Review Brilliance OS - Dec 5, 2010 - better late than never

[nydiana]

My DH wrote his travel memoirs. I am going to post the portion of his memoirs covering our cruise on Brilliance of the Seas. We were on the December 5, 2010 sailing that encountered the very bad storm in the Mediterranean Sea heading towards Egypt.

 

But first it starts with our troubles getting to the cruise port.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

December 2010 (New York City to Barcelona, Spain)

This was to be the trip of a lifetime. At least it turned into the experience of a lifetime. We planned this trip well over a year in advance. The trip in January had been thrown together cheaply and at the last minute, at least partly to satisfy familial obligations. This was the year’s big vacation. The highlight was to be a twelve day Mediterranean cruise. This is the only trip in which events on board a ship added to the travel nightmare, which is why I am mentioning it now. On all previous cruises, there were issues but they were the normal sorts of problems that are likely to occur on any vacation/cruise. This one was different however. But first, we were going to have to make it to the ship.

 

Remember from the 2004 experience, how we thought that New York City to Barcelona, by way of Madrid, was a magical route which we could manage without significant problems. Well, I was wrong. But first let me explain some of the plans we made in connection with this trip. Out child, now 26 years old and temporarily unemployed drove us to the airport and was going to pick us up from the airport. However, she also had a job interview schedule for the intervening time period. We told her not to pass up the job on our account. If the company wanted her to work the day of our flight home, we would find our own way home from New York. We agreed that we would use the ship’s available email to keep in touch with her and arrange our travel plans. In addition to this, we had only left ourselves about 27 hours of lead time in Spain. Since we had travelled in Barcelona back in 2004, we decided that we did not need to spend extra time in Spain. Accordingly, we were set to arrive only one day before the ship was scheduled to depart. We pre-paid for a hotel in Barcelona, but other than that made no plans for our day in Spain.

 

When we arrived at the airport, we were greeted with words that scared us just a little bit. The woman at the airline’s check in counter told us that there was some labor trouble in Spain and she was not sure if our scheduled 9 PM flight would receive permission to land there. The 6 PM flight, she told us, had not yet left and did have permission to land in Spain. She asked us if we would mind switching to the earlier flight. This seemed (at the time) to be a wise offer to accept. The 6 PM flight did not actually board until 9 PM. However, once it boarded we were only on the ground for a half hour before it took off. We were told, I think, that we had permission to fly to Spain.

Several hours later, my wife pointed out of the right hand window of the plane. She said, “Look! The sun is rising.” She did not immediately understand my reaction. I was perturbed. I pointed out to her that if the sun was rising on our right, we were currently facing north. Madrid is not to the North of New York City. It is a long way east and a little bit to the south, but not north. A couple of minutes later, a map flashed on the plane’s TV screen. Something that ships and planes now do is show a large map on the T.V. with the vessel’s position and direction on it. When the map flashed on the screen we were greeted with a bit of a shock. The plane had flow to about the French coast and done a fairly abrupt U-turn. We were now circling over the Atlantic. Actually, we were not really circling, as the image that appeared on the T.V. was more of a figure 8 than a circle.

Shortly thereafter, the Pilot came on the intercom and told us that the air traffic controllers had walked off the job in Spain and we no longer had permission to land there. We were now in a holding pattern over the Atlantic looking for a place to land. An hour or two later we found one. The Pilot again came on the intercom and told us that we had permission to land in Oporto, Portugal. We made it to Oporto at about 9 AM, local time. The clock was now ticking. We had 31 hours to cross the Iberian Peninsula and make it to the ship in Barcelona. We proceeded to sit on the ground in Oporto for the next three and a half hours. About once per hour, the Pilot would make an announcement that nothing has changed. We still had no permission to deplane here or to fly to Spain. During this time we talked to some of the passengers around us. Most of these people turned out to be Spanish nationals headed home. These people told us some facts about our situation. Oporto is not a large city and its airport is not very large. We were probably still on the plane, they said, because the airport lacked the immigration facilities to handle the flight. Oporto also is not a very easy place to try to travel to or from. It has limited flights, daily. Also, because of the mountains, our Spanish friends were not certain it would be easy to get to Barcelona from Oporto by bus or train in the requisite time period.

 

My DH Jon

 

To be continued

[nydiana]

After 3 1/2 hours, the Pilot made a new announcement. He said that anyone who wanted to leave the plane now could. He had restrictions, though. If you got off of the plane, you could not get back on to the plane, nor could you have access to your luggage. Our new Spanish friends advised us to stay put, for the reasons already stated. Many of them left the plane, planning to rent cars and drive home. We, following their advice, stayed put.

