chengkp75

While this may be true of land toilets, with a vacuum toilet, there is an airflow that flows into the toilet, not a spray of water, and the water introduced into the toilet is at a much lower pressure than a land toilet. Just to clarify, the lid does not need to be down for the toilet to work, any more than the end of your vacuum cleaner needs to be closed off to suck cheerios off the floor. There is no "seal" when the toilet lid is down, you can witness this by closing the lid, flushing the toilet, and feeling the air flowing into the bathroom around the door jamb. The only real reason to close the lid on a vacuum toilet is to keep anything you may drop from going down the drain with the "product".

And, if I may quote from your linked article, and the statement by the USCG: "Regarding this Safety Alert, USCG sent a notice stating: “In our recent safety alert we referenced a “UL Marine 1449” standard. It has come to our attention that the SPD standard is UL 1449 and is not characterized as “marine.” An initial review has revealed many SPDs available on line advertised as UL Marine 1449 products." If you read UL 1449, it makes no mention of standards for use of surge protective devices in marine wiring systems. And, the USCG Safety Notice, which I have known about for years, conflates the problem of surge protector failure with the problem that US consumer based power strips only have single pole circuit breakers, and that given that the ship's circuit breaker for the cabin circuit, has a two pole breaker, an MOV in thermal runaway can get to that state with much less current than the circuit breaker is rated for.

And, if you look these up, they are not "consumer" power strips, and run in excess of $100 each. But, yes, they are safer than the consumer type surge suppressor power strips, in that they have a double pole breaker (because both legs are hot compared to ground, so you need to open both legs to prevent all current flow in the appliance, unlike land where "neutral" is the same as "ground"), and dual thermal fuses. Virtually no consumer surge suppressor has thermal fuses. What happens in the MOV semi-conductors in a surge suppressor is that the MOV provides a high resistance circuit between the hot lead and ground at all times (it doesn't shut off current flow from hot to ground, it only limits it severely by being a very high resistance. But, this resistance builds up heat in the MOV. If an MOV is rated for 120v, it can handle 120v power supplied to it indefinitely, and still be able to cool itself off and not fail. If, however, that MOV sees a higher voltage, say 1 million volts from a lightning strike, it will "open" (switch to a low resistance circuit) to allow the current to flow to ground, and can "survive" this if the surge is milliseconds or seconds long (higher the voltage, lower the time), before it heats up and fails. This overheating is called "thermal runaway", and is what causes the surge suppressor to catch fire. The problem with shipboard wiring, is that a 440v motor may develop a partial ground, and now the surge suppressor sees a continuous 300-400v across it (from the ground wire to the hot leads). This 300-400v is not dangerous to you, since normally nothing that you are touching is connected to ground, but that voltage hits the surge protector, which is connected to ground, and it cannot cool itself off from a continuous high voltage, so it goes into thermal runaway, and melts the casing of the power strip. The thermal fuses that the navy requires, will open the circuit, taking the surge protector MOV's out of the circuit, when they get too hot. Sorry, probably a lot of yada, yada, but wanted to say why there are marine approved power strips, but none of the ones anyone would buy for a cruise is one of them.

Bit surprised that this amount of water would come from a cabin branch pipe. Last time I saw this much water in the passageway (and I thought I saw it coming from a cabin in waves in the video), was when someone decided that the sprinkler head would be a good place to hang a hanger, and broke the bulb. This sends vast amounts of water into that cabin, and is even more difficult to shut off than a potable water pipe, for obvious reasons as it is a firefighting system.

Whether this should have been confiscated or not, this is not a "converter plug" as the poster you are responding to referred to. This is an "outlet extender" or "outlet multiplier" which allows multiple plugs to be plugged into one outlet. A "converter plug" or "outlet adapter" merely has a single plug (of one shape pins) on one side and a single female plug (of another shape pins) on the other side. This is a "converter plug":

I'd love to see that list, and the qualifications for approval, as I've never seen a consumer surge protector that is any different than another, and again, it is not the surge protector that is the problem, it is a ground fault that causes a perfectly good surge protector to fail.

