be used for this purpose? Yes, and have been in the past, if chartered for this between the government and the cruise line. What do you mean by "it is all under contract"? What do you mean by "just like casinos" they fall under different laws? The casinos on foreign cruise ships cannot open in US waters, whether the ship is sailing or not. Casino boats in the US, whether actually moving or landlocked like some in the Midwest, are registered in the US.

Condensed milk is up to 40-45% added sugar, so it is likely the sugar that is the lubricant. I didn't believe it myself until an old machinist showed me that it made a normal drill cut through stainless steel like a hot knife through butter. I have the same problem getting the steward to order the condensed milk, they always get evaporated, which is useless to us.

Lubricant, not solvent. Stainless steel is very tough to machine, and something, either the concentrated sugar or whatever acts as a cooling and lubricating agent. And, she gave you condensed milk, or evaporated milk. Condensed milk is the thick stuff that pours like cake batter.

Never had that, but our canned water used to be brutal on our hands. During monthly inspections, you had to smack the can smartly into your hand to get the proper "clack" of a vacuum sealed liquid. I do miss the condensed milk, as this was used as a lubricant for drilling stainless steel (don't ask me why it worked, but it sure did).

If you have notified Guest Services of your accessibility issues, during an actual muster, crew who will lead you to an elevator. Contrary to popular "knowledge" the elevators work, but are in "firefighter" mode, meaning they cannot be called to a floor from outside the elevator. There will be crew at the elevator who can call on the radio for the elevator to come to your deck and take you to the deck where the muster stations are.

No. Since they are not transporting passengers for hire (passenger being defined as a traveler on a public conveyance), there is no problem. The moment the ship moves, everything changes.

Yes, that person has been designated as Lifeboat Commander. The training he/she has received is training onboard. This is far different from a certified lifeboatman, who takes a 32 hour (4 day) onshore training, involving all aspects of lifeboats, including launching and retrieving. This is on top of a "Basic Safety Training" course of 40 hours ashore (lifesaving and firefighting), which again, while the USCG requires this BST for every crewmember, SOLAS only requires it for deck and engine personnel. While, over time, the foreign flag cruise ship lifeboat crew will become competent in releasing the boat and driving it away, they never get any training in actually handling a boatful of people (kind of like the new muster drill, where the crew never experience herding passengers). Again, the crew will do their best, but without the proper training, and actual real life experience, you never know whether they will succeed or not.

Unfortunately, as any first responder will confirm, regardless of the amount of training you receive, you never know whether you will run into the fire, or from the fire. Until you are faced with the beast for real, you won't know. This is why I feel that the mandated firefighting training (that USCG imposes on every crew member on a US passenger vessel, but that SOLAS only requires for the deck and engine department personnel) is so important. You will actually put on full "bunker gear" (coat, boots, hat, self-contained breathing apparatus, about 40 lbs of equipment), and go into a room to fight an actual fire. As part of SCTW mandated training, this guy had to, at the age of 65 don all this equipment, stand in a burning room and fight the fire, all the while breathing through a compressed air mask. I had to do this, even though I was going to retire within 7 months, since my training anniversary had come due. Again, unfortunately, there was nothing in Schettino's history that would have indicated that he would act this way.

The Captain won't be on the last lifeboat, but the last life raft. Very few of the crew will leave the ship with the passengers, as their abandon ship stations are typically right under the lifeboats, where the rafts are located, so until the boats and passengers leave, there isn't room for the crew to muster. Besides, as I"ve said, when the passengers evacuate, the crew are still at emergency stations fighting the emergency.

46 years as a merchant ship's engineer, close to 40 as Chief Engineer. One year retired. As noted in the video, people are sitting on the storage lockers, most won't even know they are there until the crew asks people to move to access them. Nope. Not every boat even has a certified lifeboatman in it. When the passengers board the boats and leave the ship, the only crew that leave are the 3 (150 man boat) or 16 (370 man boat) that are assigned as crew. The remainder of the crew will still be at their emergency stations, fighting the emergency. Only once the passengers have evacuated the ship, and there is no more hope, will the Captain actually signal "abandon ship" (no, the signal for passenger muster is not "abandon ship" but "fire and general emergency"), and the crew will then report to their abandon ship stations. So, when you are in the boats, the officers will be busy trying to save the ship. Each ship is required to have a statutory number of "certified lifeboatmen" (specially trained to handle the boats). These are typically members of the deck and engine departments, who are professional mariners, and are required to have this training. However, their skills as mariners also makes them valuable for emergency duties, so they are almost never assigned to be crew for the passenger lifeboats. The lifeboat crews are generally trained onboard the ship in their lifeboat duties. The boat will have an EPIRB (emergency position indicating radio beacon) that will transmit the ship's name and location to search and rescue satellites, which then beams it to governmental rescue agencies for response. But this is only transmission, there is no reception back to the boat. Some of the boats will have an emergency radio, but this is VHF radio, which is "line of sight" and meant to coordinate between an on-site rescue vessel and the boat, so no, people won't know how far away help is, until the rescuers can see you. Every lifeboat on a passenger vessel must be launched once a month. So, they can't just do one, each boat has to be launched monthly, and this is why the ship docks with a different side to the pier in some ports, to allow the boats on each side to be offshore and possible to launch. Lifeboats are designed to be simple and safe for one thing: to load passengers, lower and release from the ship ONCE. In order to make this possible, the actions needed to retrieve the boat are difficult and dangerous, and the cause of many crew injuries and deaths. The lifeboats on cruise ships are technically "semi-enclosed" boats, since the covers and doors are not watertight. Cargo ships tend to have "fully enclosed" boats, that are capable of righting themselves if rolled completely over in seas. The small boats you mention are "fast rescue boats" and are indeed for man overboard. The use of these craft is also extremely dangerous for the 3 person crew. Sorry to be blunt, but these are the realities of life at sea.