We stayed on the ground for another hour and a half. During the five total hours on the ground, the plane (or at least our section of it) ran out of water, juice and toilet paper (at least in one of the restrooms). The thing that most amazed us was that during this entire ordeal the passengers (at least in our section) stayed remarkably calm. Nobody acted out. Nobody yelled at the stewardesses. We found and continue to find this incredible. After five total hours, the Pilot announced that the Spanish military had taken over the air traffic control system and we had permission to fly to Madrid. We landed in Madrid about 4 PM local time. I remember this clearly; because I remember thinking that we now had exactly 24 hours to get from Madrid to Barcelona. I thought that this would prove to be a trivial task. It was harder than it seem to be at the time.

 

This was our first meeting with the “Wheelchair Brigade”. As I’ve mentioned in previous chapters, we almost always use a wheelchair for airline travel. It means that we usually get off of planes last. This was no exception. A group of passengers formed who were either using wheelchairs or accompanying people using wheelchairs. All together, there were about 10 of us. When we finally left the plane, we boarded a kind of bus. It actually had a sort of scissor lift so that it could be raised to the height of the plane’s door and then lowered to the ground for driving. The wheel chairs were on this bus. After those who required them were seated in the wheelchairs, workers came out and started chaining them to the floor. In retrospect, this was done to make sure that the wheelchairs did not roll anywhere while the bus was in motion. At the time, I had the fleeting thought that we were now on a prison bus.

 

Because the Spanish authorities did not know when or how we would be leaving Madrid (more on that later), we had to clear customs there. Back in 2004, we had flown through Madrid. We had never stopped there, though. We did not realize the distance between the gates and the customs/immigration station. This was in a building at the other end of the airport. The bus went in to tunnels that ran under the runways. It took half an hour or more to reach the customs building. When we got there, it was empty. The customs agent took a cursory glance at both the passports and us, and then stamped the passports. Now we were loaded back on the bus and driven back to the terminal. Another bus ride ensued.

 

When we reached the terminal, it was a madhouse. Flights had now been backing up for more than 24 hours, and stranded passengers were everywhere. Our wheelchair attendant started moving rapidly through the airport. I did my best to keep pace, while keeping control of the carryon bags. First, the attendant told us that there might be a flight from Madrid to Barcelona at 10 PM that night. So we went to a counter. Actually, I say “we” went to the counter, but that is not how it worked. Every place we went, the attendant parked the wheelchair near the counter and then went and spoke to the counter personnel. At any rate, we went to the departures line. It turned out that only international flights were flying. There was no flight for Barcelona that night. Next, she told us that there were bussing running from the Madrid airport to Barcelona. So, we went to the “bus” line. She returned from conversing with the people at that counter with the news that the last seats had been filled. We could not get a bus for Barcelona that night. Furthermore, she told us that it is an 8 hour bus ride from Madrid to Barcelona (you can drive it in 6 hours, but a bus has limited stops and takes 8). Taking a bus in the morning would probably not get us to the ship on time. We briefly discussed trying to rent a car and driving to Barcelona, but we had not gone through the trouble of getting international driver’s licenses. Besides, neither of had slept for 24 hours and we were not sure we could make the drive in one piece. So, we let the attendant take us to the third counter. At this counter we were given Boarding passes to a flight set to leave at 8 AM the next morning. It was set to board at 7:30 AM. Personally, I saw no evidence that domestic flights would be flying at 8 AM, but that was the best the airline could/would do. I had heard that the bullet train might be the best option for getting to Barcelona and tried to ask the attendant about it. She told me that she was not officially allowed to give me information about it. Unofficially, she wrote down the name of the website and told me what we would need to click on, once there. She would not, unfortunately, give us the time to check this website from the airport. Instead, she hurried us to a bus which would take to a Madrid hotel.

 

My DH Jon

 

To be continued

[nydiana]

Upon entering the bus, we discovered the rest of the wheelchair brigade. We were all back together again. Not all of us had boarding passes for the morning, but we all had more or less the same information. The drive to the hotel took a full hour. Some of us tried to suggest to the bus driver that he just drive to Barcelona, but that was not to be. When we got to the hotel, we thought about the 7:30 AM boarding passes, the length of the drive from the airport and the amount of time that it usually takes for us to get through security. We reached the conclusion that we were going to need to leave for the airport by 5 AM at the latest, if we were going to make the flight. We thought it best to head back to the airport and to try to sleep there. We asked the bus driver if he would take us back to the airport. He said “no”. In fact, he was not going back to the airport. Instead, he was heading off to his own hotel. Someone from the airline would contact us during the night and let us now when/how we were going to get back to the airport.

