chengkp75

The only part of the article that is "US based" is the fact that the FBI requires reporting of certain crimes for cruises that start and end in the US. Further, the US has claimed "extra-territorial jurisdiction" (meaning they claim jurisdiction for crimes committed on the high seas) against US citizens only, and only for a very few crimes. Other than that, what the article says pertains to your circumstances. As Heidi13 says, the flag state has sole jurisdiction at sea, outside territorial waters (unless a claim is made similar to the FBI for citizens of a particular country, but not many countries do this), and the Captain is the flag state's legal law enforcement agent onboard the ship. So, as noted by others, no other police other than Italian national police would have any jurisdiction, or interest, and the laws of the UK, where you say this would constitute simple assault, do not apply, Italian law applies. As noted, your only recourse is to complain to the cruise line's corporate offices, but there will be no legal recourse. You've learned a valuable lesson that many US cruise passengers simply cannot fathom, that when you set foot on a vessel of another country, your home country's laws, rights, and protections go right overboard.

Doesn't an establishment that has a "Mixed Beverage with Food and Beverage" license have to serve food with alcohol? Since less than 60% of gross revenue can come from alcohol sales, food must be the priority, and the business listed as a restaurant. The reason businesses go for the "F&B" condition on their license is that they are not required to post the "personal surety bond" that bars have to.

Yes, but they would slow steam this, even slower than 10 knots. Slow steaming is less fuel.

Amongst other things like processing and discharging bilge water and waste water. 140 nm in 15 hours is less than 10 knots, so they wouldn't make more than about 40% of their evaporator output, but if they were using reverse osmosis as well (doesn't rely on waste heat from the engines to make water), that makes sense as well.

And people investing in this cruise are still getting a 30 year old hull, regardless of how much is spent renovating the hotel side. Had to laugh at the comment that the "flatter hull" makes her more able to go up inland waterways and rivers. Braemar's hull is no "flatter" than Oasis of the Seas. What allows her to go to these places is her lower draft than larger ships. And, that is merely a function of overall ship size, not any special condition of the Braemar.

No, more likely the actual pax count is higher than previously estimated, so the share of each pax goes down.

Might get tight.

Lots of talk of "refitting" an old ship, but I'm not sure what is meant by that? New hotel facilities? New engines? When QE2 was taken out of service to change from steam to diesel, it was out of service for 6 months. With the current debt load the cruise lines carry, that is just not economically feasible. Remember, the UK government lent the vast majority of the cost of QE2, at below par rates. Virtually any marine diesel engine built in the last 40 years can operate on MGO, so that was no big deal. Installing SCR catalyzers is simple, much like putting exhaust gas scrubbers into the funnels of many cruise ships. Again, these are systems that have been around for thirty years or so. But, the major reason that older ships are not economic is steel and corrosion. History has shown that the relationship between maintenance cost and life span is not linear, but exponential, and at the 15 year mark, the maintenance costs "turn the corner" and start to soar. Why? Because at that point, the class societies, that certify the ships as seaworthy, start to require massive amounts of non-destructive testing during dry dock periods (which shift from 5 years to 2.5 years). This "NDT" consists of thousands of ultrasonic thickness measurements of steel plating in the hull and decks, as well as framing, tank bulkheads and piping. It also includes x-ray imaging of welds that hold the hull together. Any reduction of thickness in steel beyond set limits, or any corrosion of welds, requires replacement of the steel. Since this is not determined until the dry dock is happening, it cannot be scheduled or budgeted for, and leads to cost and time overruns, and delays in getting back to service. You can update the hotel all you want, and update the engines (though these engines are torn down for complete overhaul every 2 years in service, and are essentially new engines every 2 years), but you will still have an old hull that costs a whole lot to maintain. The operators of these older ships cut their profit margin to the bone to keep operating, and this includes going with less than prestigious P&I insurance clubs to keep the premiums down, but this also lowers the coverage. Should a catastrophe happen, these companies will fold, unable to cover the cost of something like the Concordia.

One problem with taking shore water is that it must be segregated from the rest of the water storage (so kept in one or two tanks), and not used until a coliform bacteria test comes back negative, which takes 24 hours to complete.

Though the likelihood of all three breaking down at the same time is small. QM2 is lucky in having all those sea days in a row, where they can run the evaporators 24 hours a day, to match or exceed the consumption. Port intensive itineraries leave less time steaming at sea (and you have to be going near full speed to make maximum water), so they cannot match the total consumption for the cruise, and this is why they sometimes take on water in port.

