Fire on Carnival Triumph. No engines, running on emergency generators.

[jonbgd]

The Triumph was due to dock at Galveston on Monday so I don't believe that many people intended to debark and go to work on Monday so this can not be counted as a day of work missed.

 

When at first it was announced that Carnival would book hotel rooms in Mobile and New Orleans, there were instant remarks on this thread about who would get rooms in Mobile instead of N.O. and derogatory statements were already being made about the way Carnival was going to handle this.

 

Now that Carnival has announced that they are still booking about 500 rooms in Mobile and the remainder in New Orleans because Mobile doesn't have enough rooms, posters are still complaining because Carnival is going to use the rooms in Mobile for the crew and other Carnival workers who have to work on the ship daily and are sending the passengers to rooms in New Orleans where there are plenty of rooms available.

 

Do those posters actually think it would be better to send the crew to New Orleans and have them commute back to Mobile daily?

 

And have you checked the prices of hotels in New Orleans and Mobile? The rooms I have checked are more expensive in New Orleans.

 

It makes a lot more sense to bus everyone to New Orleans to a few hotels then pick them up the next day and bring them to the airport than it does to bus people to different hotels all around the Mobile area Thursday, then pick them up Friday morning and bus them again all the way to the New Orleans airport where they would probably arrive 2 hours later than if they stayed in New Orleans.

If the rooms were unavailable I agree BUT the Mayor of Mobile said they could handle all Pax

[dwjoe]

Does anyone know if Carnival has other ships somewhere in the world to replace a ship like this? that Galveston to Cozumel trip is very popular and I can't see how they could not put another ship in its place?

 

Not on short notice. I don't think any cruise line keeps ships idle on standby. My guess is that the Triumph will be repaired quicker than they could move another ship to Galveston to take its place.

[broberts]

The issue in my mind is that these ships are poorly designed. All the electrical power generation is in one space and if that space is flooded or has a fire then everyone one onboard is screwed. It's obvious that these ships (Splendor, Triumph and Concordia) are designed with insufficient redundancy as far as damage control goes. These ships are very similar in design and that appears to be the common flaw here.

 

There are two "engine" rooms on Triumph, forward and aft. Splendor was designed well after Triumph. They were built nine years apart. Some twenty-two other Carnival ships appear to be similar, but that doesn't mean common systems or structural designs.

[ducklite]

1) Me=Man

 

2) That quote comes from a post responding to someone else, which came from a post responding to me, which came from a post responding to someone else:

For a synopsis, the debate was on how much lost work people had suffered and whether the compensation was enough. We were debating the amount and how it translated to people's earnings. The argument came up about how many days of work people missed, I said that people had missed four days of work. My worthy opponent had stated that it was a full week and thus the $500 would not come close to covering some peoples wages. I stated that it was difficult to work a full day on Monday, they stated that it was possible to work a full day on Monday. So I said, it was also possible to work Friday in this situation (not that it is the same, just that it is in fact possible). The debate was about compensation not about whether people would work Monday or Friday.

 

My thought was right now, as I understand the situation, I think the compensation is fair. I think the $500+returned money, will likely cover a decent amount of lost revenue and extra expenses. Conditions could have gotten worse and things could change in terms of arrival, but those are my thoughts.

 

If the ship had come back in a timely manner, it would have been able to go to work a bit late on Monday if you lived in the area. This is not the case coming back into a port 7.5 hours away after a week in hell.

 

I don't think compensation should be one size fits all, it should be based on actual losses plus a one size fits all "pain and suffering" payment. I think it's an insult to offer someone who makes $100K a year a $500 payment. That's not even a day and a half of lost income.

[ducklite]

Showers have been available in forward and some midship cabins according to a Carnival report on, I believe it was, Tuesday.

 

So that takes care of *maybe* 40% of the passengers. That also assumes that you don't have raw sewage backing up out of your shower and that you can get towels. That also assumes you don't mind a cold shower.

[LeftyRodriguez]

That data is from February 8th.

[ducklite]

Really???? I disagree

 

I think you wrote earlier on this thread your husband is a first responder

So probably a Medic ....... Does he think he is an MD

And Im writing this question with no malice, Just curious

 

Of course not--that's my point. My husband is an EMT. He doesn't think he's a medic, and is very careful not to ever overstep what he is legally allowed to do--even though in some cases he's received the appropriate training to know how to do more.

 

EMT's aren't medics anymore than nurses are doctors. The quote implied that EMT's and medics are the same medical authority. They are not.