For any cruise line other than RCI, it would be fine, but not for RCI.

The ship does not produce power with two different frequencies, 60hz for 110 and 50hz for 220. Frequency is created by the speed of the generator, and all power on the ship is produced by generators running at the same speed and connected to a common bus, or "grid". While European cargo ships will generate 50hz power, most cruise ships generate 60hz power. And, unless the appliance you are plugging in has a motor, the frequency will not matter at all.

Tankers still require intrinsically safe radios, but not other types of ships.

Even my barber at home uses a disposable blade in a straight razor handle.

Actually, there are several that provide 2000w of power, and are the size of your hand, and weigh about half a pound. Haven't tried one, nor done much research, but seem to get good reviews: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17934681011&pd_rd_w=KcHH9&content-id=amzn1.sym.6e89475f-a165-461a-99ea-639c9fc600d0&pf_rd_p=6e89475f-a165-461a-99ea-639c9fc600d0&pf_rd_r=KCTAS6M35H4N4A24PT6H&pd_rd_wg=MRaZh&pd_rd_r=f13387cc-74ee-4025-8c7d-3fbd72c241bf And, most CPAP machines draw 60w or less.

Sorry, Capt, gonna have to step in here. What I have quoted from your post is not correct. Unless you locate and buy one of the bulky and very expensive ($200+) surge protector designed specifically for shipboard use, no surge protector is safe, or "OK" with shipboard electrical systems. This is because the problem is not with the surge protector. The problem, and what causes surge protectors to fail, is a ground fault somewhere else on the ship. So, your surge protected power strip could be plugged in for 15 cruises, without a problem (because the ship did not have a significant ground fault during those cruises), and you think, "well, my surge protector must be OK with shipboard power". And then, on your next cruise, a 440v motor in the engine room develops a ground, and your 110v rated surge protector sees 440v across it for extended time, and fails and catches fire. So, even previous use of a surge protector without problem is no guarantee it will not fail and catch fire in the future. There are two reasons surge protectors are not used on the ship's own electronics: 1. unless they are specifically designed for shipboard use, they are dangerous, and costly, and 2. they are not needed, as there are not the voltage surges on a ship that you see on land. I'll repeat the salient point here, for the general cruising public: no surge protector is safe to use on a ship, any time, any where, regardless of whether you've used it on ships before.

There are two professional mariners who have responded to this thread, myself and Heidi13, and we can both say with certainty that if you think the wifi app is ship specific, walkie talkies will be location on the ship specific, time of day specific, and weather specific. Even the 5 watt radios the crew use, are basically worthless without the array of repeater antenna located throughout the ship, and these repeaters are "tuned" to the specific frequencies used by the ship, so they won't do you any good. If you are separated by one deck, or the length of the ship, you probably won't get signal. This is not commentary, this is fact based on decades of seagoing.

That is another valid reason.

Many cruise ships have helipads, but almost none of them are used for landing helicopters (they are just too small, and too much interference around them. They are not used a lot for winching operations, either, as the helicopter would be hovering and traveling backwards while the front of the ship was moving towards him. I believe the ship informs the SAR service what is set up best for helicopter operations, not the other way around. It would be listed in the ship's emergency plans. Most cruise ships tend to do winching operations from the top deck, and it is preferred to be forward of the funnel, to remove the turbulence caused by the exhaust gases. While the helicopter pilot has final say as to vessel speed and course, the Captain of the ship will also advise what heading and speed will minimize pitching and/or rolling, which is a large concern for the helicopter, and he is not familiar with the ship's handling characteristics.

While the POA is the only NCL ship required to fully comply with the ADA, this is an "educational or instructional video", which is not required to have closed captioning, unless it is a government agency or some private organizations. This is a generic video for all NCL ships, and as I've said, none, other than POA are required to fully comply with the ADA per SCOTUS' "Spector v NCL" ruling.