So, it took about 5 days to remove the funnel, so starting today would mean leaving on the 19th, with about 3 days steaming to Long Beach, gets her there around the 22nd. That's making about 17-18 knots all the way, what day do the first passengers board?

Yes, worked with those types of units for over 40 years. But, even when completely produced by distillation, the water will have chlorine in it, and also since distilled water is slightly acidic as I've mentioned above, they will add calcium carbonate (an antacid) to it to neutralize it to prevent it corroding the piping system, and to prevent it leaching minerals from your teeth, so it really isn't distilled water when it gets to the passenger cabin. And, while as you say, the ship can store 100 road tankers worth of water, look at the daily consumption versus the capacity (1100 tons/day consumed, 3800 tons capacity) and realize that all that storage capacity is just over 3 days worth of consumption.

As Andy says, some ports charge by ship length, some by gross tonnage, some by passenger capacity. Some do combinations of these. Some have per person taxes. The cruise line knows these charges approximately ahead of time, and sets the "port taxes and fees" accordingly, and then divides it by the historical number of pax for the cruise to reach the charges that each passenger pays. Panama canal cruises also include all of the charges needed to transit the canal in the "port taxes and fees". The reason the "port taxes and fees" sometimes go up or down is due to the actual number of pax that are on the cruise. Not quite correct. If tugs and pilots are required by the port authority, then the charges for these services are included. However, things like garbage removal or fresh water are not. Due to a class action lawsuit against NCL a couple of decades ago, "port taxes and fees" are limited to those charges imposed by a governmental or quasi-governmental agency that are required merely for the ability to make the port call (so things like wharfage (dock fee), pilots, immigration officials, tugs if mandated, etc), while things that are principally to do with ship operations (like baggage handlers, garbage removal, fresh water, bunkers, etc) are not allowed to be included. Contrary to what most here on CC believe, wharfage fee is based on a 24 hour stay, even if the ship only plans on being in port 8 hours, so delays in departure generally don't involve extra cost, except for paying for "waiting time" for tugs and pilots.

Many of my comments are about "generic" cruise ships, and I wasn't aware that HAL had removed self-serve laundry facilities, sorry. The uniforms and passenger laundry is either a side part of, or a room adjacent to, the main ship's laundry. These typically have smaller "laundromat" style washers and dryers, as the uniforms and passenger laundry does not lend itself to the huge washers that the linens go in, from an efficiency standpoint, but I could be mistaken regarding HAL. It's possible that HAL does not use HVAC condensate in their main laundry (linens) machines, but it would be silly not to, since this can account for up to 200 tons of water a day for a smaller 2400 pax sized ship. Even in the smaller machines in the ship's laundry (uniforms and pax laundry), if they were thinking of conserving water, they would be thinking of drinking water, or if they were doing pax laundry in the big machines, it would only amount to 1-2 loads a day, whereas the linens keep the machines running 16 hours a day. While you got some water, I doubt it was a "full load". The fire hoses that are used to load water will load about 30 tons/hr, so with even a 24 hour stay, that would be about 750 tons, which is about 1 day's water consumption for HAL sized ships. And, this water must be segregated from the other water in the tanks, and not used until a coliform bacteria test comes back negative, which takes 24 hours.

There is typically a "uniform laundry" that does the crew uniforms and passenger paid for laundry. Uniforms are considered essential to service, so they are not part of the "laundry ban" on the Amazon, just like tablecloths and towels. Crew civilian clothing is their own responsibility, they have laundromats like the passengers, but in water restriction zones like the Amazon, these will be shut off.

Passenger laundry facilities are available on some lines, that are like laundromats, with one or two washers and dryers on each deck with passenger cabins. The main ship's laundry does the sheets, towels, tablecloths, napkins and crew uniforms on an industrial level. The washers in the main laundry take upwards of 125 kilos of wash at a time. Google cruise ship main laundry for tours showing the thousands of sheets and towels done each week.

From my experience with the digital card locks on cruise ship's doors, the only thing that will override a deadbolt is a "hard key", meaning an actual metal key that only security or senior staff (chief and staff chief engineers, Captain and Staff Captain) would have.

Bacteria and viruses don't boil. Water boils at a lower temperature than most anything else in water, so you boil the water, collect the steam, and condense it back to pure water. Distilled water is not just boiled water, it has been converted to steam and then condensed back to liquid. The minerals and pathogens are left in the brine or effluent, becoming more concentrated in this "reject water" and goes overboard. Water distillation plants make about 1 gallon of distilled water for every 3 gallons of water pumped into the unit.