[Jeano222]

Debbie is my daughter. She took pictures all over the ship to send to Carnival with her letter. There has been no response. After seeing all of the pictures, I am shocked that people on here are defending the ship. She needs to be completely redone, no bandaids this time. The worst concern was that the light on wall by the bed had a short in it and kept snapping inside the wall even with the light off. She went to guest services 4 times and they kept saying maintenance would come but they never did.

[jonbgd]

I would hope so because the Elation would be returning to NOLA tomorrow morning. Because the two ships will be so close the Elation could dockup with the Triumph again and give some cooked food and cell service.

 

Got some friends on the Elation right now and waiting to hear what they saw.

Good Idea but the Triumph wont be in NOLA Just some of the pax

The ship will be in Mobile

[dwjoe]

http://blog.al.com/live/2013/02/post_320.html

 

Article about Mobile being bypassed by Carnival in favor of NOLA for flights and hotel rooms.

 

The Mayor of Mobile, Sam Jones, said the city's airport was quite capable of accomodating flights to Houston and that Mobile has 7,000 hotel rooms. He said the city did not have input into CCL's decision.

 

Vance Gulliksen a CCL spokesman, said NOLA offered more flexibility and capacity given the complexity of towing and uncertain arrival time.

 

Paraphrased to avoid copyright infringement.

[Cindy]

The issue in my mind is that these ships are poorly designed. All the electrical power generation is in one space and if that space is flooded or has a fire then everyone one onboard is screwed. It's obvious that these ships (Splendor, Triumph and Concordia) are designed with insufficient redundancy as far as damage control goes. These ships are very similar in design and that appears to be the common flaw here.

 

I gave up on sailing Carnival last year due to poor service and food (just too many cutbacks), but it's obvious if any of these ships of that common design have a major engineering casualty, then almost all power is lost. I am not sure how other companies design their ships as far as redundant power sources, however, it's obvious that Carnival Corporation cut corners here to save on shipbuilding cost!

 

I'm going to remove the Concordia from my comments since that was such a different incident. That said, I think the thing that's the most disconcerting is that both of the ships that had fires followed by catastrophic power failure are Fincantieri ships built from the same basic design...as are MANY of the ships in the HAL, Princess, Costa, and Carnival fleets. Even if the causes of the Splendor and Triumph fires are different, the end result was the same. I do think a second ship-wide power failure in 2 years signals the need for an in depth look at why the power systems failed and how to better build redundancy into the systems that support life and sanitation.

[Newbie41]

CC isn't quite "anonymous". Many of the posters aren't new to CC. And the CC admin posted that they do validation with posters before including it to the news article. The alternative - that multiple CC members decided to fabricate similar things out of whole cloth - just is not credible.

 

Here is a fact. In addition to what Carnival already announced they were giving to the passenger on board the Triumph, today they announced that they are giving each passenger $500. I don't know exactly how many passenger are on board, but it is at least 3,000. That comes to $1,5 million. Carnival, or any other cruise line, isn't going to hand out that kind of money unless circumstances on the ship were horrible.

[F27TW]

I was surprised after the embarassment of the Splendor situation back in 2010 that they didnt change the name of that ship after the repairs were made. Obviously it didnt hurt bookings since .... but ...

Being as how this is now the second fire-adrift at sea situation and the ensuing media attention it has generated, I think Carnival would be very wise to re-name this shiip once it's been re-engined (or whatever), scrubbed, infected and readied for pax again ...

Any thoughts? I mean, this was pretty bad ... happening AGAIN !

[PIM463]

Not on short notice. I don't think any cruise line keeps ships idle on standby. My guess is that the Triumph will be repaired quicker than they could move another ship to Galveston to take its place.

 

great! a patch job may not be the best thing right now in terms of Carnival's reputation....They would do best to perform the repairs correctly

[gtalum]

Triumph was likely due a name change anyway, as the next oldest ship after Destiny. I wouldn't be shocked if they just moved up the transformation. Then again I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't, either.

[chrisb74]

Carnival, or any other cruise line, isn't going to hand out that kind of money unless circumstances on the ship were horrible.

 

That's not necessarily true. People have lost days of income or vacation days on the ship so it's fair to compensate them for that.

[broberts]

So that takes care of *maybe* 40% of the passengers. That also assumes that you don't have raw sewage backing up out of your shower and that you can get towels. That also assumes you don't mind a cold shower.