 

The Hotel, fortunately, had free Wi-Fi. So, while the rest of the bus load checked in to the hotel, we logged on to the bullet train website. We discovered that the train was expensive, but not exorbitant. We also discovered that the train leaves once per hour and the ride takes between two and three hours. We made a deal with each other. If we were not on an airplane by 10 AM, we were going to dessert the airport and take a taxi to the train. Though this plan might be expensive, we were NOT going to miss the boat. Our “fellow travelers” now realized that we had more information than anyone else. We passed on the information that we knew to everybody else.

 

We then checked in to the hotel. The desk clerk spoke decent English. We left a wakeup call for early in the morning. Then, we realized we had not eaten in close to 24 hours. It was now close to 9 PM, local time. We asked the clerk about food. He told us that the kitchen was closed. So, we asked him about what restaurants were available near the hotel. He gave us a shocked expression. Then, he said something kind of frightening. He said, “Well, if you leave the hotel, go as a large group and do not make eye contact with anyone.” Apparently, we were not in one of the safer areas of Madrid. Before we went up to our room, we noticed someone sitting at the hotel bar, eating a sandwich. We asked the waitress if we could also get a sandwich. Realizing, the number of people who had just checked in to the hotel, the waitress told us that if we gave her a half hour, she would have the kitchen reopened. We told her, “It’s a deal.”

 

Neither the food nor the room was spectacular, but at this point we were grateful for anything. After dinner we went to the room and tried to sleep. At 2:30 AM the phone rang. A man who spoke very little English told my wife that a bus we be by to return us to the airport at 6:45 AM. It did not seem to us that this would get us to the airport in time for our 7:30 boarding. So, we returned to the front desk. Unfortunately, there was a new man at the desk. This one spoke no English. I speak a little bit of French and my Wife is relatively fluent in German, but neither of speaks Spanish. We could not figure out how to order a taxi for the airport. So, we had a brief discussion amongst ourselves. We decided that we did not know that planes would be flying in the morning, anyway. Since we knew the train details and had given ourselves a 10 AM cutoff time, we decided to take what the airline was giving us. Now, we tried to change the wakeup call time. There was no need for a 4:30 AM wakeup call, if the bus was not going to leave until 6:45. Picture, if you will, trying to pantomime a wakeup call change. It took some time, but it worked. We went back to bed.

 

At 6 AM, as we requested, the phone rang. We arrived down stairs by 6:45 and found that the bus was loading. One of the members of the brigade, who spoke Spanish, had been discussing the situation with a Hotel employee. She learned that the Spanish government had threatened to arrest any air traffic controller who did not report to work that morning. Apparently, the strike was illegal. Planes were now flying again. She also learned that the hotel was really only 20 minutes from the airport. The bus driver from the previous evening had gotten lost on the way to the hotel. We still had a fighting chance to make our flight.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

We arrived at the airport at about 7:10 AM. This left about 20 minutes until our scheduled boarding time. We decided that we did not have time to wait for a wheelchair, but went straight to security. The security personnel quickly checked us with the metal detector “wand” and waved us right through. I got the distinct impression that they were more interested in getting the mass of people out of Madrid than in airline security. I like to explain it this way: The guard was thinking, “I do not care if you blow up this plane, just don’t do it in my city.” When I asked the guard where our gate was he looked at our boarding passes, pointed at the escalator and said, “Go down.” We went to the bottom floor. There were trains to other buildings there. My wife physically restrained me from getting on one of these trains. The building letters on the train signs did not match the gate on our boarding pass. We found someone who spoke English. He told us we need to go back up one flight. On that level, we had trouble finding anyone who spoke our language. A friendly cop pointed us to the information booth but would not or could not help us find the gate. The man at the information booth did speak English. He told us (and I am not kidding about this) that if we went through the duty free shop and turned left, we would see a sign for the gate. Apparently, you cannot board a plane in Madrid without shopping first. After going through the store and turning left we saw that our gate was only a few feet down the hallway. This was lucky for us as it was after 7:30 and the plane was already boarding.

