chengkp75

It may have taken too long. You've got to start another diesel and put it on line, and then start the thrusters. There may also have been underwater reasons for not using the thrusters (too close to bottom, known debris in water, don't want to suck a line into thruster) that would have possibly caused damage to thruster. Guarantee it wasn't "fixed" during turn around. The vibration may have been removed, but that would be by cutting the damaged part of a blade off, and also a corresponding amount from the blade opposite the damaged one to balance the prop, and then the prop would need permanent repair in a dry dock.

Nope

The boats, when stowed, are tightly strapped into the davits to prevent them from moving, so eliminating noise. If they weren't strapped, they would be in pieces very quickly, as fiberglass always loses out to steel.

DNV shows Pearl due in December this year. Dockings are due twice in 5 years, so this is 3 years after the 2021 docking. Then it will be due again in December 2026.

Jade is due in March 2025, Bliss due in March 2026. I just search the DNV (Det Norske Veritas, the classification society (that does the drydock surveys)) "DNV Vessel Register" that NCL uses, for each ship and see when the "bottom survey" is due. Other lines use either DNV, Lloyds Register, or ABS class societies, where you can find the same data for other ships.

If the OP is asking about the POA, she is due for dry dock in June this year. Whether they will replace shower curtains with doors given the current debt load, is anyone's to answer.

No more than a bus company is obligated to tell a passenger that they are at high risk of getting struck by a car when they get off the bus, as I've said, RCI's duty of care ends at the gangway. And, if you were to construe the excursion as being part of the carriage by RCI, then it falls under the DOHSA (Death on High Seas Act), which specifically does not allow awards for "pain and suffering or loss of companionship". I would say there is a very, very small chance RCI will settle this, nor will they be found liable.

To give an example. For a trip from the UAE to Cadiz, Spain, is 4685 nm via the Suez Canal, and 9811 nm via Cape of Good Hope, or over twice the miles. At a normal cruising speed these days for container ships of 12 knots, that also doubles the transit time from 17 days to 34 days. Add the extra fuel burned by the ship to get there, the extra days factored into the freight cost, and the extra inventory cost to the receiver to make up for the extra days, and you raise the cost of all the products carried by a good margin.

Whether or not RCI knew about a strike is completely irrelevant. Do they have a requirement to notify passengers if the NYC police are having "blue flue"? As I've said, RCI's "duty of care" is limited to the ship, not the ports of call. The passenger decides to make a voyage from port A to port B, RCI did not force them to do so. It is the responsibility of the passenger to make a determination whether visiting that port is advisable or not.

And, how many of those summer residents are registered voters in Bar Harbor, and how many of even those few snowbirds would have voted in the November referendum.

HIPAA only precludes a health care provider from sharing your medical information with a third party. You can share your medical information with anyone you want to. And, yes, the cruise lines can ask for documented proof of due date, just like the airlines can.

I agree that the lawsuit is completely without standing. RCI's "duty of care" to the passengers ends when the passenger leaves the ship, as the choice to leave the ship to go ashore in a port and participate in an excursion, is the passenger's choice. The arguments put forward by the lawyer are completely specious.

Never said they did, I said the water was condensation from the air. But, actually, this is not the case, note below. On cruise ships, the evaporators, compressors, and condensers are all in the engine room. The refrigerant system cools a closed loop fresh water system. This system circulates chilled (40-45*F) water to the air cooling coils. If you've ever wondered what those great big "white areas" that are on deck plans, that run down the center of passenger cabin decks are, they are the HVAC fan rooms. Each of the 6-10 vertical fire zones the ship is divided into, will have separate ventilation systems, and each one or two decks within each fire zone will have a separate ventilation system for the cabins on one or two decks. Also, virtually each separate public space will have a separate ventilation system. Each of these myriad ventilation systems will have a fan (in those fan rooms, in close proximity to cabins and public spaces), and each of those fans has a cooling coil located within the same room (typically not more than 10-15 feet away), and that cooling coil has a condensate pan and an air filter. That condensate pan is part of the ductwork that contains the cooling coil. It is, in fact, directly below the air cooling coils, where 42*F water meets 75-80*F, high humidity, outside air. Additionally, each cabin has an air cooler and fan, typically located in either a vanity below the bathroom sink, or in the mechanical locker just outside each cabin. This is the HVAC system that is controlled by the cabin thermostat, and takes the cabin air, circulates it over the cooling coil that is cooled by the chilled water, and returns that air to the same cabin. Therefore, any condensation (though this is much less than the outside supply air system noted above, as the humidity is lower in the cabin already) drops to a condensate pan either in the cabin or just outside it. I agree that there have not been any cases of Legionella reported on cruise ships from HVAC systems, but the possibility of it happening can not be dismissed.