 

I don't think it reasonable to assume that passengers would not share their functioning shower.

 

If water is running then the waste system is also working so the chances of waste backing out of a shower approaches nil. Towels might have to be reused, but each person should have a beach towel and a bath towel which would account for two showers.

 

Cold is a relative term. My experience in the Caribbean is that even on a perfectly running ship the water out of the "cold" tap is warm to the touch after the first few seconds. With no air conditioning I would expect the water to be quite warm. Certainly showers will not be great without hot water, but they won't be cold.

[airmj2123]

I'm going to remove the Concordia from my comments since that was such a different incident. That said, I think the thing that's the most disconcerting is that both of the ships that had fires followed by catastrophic power failure are Fincantieri ships built from the same basic design...as are MANY of the ships in the HAL, Princess, Costa, and Carnival fleets. Even if the causes of the Splendor and Triumph fires are different, the end result was the same. I do think a second ship-wide power failure in 2 years signals the need for an in depth look at why the power systems failed and how to better build redundancy into the systems that support life and sanitation.

 

This is a very well stated post... I've been critical of those jumping to random conclusions based off little information, but this is a thought out way of expressing this concern.

[broberts]

Here is a fact. In addition to what Carnival already announced they were giving to the passenger on board the Triumph, today they announced that they are giving each passenger $500. I don't know exactly how many passenger are on board, but it is at least 3,000. That comes to $1,5 million. Carnival, or any other cruise line, isn't going to hand out that kind of money unless circumstances on the ship were horrible.

 

My thought was that they spent the money because they were getting killed by the media.

[Glock19]

The issue in my mind is that these ships are poorly designed. All the electrical power generation is in one space and if that space is flooded or has a fire then everyone one onboard is screwed. It's obvious that these ships (Splendor, Triumph and Concordia) are designed with insufficient redundancy as far as damage control goes. These ships are very similar in design and that appears to be the common flaw here.

 

I gave up on sailing Carnival last year due to poor service and food (just too many cutbacks), but it's obvious if any of these ships of that common design have a major engineering casualty, then almost all power is lost. I am not sure how other companies design their ships as far as redundant power sources, however, it's obvious that Carnival Corporation cut corners here to save on shipbuilding cost!

I was on the Pride last month. It was my 22nd carnival cruise. 3rd on the Pride. The service was bad, the food was not good. I hope it was just a bad week for them. I just got off the Allure of the seas on sunday. The service was outstanding the food was great. We didn't have a bad meal all week. The windjammer had very good food. Even at night a waiter up on the windjammer would come over to the table with wine and ask if you needed anything. I can't say enough about RCCL. I will sail Carnival again, but I hope its not like my last cruise on the Pride.

[airmj2123]

Here is a fact. In addition to what Carnival already announced they were giving to the passenger on board the Triumph, today they announced that they are giving each passenger $500. I don't know exactly how many passenger are on board, but it is at least 3,000. That comes to $1,5 million. Carnival, or any other cruise line, isn't going to hand out that kind of money unless circumstances on the ship were horrible.

 

I think a major reason for the added compensation was missing work (for at least some of the people). The Splendor didn't get this but they also didn't miss work because of it.

[BeagleOne]

The quote implied that EMT's and medics are the same medical authority. They are not.

 

In many states, and on the National Registry, paramedics are included among EMTs. An EMT may be basic, intermediate, or paramedic (EMT-B, EMT-I, EMT-P); if the EMT is also a member of the National Registry, s/he puts "NR" at the beginning of the acronym. The exact terminology varies among the different states.

[gtalum]

Here is a fact. In addition to what Carnival already announced they were giving to the passenger on board the Triumph, today they announced that they are giving each passenger $500. I don't know exactly how many passenger are on board, but it is at least 3,000. That comes to $1,5 million. Carnival, or any other cruise line, isn't going to hand out that kind of money unless circumstances on the ship were horrible.

 

I agree. The timing of the announcement of the $500 additional compensation seems planned to help deaden the impact of the disastrous stories that are going to come out tomorrow. When Gerry admitted that conditions were "challenging", that's an indication that they're extremely bad.

[Boatdrill]

.... I would not doubt that they deliberately kept them out of range to prevent a torrent of reports from the ship to loved ones on shore that CCL would not be able to prevent ending up at the news networks, and roasting their goose further.

 

 

You've got to be kidding. Please say you are.

[Iamseasick]

This will make me think twice about ever taking a cruise again, especially on Carnival.