 

By 8:00 there were only about 8 people on the plane. The stewardess told us that we were going to wait awhile because there were supposed to be another 50 people on the flight. A half an hour went by, but only one more person boarded. Although it was a full sized plane, we took off for Barcelona with only 9 people on board. As an aside, only one of the other members of the wheelchair brigade was on the plane with us. She had been travelling with a friend, but they had been separated the day before when she waited for the wheelchair and her friend did not do so. She had not seen her friend since. We agree we would share a cab with her from the airport to the ship. We reached Barcelona about 10 AM. Our luggage did not. Our new companion, who had been on all of the same flights us, received her luggage but of course we did not receive ours. When we went to the baggage claim counter, the airline could not tell us where our luggage then was or when we might receive it. We now had the sinking feeling that we were not going to see our luggage before the ship left port. Having learned our lessons by now, we showed the baggage claim employee pictures of our luggage and gave him the cruise ship’s information. This way, the airline and the cruise line could figure out how to reunite us with our luggage. As we were leaving the airport, we ran into the cruise line’s shuttle. It might have been a little more expensive than the taxi, but we decided leaving our fate in the hands of the cruise line would guarantee we would get to the ship. We reached the ship in plenty of time.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

Ordinarily, I would end the story here and talk about how the rest of the vacation was great and list the lessons we learned, but this was no ordinary trip. As we spoke to the other passengers, we discovered that our travel story was not atypical. 2000 out of a scheduled 2100 passengers made the ship, but each had his own story. We talked to some who had been diverted to France and had ridden a bus all night to reach Barcelona. We spoke to others who landed in Paris and took a variety of trains to reach Barcelona. Others had been stranded for days in England or Germany. In fact, whereas usually no one can board a ship with about two hours of its actually leaving shore, the ship was allowing people to board right up until it left port at 6 PM. We also were not the only ones, by far, who were without luggage.

 

Here was the first good part. When we told the ship our story, they provided us with free laundry service. We always carry three changes of clothes in our carryon bags, but we were already on the second day and did not know how long it would be until we saw our luggage. They also provided me with a free tuxedo for the formal nights, the first of which was scheduled for the next evening. We learned, to our disappointment, that the cruise line does not stock formalwear for woman. At least they do not stock any for woman my wife’s size. When our luggage had not arrived by the next day, we found her a sequined tank top and a pretty shawl. When pictures were taken from the waist up, it looked like a reasonably formal outfit. This represents ingenuity at its finest.

 

We paid for an internet package from the ship. We did this primarily to communicate with our daughter about returning home, but it also allowed us to track our luggage. During that first day at sea, the airline located our luggage. This presented us with a number we could provide the ship which would allow them to tell us when we would receive it. Unfortunately, the ship looked at the tracking number and informed us that we would not see our luggage until we arrived in Athens - on the fifth day of the cruise. As a consolation, the ship gave us another laundry voucher.

 

If you have never been on a cruise, I will explain a small part of cruise life. One form of entertainment is a series of contests. These can be trivia contests, music contests, ping pong, or whatever. The huge prizes for these contests are exotic items like key chains, luggage tags, or ball point pens. The cruise staff unintentionally tortured us. By the time we reached Athens, we had won three sets of luggage tags. This only served to reinforce the fact that we had no luggage on which to put them.

 

I will quickly relate the highlights of the first five days of the cruise. The first day – the day we boarded – was mostly spent recovering from the journey. The night without sleep that we spent in Madrid simply made the jetlag worse. We did take time out to meet a group of passengers with whom we had been communicating on-line ahead of time. It was nice to have these “friends” traveling with us on the trip. We had all arranged our own group tour for Egypt, where we were supposed to arrive on December 12. We also met our tablemates – two couples in their twenties. One of them was from California; the other was from the U.K. As the trip went on, they provided a different perspective on events, as they unfolded. The next day we spent at sea. We met new friends at the trivia challenges this day. This was the day on which we discovered that the airline had found our luggage. Since we learned we were not going to see our luggage for another 3 days, we bought some things we might need. In case you are wondering, cruise ships do sell underwear. They do not display it, but they store it under the counter in the ship’s store and will sell it to you on request. Be careful, though, they have limited sizes and quantities.

 

My DH Jon

 

To be continued.

[tarheel87]

Really interesting so far. I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.

[nydiana]

Really interesting so far. I'm looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

Thanks. I will post more tonight. Wait until we get to the incident at sea. I love RCI and the crew worked hard to make the best of things for us. But it was rough seas for a couple of days and lots of areas of the ship closed. Fortunately, Jon nor I get sea sick.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