"Dynamic Stationing" (or keeping a vessel in one location without anchoring) has been around since the '70's, even before GPS made it much easier. It is just that cruise lines have recently decided to upgrade their software to include stationkeeping.

The reasons are that should things go "sideways", the helicopter could crash into the cabins (remember the ship is moving), and they don't want passengers in that potential danger. Winching a patient in a basket from a moving ship, especially at night. The helicopter pilot is executing a "moving hover", where the helicopter is stationary relative to the ship, but both ship and helicopter are moving over the surface. This is one of the most difficult maneuvers a helicopter can perform, and why commercial air ambulance services are not allowed to perform evacuations, they are not trained in this dangerous maneuver. They also don't want people on their balconies, or opening the drapes and letting light out, or moving around and distracting the pilots from their concentration on the hover.

Lots of people misunderstand the "30 minute" evacuation time limit. Time to muster passengers is not part of this time. Further, the requirement is that each lifeboat or evacuation system is capable of being prepared, loaded, and launched in 30 minutes, not that the entire ship can be evacuated in 30 minutes. And, things don't really "go south very quickly". Even the Concordia, which breached 4 or 5 contiguous watertight compartments (which is considered a very rare occurrence), took nearly two hours to roll over, and it would not have rolled over had it not grounded a second time. It would have sunk upright, but down by the stern, at a slower rate. Had the passengers been mustered when the flooding was confirmed (about 10 minutes after striking the rock), the passengers would have been mustered, accounted for, and likely loaded into lifeboats and launched long before the ship sank.

Virtually every terminal has a different rate structure, and getting updated rates seems to be difficult. But, from a few years ago, a California study showed that at the fuel prices at the time, operating the ship's generators would have been about $300k, and shore power at $400k, and this does not include the capital costs, or some of the port hourly rates that pay for the infrastructure. Shore power is not a savings for the cruise lines, even at today's fuel prices, it is only used where the government requires it. And, in California, Long Beach has "paused" shore power whenever there is an energy emergency, like a heat wave. So, their infrastructure/grid is not totally capable of requiring shore power at all times. Even at the best rates I could find, about $.38/kwh, for about 8000kw (typical hotel load), this would be about $3000 per hour, or about $36k for a turn-around port call (12 hours).

Another thing is that the ship was designed for the Chinese market, and cabins are markedly smaller.

May I ask why you want to know? Basically, only those ships that call, or have called, regularly in California have shore power connections.

The other facts they failed to correctly report, is that the ship being scrapped is the Genting Dream II, which exists only as some construction blocks, not a finished ship. The shipyard where the Genting Dream was built (almost completed), was owned by Genting as well, and is in receivership as well, and the receiver has not gotten any bids yet for the nearly completed ship, but it will not very likely be headed for the scrapyard.

These ships have a far more expensive AC system for fresh air, where each cabin has a motorized damper on the fresh air supply, that closes when the window is open. This, of course, builds up more pressure in the fresh air delivery system, and more with each cabin that has the window open. So, the fresh air supply fan will have a variable speed drive system, to slow the fan down as the pressure increases, and speeds it up when the pressure decreases (more cabins with windows closed).

To add to Andy's paraphrasing of my description, everyone "knows" that opening the balcony door "shuts off the AC". But, that is only one of the two AC systems in your cabin. The one controlled by the balcony door is the one that acts like a window AC in your house, taking air from the cabin, passing it over a cooling coil, and returning the same air to your cabin. A recirculation AC. The second system is what provides fresh air to your cabin, and works as Andy states above. Typically, we would get a complaint or two of warm cabins, and I would send the HVAC guys, or go myself, and walk the passageways near that cabin, listening for the air whistling under the door, and would then knock on that cabin and tell the occupants to close the balcony door, as it was affecting the cooling of neighboring cabins. And, usually, I don't need to explain too much, since the wind tunnel created when they answered the door has shown them that whatever is not nailed down in the cabin is now on the balcony or overboard.