There used to be a requirement for condensed milk in the boats as well. However, this was commercial Carnation milk, in normal steel cans, which would tend to rust over the 5 years of expected shelf life of boat rations, so they needed to be changed out frequently, as they leaked and made a mess. Some ships resorted to dipping the cans in hot wax to provide a seal against the sea air. They eventually decided that the protein bars were a better source of protein than the milk.

Most things published on Walker's site are slanted to make his viewpoint of casting the cruise lines as villians, since he makes his living suing them. Long before the Oasis of the Seas, not all souls onboard a cruise ship were allocated to a lifeboat. Even on a smaller ship like the Norwegian Sky (1900 pax double occupancy), the only crew assigned to lifeboats were the three crew members who formed the boat's crew. So, with 12 lifeboats, only 36 crew would be in those boats. But, the 150 person capacity of each boat provided 1764 passenger seats in the boats, which is the ship's maximum capacity. The crew were all assigned to liferafts. Just note that some of the older Princess ships use the MES (Marine Evacuation System, or chute and rafts) for passengers above the double occupancy figure, so singling out the larger ships is not justified. Mr. Walker places himself as an "expert" in marine evacuations, over those whose job it is to design equipment for these (both the manufacturers of the equipment, and the safety experts from around the world, that have approved the equipment used on cruise ships through the IMO. Mr. Walker says that RCI's press release shows women and children using the evacuation chutes, but does not bother to explain that this is a stock drawing from the manufacturer, who provides this equipment not only for cruise ships, but these are commonly used on large ferries around the world, where lifeboats are not even required, just rafts, and this method has been shown to be a better and faster way to evacuate by raft than older methods. SOLAS, the international convention that regulates ship safety, and to which the US is signatory (and therefore has passed the terms of SOLAS into US law) requires that there be capacity in lifeboats and rafts of 125% of the total number of passengers and crew onboard. It requires that lifeboats make up 75% of that capacity (37.5% on each side), and the balance in rafts (for passenger vessels, the rafts are either davit launched or MES, to keep from having people have to get into the water to use the raft). This is the law, and has been since 1980 when SOLAS came into force, which is long before the Oasis of the Seas, that Mr. Walker picks on, was even thought of. So, use of rafts has long been an accepted form of lifesaving, and one wonders why Mr. Walker just now seems to think they are not safe. Are life rafts "inferior" types of lifeboats? Not really. I'm one who has used both, in the ocean, and neither is "fun" or "comfortable", but when you are in them, it is a matter of life or death, so those concepts are totally irrelevant. As part of a survival training course I took many years ago in Canada, the "final exam" was to spend 4 hours in a life raft at sea off of Halifax (in March, but that is another topic), and one of the main reasons for this was to show just how long 4 hours in a raft would seem. While a week in a lifeboat would be improbable, a couple of days would not. If the weather was not good, the powers that be would decide to leave you in the boat until conditions improve. Trying to move people from small boats in the open ocean is a recipe for massive injuries and loss of life. One thing I didn't mention about the water and rations is that you do not get any water for 24 hours, and no rations for 48-72 hours, so this stretches the amount further.

Triage is always part of any emergency. Unfortunately, despite all the training in the world, you never know in a real emergency whether the trained crew will "run into the fire" or "run from the fire". But, this is why you "train as you would fight", meaning try for as realistic training as possible, so that "muscle memory" takes over and guides the crew to do their duty.

Okay, a little reality about lifeboats and survival at sea. While its true that government agencies will know there is a disaster, and where, they are not necessarily "already coming for you" and rescue can be days away. While boats are equipped with EPIRB's to show position to satellites, they have limited battery life, so will not be active all the time. Other "find me" devices are short range, designed for when aircraft or vessels are almost within visual distance. This is what the bilge pump is for. Trust me, you will get barfed on. Lifeboat seating is 18" wide, 24" from front of knee to back of butt, and designed for a 185 lb person. Smaller ships have the traditional 150 person lifeboat. The largest ships like Oasis have lifeboats with a capacity of 370 persons. Just realize that transferring passengers from a lifeboat to a ship is inherently dangerous, and will not be contemplated unless conditions are absolutely perfect. Most cargo ships are not designed to load passengers from a boat (you would be climbing up a pilot ladder that is about 3-4 times as high as the ones the pilots use on cruise ships), so you would be waiting for Naval or Coast Guard vessels. Even other cruise vessels would only open their tender ports in very, very calm seas, and there is no other way to do this. Removal from a lifeboat by helicopter with the semi-enclosed boats used on cruise ships is even more dangerous than the Prinsendam rescue, and would be very time consuming.

500 ml/day is about the minimum water required to survive for about 2 weeks. Since I've only tried the survival bars in a non-emergency situation, I can't say how they would effect your water requirement. But, remember, you are in a life or death situation in a lifeboat, comfort or dry mouth is not considered.

They are basically very dry protein bars, about 2400 calories per person. While the person in that video said it was supposed to last a week, it is really about 3 days. 800 calories/day is a survival diet for short durations. Lifeboat rations used to be small granola bars, malted milk balls, and Chuckles. The rations expire every 5 years, and we used to share out the malted milk balls and Chuckles, but these new protein bars are just nasty, and no one wants them. The daily ration is about the size of your finger.