The next day was spent in Palermo, Sicily. We had not made any plans for a formal tour of Palermo. Instead, we had a list of attractions that we wanted to see and maps showing how to get to them. Upon leaving the ship we found a group of our on-line friends who had a similar plan. 10 of us shared a taxi to the other side of the City (up a pretty good sized hill). When we got to the top of the hill, the cab driver – who spent most of the trip trying to talk us into paying him for a guided tour of the city, decided to try to renegotiate the price of the fare. We gathered the money we had originally agreed upon and gave it to one person. Then the others quietly walked away from the cab. The last person gave him the agreed upon fare and left it at that. Here is where the adventure started. The attraction where the cabbie left us was a large castle complex which contains a chapel that is supposed to be worth seeing. The castle itself has an entrance fee. There was a disagreement amongst our group about whether it was necessary to pay this fee or there was a separate entrance to the chapel on the other side of the complex. So, the group split up. Being somewhat cheap, I we followed the group that walked around the complex. On the other side of the complex, we found that there was no way in to it from the back. Our companions (now two other couples), or at least the female halves of those couples, became determined to see the chapel. They announced that they were going to walk back around the complex, pay the money and enter the front. We decided that this was not worth the physical effort. This chapel had only been a “maybe” on our original list, anyway. Instead, we started walking down the hill in the general direction of the port. The first attraction we came to was the main Cathedral of Palermo. It was on the opposite side of the street from us. The street was narrow and the traffic was heavy. Crossing it proved difficult. The Cathedral itself was unspectacular. If you have ever done any travelling in Europe, you will have found that there are a lot of Cathedrals. Most of them are pretty interchangeable. This fell into that category. Upon leaving the cathedral, we discovered that the road in front of it was now closed to vehicular traffic. We did not question why. We just accepted it. We continued our journey down the hill. Several blocks later, we encountered a thousand or more people marching towards us chanting in Italian. The street had been closed for a demonstration. My wife inquired of the one protester we found who spoke English in learned that they were protesting education cuts. Well actually, he said they were demonstrating for “means for education”. So, it is possible that they were seeking further education cuts. Certain people in U.S. would probably demonstrate that less money be spent on education, so it is possible, although unlikely. The discovery we made that day is that if a thousand people march past you chanting in Italian and you raise your fist in your best “power to the people” salute, hundreds of them will cheer. Take my word for it. The rest of the day passed pleasantly. We found a small, outdoor café for lunch. We saw some more of the sights. I got confused about how early we need to be back on the ship and forced my wife to walk farther and faster than she would have preferred. Oh well, these things happen.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

The next day was another day at sea. We logged on to our computer and discovered that no one had responded to any emails we had sent. We still did not know whether our child got the job and whether we had a ride home from the airport. I think that this was the day we sent out the message begging anyone to respond to us. Day five found us in Athens, Greece. Here, we did something that we had never done before. We split up and took different tours. I was not going to take my first trip to Athens and not walk up the Acropolis hill. However, we decided that this would be too demanding a task for her. Therefore, we paid for two different ship’s tours. The sites of Athens were beautiful. Moreover, when returning to the ship I saw one of our bags on the pier. Our luggage had arrived!!

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

The next day we landed in Rhodes, Greece. This is a place worth seeing. The old town’s architecture is still kept largely the way that the medieval knights built it. We wandered around the town for several hours and saw the sights we had on our list. Then we went to a local restaurant for lunch. As we were looking for the restaurant it started to rain. It poured, plus thunder and lightning. We had a fantastic meal, under an outdoor umbrella, while a downpour fell around us. After lunch, the rain abated. We started walking back toward the ship. On the way to the ship, we saw some friends of ours having dessert at an outdoor café. We decided to join them. This proved to be a mistake. After dessert, while we made our way back to the ship, the skies opened up again. This time we got completely soaked. Here, the cruise line treated us well. As we boarded the ship, we were handed fresh, warm (straight out of the dryer, warm) towels. We thought all was well. What we did not realize was that this rain was the leading edge of a major storm.

 

My DH Jon

[alexkrn46]

I am finding this a very interesting read, can't wait for more.

[Rancher Dave]

Nice review. Sorry it was such a tough trip getting there etc...

[dirtgirl]

Hey Diana and Jon - nice to see another review of this cruise! It was lovely to meet you two. What an adventure we all had! :)

[betsyl]

And then what happened??????:confused:

[DrFUN]

And then what happened??????:confused:

 

I believe Diana is posting Jon's review in segments -- so stay tuned.

;)

 

BTW: My husband and I were also aboard that 12/5/10 BoS sailing. It was QUITE an experience!