I don't know how the entire visa process works, but I see that for a B1/B2 interview required visa, the wait in Rio de Janiero is 45 days. Maybe your friend could take a short vacation to Brazil to have the interview. Or shop around for nearby countries to see what the wait times are like there. If the cruise is important enough, maybe the cost of the flights to get the visa would be worth it. But, again, I would recommend calling the State Department directly, having set aside many hours for waiting, and get the answer directly from the horse's mouth.

The simple fact is that while many may be irritated by the actions of a few, unless the many actually complain, en masse, the rules will not be enforced. "The passenger is always right" means that we don't want a complaint from the one bad actor, since the rest of the passengers aren't complaining. However, if they have to balance the complaint of the one rule breaker against the complaints of a hundred people who feel affected by that person's actions, then you will get enforcement.

CSM=Company Sergeant Major JFHQ=Joint Forces HQ BAOR=British Army of Rhine 2I/C=2nd in command SNCO=senior non-commissioned officer RA=Royal Army QMS=Quartermaster Service TA=Territorial Army CQMS=Company Quartermaster Sergeant Fat Albert=C130 transport plane Battle Bowler=helmet scran=stuff cooked by Royal Australian Navy How am I doing?

Where is the person wanting to go to get the visa? What city/country? That affects the wait/process time. It appears to me that a C visa would be sufficient, but I feel that a call directly to the State Department would be the safest bet.

Nope. Both American Cruise Lines, and NCL have had confirmed outbreaks of Legionella in 2023, and Carnival Horizon in 2021. The link you give is only for Gastro-Intestinal illnesses, which Legionella is not one. So, while not an expert on cooling tower HVAC systems, you are saying that your exposure to water vapor created in a cooling tower located on the roof of a building, venting that vapor to the open atmosphere is more of a risk than the evaporator coils inside the HVAC ducts? I believe that most of the cases of Legionella found in cooling tower systems are from older systems, that do, in fact, use direct cooling by the cooling tower water (i.e. the cooled water from the tower is sprayed over the HVAC air) (what I think you are calling a swamp cooler) as a supplement to the refrigerated cooling done by the HVAC chiller. But, whether a land based system, or one on a cruise ship (and actually more prevalent on cruise ships due to their operating environment), you get condensation in the cooling coils of the HVAC system, where the warm, moist air from outside is cooled below the dew point. If this condensate is allowed to collect in the drain pans, it can become a Legionella breeding ground, and then if the air filter for the cooling coil is partially blocked, increasing the air flow velocity across the cooling coil, the air can start to aerosolize the condensate in the drain pan and carry it along the ductwork. This is why the CDC/USPH requires sanitizing pads in the condensate pans of all air coolers on cruise ships.

Yes, even as Staff Chief Engineer (responsible for all maintenance/repair outside the engine room), I walked every pax deck at least twice a day, to get maintenance reports from the hotel staff, to find problems on my own, and see how things were working. On turn-around day, I spent the entire day (aside from the early morning and evening in the ECR for arriving/leaving port) and the hour or so required to supervise loading of engine stores, walking the pax decks, from one end to the other, to get not only crew reports, but to head off pax complaints. And, I would dine in specialty restaurants every couple of weeks, but required dining with the pax was just not my idea of a good time, and fortunately was not in my job description.

Same with me.

Andy, it sounds like your son's experiences are similar to what is pretty common across the industry. Not sure of other lines, but NCL had a zero alcohol policy (at all times while assigned to the ship) for bridge and engine room watchstanders. NCL also prohibited the "top five" from any alcohol (Captain, Staff Captain, Chief Engineer, Staff Chief, Hotel Director).

Which is why many cruise lines don't keep the hot tubs "hot enough" for people (105*F is the optimum breeding temperature for legionella) or have disabled the air jets (source of aerosolizing). Also led to the CDC/USPH requirement to superchlorinate the hot tubs daily.

Nope. Maybe peroxide or betadine, but would want to test it on something first.

Just be aware that bleach will tend to remove the "chrome plating" on plastic shower heads.

Legionella needs water to remain viable, and the air in the HVAC system on ships tends to be very dry, so the major spot where legionella grows is the condensate pans under the cooling coils. These pans are required to have sanitizing pads placed in them for just this reason. Therefore, the main source of possible legionella infection on cruise ships are the shower heads, where there is always just a little water in the shower head when turned off, and which then becomes aerosolized when the shower is turned on. For this reason, the shower heads on cruise ships are scheduled to be taken off every 6 months and soaked in bleach. So, while missed maintenance in either case (HVAC condensate pan or shower heads), the fact that there are only about 70 condensate pans on the ship, but a couple of thousand shower heads means that the odds on favorite for being missed is with the shower heads. Also, the condensate pan pads are changed more frequently than the shower heads are sanitized.