De-mineralized water is similar to distilled water in purity. The process to de-ionize the water is designed to remove "ions" from the water, in other words dissolved mineral salts. However, depending on how it is produced, this could leave pathogens in the water.

I have no idea how the medallion works, nor whether/what crew have the ability to read them.

It may not have been maintenance's fault, it could be that whoever recorded the work order did not properly note who reported it (whether guest or steward) which would change the "priority" of the issue. If maintenance thought the guest had reported the problem, they will tend to get to it more quickly than if crew reported it (making the assumption that the guest has not noticed it). My guys would get calls for things like lamps being out at all hours, with requests to deal with it right away, which is why there is an overnight repairman, so there could be some lapse in communication between guest services and maintenance. Unless the maintenance is going to take a few hours, or is planned maintenance that is scheduled days in advance, most ships will not provide "advance notice" "several hours or days in advance". Typically, the only notice given is a note saying that maintenance had been there and the work done. As for knocking twice and not receiving any response and then entering, that is exactly what would happen if no one was in the cabin, so it is IMHO a perfectly sensible response. And, know that the door lock records the name of whoever swipes their card for access, so if you feel there is a problem, question it at guest services, and they will be able to cross match a work order with the maintenance man's key card, or not.

Passenger laundry facilities use the same potable (drinking) water that is used everywhere else on the ship; cabins, restaurants, galleys, etc. This has to be as pathogen free as possible, and because neither distillation nor reverse osmosis (the two technologies used to make drinking water onboard) are 100% effective, it then falls on chlorination to sanitize the water. But, if there are heavy metals or other pollutants, chlorination won't help with that. The reason for two different water systems is that the ship's laundry goes through tons (about 100 tons a day for a medium sized ship) of water that doesn't need to be of drinking water quality. But running a separate water system to the various locations of the passenger laundry facilities would not be cost effective given how little water these use compared to the main laundry. The ship's main laundry has its own water supply system, that goes from the condensate water tank, to the washing machines and then to the waste water treatment system. No, the condensate water is not "almost pure". First, it has condensed on copper cooling coils in the HVAC system, and due to the salt in the sea air, it dissolves a bit of copper from the piping/fins as it trickles down to the condensate pan (so you've now got salt (and other minerals from the ocean water) and copper in the water), then the water spends some time in the condensate pan where it can encourage the growth of pathogens (legionella is a prime candidate for growth in HVAC drain pans, which is why large buildings develop outbreaks of legionella as some housing projects did in NYC a few years back). Anyway, the water is in no way considered drinking water quality, and in order to be used effectively in the commercial washing machines, it needs up to 4-5 chemicals added into the washers just to get clothes clean. The copper in particular causes problems when washing whites like tablecloths and dinner napkins. If untreated, the hot water containing copper will turn the "whites" into "greens", so acid is dosed into the washing machines. Each of the ship's washers has about 6 chemicals/detergents set up for dosing in the machine, depending on what cycle the machine is set for. As suggested above, the wash temperature (nothing in those machines goes in cold water) and the length of the wash cycle, along with the various chemicals takes care of any pathogens so they don't get on the items being washed. The ship will also use the condensate water as "technical" water, or fresh water used in the engine room for cooling systems. Again, this water is not considered drinking water quality, even if it were to be chlorinated.

Yes, the nitrogen purge is to purge all fuel from the pipes and engines, so that work can be done on the systems. Something I saw there that I'd forgotten about, is that ships that use "low flashpoint fuel" as the primary fuel, need to have a redundant fuel system (diesel) that is totally separate from the LFL (low flashpoint liquid), and that is sufficient to see the ship return to port under its own power. So, that is an additional cost as well as space required to store the "standby" fuel. As I said, the fuel tanks will need to be "inerted", or have the atmosphere in the tank above the liquid have an oxygen content sufficiently low (less than 5%) to preclude combustion. This is done either with nitrogen (requiring a nitrogen generator onboard), or "flue gas" from an inert gas generator, which is a system that burns diesel at a regulated low oxygen level, and then the high carbon dioxide/nitrogen flue gas is sent to the tanks.

It is not allowed for sanitation reasons by the USPH/CDC, the EU's ShipSan regulations, and the WHO guide to ship sanitation. Pollution is more concentrated closer to shore.

The question now is when she will move to the shipyard.