 

Best,

Mary-Lou

[nydiana]

And then what happened??????:confused:

 

Sorry about the cliff hanger. I was out the last couple of nights.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

The next 30 or so hours the roughest I have ever experienced while aboard a ship. I thought of it like Gilligan’s Island – “The weather started getting rough the tiny ship was tossed …” The seas were so rough that a number of the crew was seasick. I can clearly remembering encountering a poor ship’s photographer the next evening. She was chanting (to herself, but out loud) the words “Seven Thirty” over and over again. When we asked her the meaning, she said that that was the time she was off duty and she could go lie down. At dinner that night, one of our tablemates complained about a loud banging noise that they were constantly hearing. There is a channel on the televisions that you get in your cabin which shows you various interesting things. Amongst these are various details about the outside conditions (most notably wind speed, both actual and apparent – which takes the ship’s speed into account) and video taken from the ship’s bridge. Watching this channel, we learned two things. First, over the next day the actual wind speeds increased to more than 70 MPH and apparent speeds of more than 100. This resulted in waves of more than 35 feet. Secondly, we learned that every time we heard the bang that bothered our dinner companion so much, a wave had crashed on to the ships helicopter deck (located on deck 6) and rattled chains which are located there. We did get some news from home during this time period. Our child did get the job. Therefore, she was going to have to work rather than fetch us at the airport when we returned home. We would now have to use our internet minutes to find a new way home from New York City.

 

Before getting to the events of December 12, let me relate a couple of other incidents from this 30 hour span. First, the evening of the 11th was the trip’s second “formal night”. Although, I still had the use of the free tuxedo, I chose to wear my own suit – showing off that I had my own luggage. Secondly, there was supposed to be a dance performance in the ship’s theater that evening. It was cancelled. This is too bad. Given how rough the seas were and how badly the ship was bouncing, it would have been interesting (to say the least) to watch the performers try to dance. This was a truly understandable decision on the part of the ship. One final incident worth noting took place this day. The television in the cabin sits on a shelf that pulls out of its cabinet and swivels. The seas were so rough that the TV was swiveling back and forth is the cabinet. I took spare pillow and placed them on both sides of the TV in order to keep in from doing so. This was only partially successful. Once the TV was prevented from moving from side to side, it started to move in and out. After some thought, I inserted a soft cover book into the space between the swivel shelf and the cabinet, itself. This proved to be tight enough to prevent the shelf from moving at all. In retrospect, these turned out to be wise precautions.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

At about 2:30 AM on the morning of December 12, in the words of Harry Chapin, “The universe went crash.” Actually, about a minute earlier the vase of flowers went crash. We thought we had had wedged on the shelf so that it would not fall, but it did. She heard it fall. My wife decided she needed to save the flowers. She turned on the light and set up on the edge of the bed. I decided that it was not a good idea for her to go rescue the flowers, so I told her to stay in bed and I got out of bed myself. While I was making my way around the bed the ship suddenly rolled. From what I understand, the ship rolled to about 30 degrees. My wife fell off the bed and landed on the floor. I was standing next to the large armoire/TV cabinet. So, I put my hand out and leaned against it. The roll did not seem to me to be as bad as others (including my spouse) remember it. As I staggered towards my wife, to check on her, the furniture (actually just the bed and nightstands) started to slide around the room. I was a little disappointed that I did not get to enjoy the sport of bed surfing as it might have been fun. My precaution of bracing the television turned out to have been fortunate. A lot of the injuries I heard about later were caused by people being hit by falling TVs. Ours never moved.

 

Within a couple of minutes it was all over. Five minutes later, the intercom went off. We heard, “This is your Captain … Oops.” That is what we heard. As others have pointed out on line, that is not what he said. What he told us, in a nutshell was this: The ship was headed towards the port of Alexandria at a speed of about 8 knots. The port of Alexandria closed because of the storm. When the storm got to be so bad that the port was closed, the boats docked there left anchor and were sailing about the harbor. As our ship approached the harbor, the Captain decided not to enter it. Therefore, he turned the ship. Because the ship was travelling less than 15 knots, the stabilizers were not functioning. When the ship turned, it got broadsided by a forty foot wave. When the wave hit the ship, the ship rolled significantly (the exact amount of the roll has been publicly disputed). All of these elements together led to the negative experience the passengers had just endured. He also added that it was the weatherman’s fault because the storm turned out to be worse than it was forecast to be. When we put all of this together we decided that somewhere in this was an admission that mistakes had been made. Thus, we concluded he had just said, “Oops!”

 

After the incident, the cabin was a wreck. Anything that had been left on the desk had fallen and bounced across the floor. This included the full ice bucket. So, ice was everywhere. It also included the plants that I mentioned earlier. I gathered everything together and put it in various desk drawers. This way they would not fall again. As much ice as I could gather went into the shower. I stood the nightstands back up. Then, I went to tackle the bed. It turned out to be surprisingly light. It had slid, during the roll, because it was not very heavy. After putting the room in some semblance of order, we went back to bed. An hour later the Captain awoke us with another announcement. I believe that this time he wanted to let us know that the cabin stewards would be going from cabin to cabin to check on our welfare. Accordingly, a knock on the door came an hour later. After assuring the steward we were all right, we went back to bed again.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

Now here I have to interject my comments. I truly love cruising. I grew up poor. As a child we never went to restaurants or even ordered pizza. So part of what I fell in love with my first cruise was the feeling I was being treated like royalty. I love getting dressed for dinner, the fine service, the fancy meals, the live shows and so forth.

 

One of the ways I feel pampered is to have flowers in my cabin. So each cruise I order flowers. This time I ordered orchids. When I herd things start to go crash I wanted to at least try to set the vase upright so it would not lose all it’s water. It is odd the things you worry about in times of emergency. So I flipped on the lights and sat up. Before I could attempt to get up, to set the flowers upright on the floor, we got hit with the big one. I was thrown out of bed and the room tipped so steeply I was sliding towards the cabin door. Every loose item in the cabin was sliding with me towards the door. I did all I could to grab anything to keep from crashing hard into the door or another hard object.

 

I would say for about two minutes I was very scared. My thoughts raced to the very high winds and the very rough seas. I pictured us getting into our lifeboats. Image if you will, being inside the little lifeboats bobbing up and down in the water. When the ship stopped rolling back and forth, my first thought was GREAT the ship isn’t going down. Then came the enormous release of tension and fear. I just started laughing uncontrollably. By this point Jon had fallen against me while trying to reach me. You looked around the room and it was a mess everywhere. Jon wasn’t sure if I was laughing or crying. Luckily I only ended up with bruises.

 

I will resume with Jon’s version tomorrow.

 

Diana

[nydiana]

We did not leave the cabin until about 9:30 the next morning. I don’t believe we were quite prepared for what we found. The first hint of the extent of the damage came when we entered the Centrum. For the first week of the cruise, it had been dominated by a 24 foot Christmas tree. This tree was now lying on its side. There were also piles of damaged decorations everywhere. We soon found out that the buffet restaurant was closed, the disco was closed, the gym was closed, and the spa was closed. The sports deck had already been closed for over a day because of the storm. As we wandered the ship we learned some more things. The main theater was badly damaged. The piano from the piano bar had slid into a Plexiglas case and badly damaged it. A table had slid into one of the glass elevator doors and damaged it. The self leveling pool tables (a neat device worth seeing in action at least once) were out of commission. There was no power in the ship’s smaller theater. There were piles of debris stacked in various parts of the ship. We gathered in this theater, which had a fine glass window through which we could look out to sea. It was as part of this gathering that a friend – who spent most of his adult life on ships - told us that the roll had definitely been 30-35 degrees. Until that time, the Captain had yet to admit that it was anything beyond 10-15. Somewhere around noon someone mentioned that the main dining room was open for lunch. We had not really thought about how they were going to feed the 2100 passengers. Nor had we considered what they were going to feed the 2100 passengers.

 

There was a long, slow moving line heading in to the dining room. There was some grumbling, but by and large everyone seemed to accept the situation. When we finally reached the dining room, we discovered that a buffet had been set up. There was chicken, fish and various salads and desserts. All in all it could have been worse. Talking to some of the dining room staff we learned that the kitchen and dining room had both been in shambles less than 12 hours previously. The entire kitchen and wait staff had been called on duty right after the roll. When the ship rolled, the tables had all been set for breakfast the following morning. What this meant is that glassware had flown everywhere. Most of it was broken. Furthermore, all of the tables and chairs had slid to one side of the room. By the time lunch rolled around the dining room was set in a presentable fashion. Eventually, the ship ran out of glassware and we were served on paper plates and in plastic cups. Chicken and fish remained the choice of food for the next three meals. We were led to understand that pipes had broken in one of the refrigerators, spoiling a good deal of food. The staff had worked all night in order to be clean the rooms and serve adequate meals. Chicken and fish were served, as these were the main items that had been saved. The chefs managed to create a separate sauce for each at each meal. As far as we were concerned, they all did a fantastic job. About 3:00 in the afternoon the cruise line gave up on the idea of going to Egypt at all. Immediately, the ship doubled its speed. This helped to smooth out the ride. Entertainment resumed sometime that afternoon. Given the limited venue options, the entertainment options were limited. The trivia was restarted. The music contests resumed. I think bingo resumed. At some point, the casino reopened. By that evening the main theater was functional. The weather was still too rough to do any dancing. Instead, each of the ship’s professional singers came on stage, sat on a stool, and just sang their favorite songs – cabaret style. It turned out to be one of the best performances I have ever seen on a ship.

 

My DH Jon

[nydiana]

The next day, December 13, was supposed to be the second day in the port of Alexandria. Instead it was spent at sea. This was the day of the riot – or as one news outlet dubbed it, “Mutiny on the Brilliance.” Late on the night of the twelfth, letters were delivered to every cabin on the ship. The letters informed us that due to the experience we had shared all passengers would receive $200 onboard credit. It went on to say that people travelling in suites would receive $400. People were annoyed that some people’s experiences were worth more than others. You could almost feel the tension level on the ship rise. The next morning we attended an event on the ship’s conference center. As we left the event, we ran into friends of ours who were outside the room. They told us, “Stay out of the Centrum, it’s getting kind of ugly.” I must say that we did not personally witness the event. We heard different accounts of it. From what I can gather passengers gathered around the front desk and protested than some people’s experiences were worth more than others. The Centrum is an open area and the six floors above it have balconies that overlook it. People lined these balconies. We have been told that the crowd started chanting, “400 … 400” over and over. At least one passenger allegedly started to circulate a letter amongst the passengers and at some point was confined to her cabin. One’s impression of how rowdy this whole scene became seem to depend upon your generation and point of view. Those people we spoke to over the age of 50 thought that the crowd got out of hand. Those who we spoke to who were under the age of 30 told us that there was just a little chanting and they did not think it was a big deal. As I said before, we were not there and did not witness it firsthand. The gathering broke up when the hotel manager appeared, said that there would be a meeting later in the day at which grievances could be aired. The grievance meeting turned out to be two separate meetings. One was for Spanish speaking guests. One was for English speaking guests. The Spanish speakers had their own meeting because the person under house arrest was one of them and I think that was a major bone of contention amongst them. The meeting for the rest of us consisted solely of the hotel manager appearing and telling the crowd that, “The Captain will make an announcement this evening that is better than anything you are expecting.”

 

One other incident of note took place during this afternoon. We reduced a poor waitress to tears. We did this merely by saying thank you. Apparently, other passengers had been rude to the staff, only considering how events had affected themselves. The staff suffered the same experiences that we had. Moreover, they had worked all night to make the ship presentable (and livable). They were continuing to work around the clock to make more areas available to the guests. We thought they had done a remarkable job and thanked our waitress at lunch. Her emotion surprised us. That evening was the final “formal night.” I returned to the use of the tuxedo. We dressed up and went to the 7 PM show. Just before the show started, the Captain got on the intercom and announced that the entire cost of the trip was being refunded for everyone. Suddenly, there were 2000 very happy people. The tensions from the preceding 48 faded and everybody relaxed. For the formal night, the ship returned to regular meal service. We did not believe that this was possible, given what we had seen to this point. However, most of the regular menu was available. Again, I must commend the crew for making this happen.

 

After dinner, we heard a rumor to the affect that we could make free telephone calls home. Asking at the front desk, I confirmed that these rumors were true. The only request was, “Don’t overdo it.” Apparently, one passenger had racked up $500 worth of call all ready and that passenger and the ship were debating the reasonableness of the bill. We were also informed that internet usage was also free (and had been for the last 24 hours). We used the free internet to look up information about trains between New York and Albany. . We used our free telephone call to arrange a ride from the airport to the train station.

 

While on line, we also discovered that the ship’s travails had been chronicled on the internet. (Actually we had learned that our situation was publicized earlier, when we could the tail end of a story about it on CNN International.) We used some more of our free internet minutes to assure close friends and family that we were, in fact, fine. This turned out to be counterproductive as none of them were as yet aware of our adventures. We also neglected to send email to our coworkers. Unbeknownst to us, they were following our story. We answered a lot of questions from them upon our return.

 

My DH Jon

[HoopsandYoYo]

I've enjoyed reading about your experience. Thank you for sharing.

 

H.

[fue-fue]

really enjoyed reading these reports. What a holiday you had!! many thanks for sharing

[nydiana]

The following morning we arrived at the island of Malta. It was nice to see land after bouncing around at sea for 3 days. We noticed a couple of things as we were preparing to leave the ship for the first day in Malta. First, there were people in suits giving interviews in front of the ship. There were rumors that company bigwigs were flying in to tour the ship. We took the interview as proof that there were, in fact, executives present. We also saw evidence of a lot of provisions being delivered to the ship and damaged items being removed from the ship. We had heard that up to 150 workers were getting on the ship. This appears to have been true. Malta was a perfectly nice place to visit – but, one day, rather than 2, would have been sufficient to see its sites. I understand why we stayed for two days – it allowed the repairman to work on the ship without it being in motion. However, it would have been nice to add an extra port, rather than spending an extra day in this one. By the time we left Malta, about 95% of the evident damage had been repaired. You could still find some broken things if you looked for them, but you had to look. Most of it was not obvious.

 

My DH Jon