Infinity loss of power

[joandian]

I'm not sure if this has already been posted so ignore if it has. We are on Infinity and we lost all power leaving Le Havre two nights ago. We left port at 9pm and didn't make it through the heads before all the power went out and we were dead in the water.

 

We had a tug on each side keeping us from drifting into the shipping lane. The ships officers handled it well and power started being restored after about 20 minutes and it took about 90 minutes for everything to be up and running and the ship moving under its own power.

 

A little excitement and I'm just pleased it happened when we were still close and not in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

[mcrcruiser]

I'm not sure if this has already been posted so ignore if it has. We are on Infinity and we lost all power leaving Le Havre two nights ago. We left port at 9pm and didn't make it through the heads before all the power went out and we were dead in the water.

 

We had a tug on each side keeping us from drifting into the shipping lane. The ships officers handled it well and power started being restored after about 20 minutes and it took about 90 minutes for everything to be up and running and the ship moving under its own power.

 

A little excitement and I'm just pleased it happened when we were still close and not in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

 

This can happen to all the Millenium class ships :o.Last year Millenium had very bad engine problem in Alaska & had to let 2000+ passengers off in Ketchican . Yes ,you are fortunate in that it was not the middle of the Ocean ;).

 

We are on this ship Sept of 2015 to Alaska from SF ,a 14 night R/T cruise:eek:

[LetsGetWet!]

This can happen to all the Millenium class ships :o.Last year Millenium had very bad engine problem in Alaska & had to let 2000+ passengers off in Ketchican . Yes ,you are fortunate in that it was not the middle of the Ocean ;).

 

We are on this ship Sept of 2015 to Alaska from SF ,a 14 night R/T cruise:eek:

I'm sure it "can" happen to any ship. What's specific to Celebrity Millenium class as a causal factor??

[WestLakeGirl]

Millie didn't lose all power. One pod failed. The other pod was fine. There was never a loss of electricity, heating, communications.

[mcrcruiser]

I'm sure it "can" happen to any ship. What's specific to Celebrity Millenium class as a causal factor??

 

When Celebrity had the French ship yard build the 4 millennium class ships it was later found out about the engine problems & some remedies were done ;however ,it did take a complete new engine install with millennium in 2013 .

 

Celebrity /RCL sued the French builder for some very large sum .Think it was in the vicinity of $750 million

[ghstudio]

If it lost ALL power, that's something new...akin to the carnival problem with a single point of failure. If a pod (or pods) stopped, then it's limited to the main engines...still a problem but a different problem. Hopefully the ship's electric power which comes from a separate engine did not fail as well....that would be very troublesome......

 

Please post details if you find out what happened.

Edited May 15, 2014 by ghstudio

[KirkNC]

Curious as we will be on her again.

[joandian]

If it lost ALL power, that's something new...akin to the carnival problem with a single point of failure. If a pod (or pods) stopped, then it's limited to the main engines...still a problem but a different problem. Hopefully the ship's electric power which comes from a separate engine did not fail as well....that would be very troublesome......

 

Please post details if you find out what happened.

 

I think they said it was the generators. It was a complete failure. All lights went out, water was out and no propulsion systems at all. We were, like I said, dead in the water and they only had emergency power and the main speaker system up.

[ghstudio]

I hope we read more on this....that is not supposed to happen if the ship is properly designed which we have been assured it is.

[DebbieMacG]

I hope we read more on this....that is not supposed to happen if the ship is properly designed which we have been assured it is.

 

I thought that was the Solstice class ships?

[mcrcruiser]

Carnival spent some 700 to 800 million backing up their systems due to similar failures ;). when a ship looses all power ,it should have a back up system in place to take over from the failed system ;)

[Christine Frances]

When Celebrity had the French ship yard build the 4 millennium class ships it was later found out about the engine problems & some remedies were done ;however ,it did take a complete new engine install with millennium in 2013 .

 

Celebrity /RCL sued the French builder for some very large sum .Think it was in the vicinity of $750 million

 

It was Rolls Royce that supplied the pods and they were the ones that were sued.

[mcrcruiser]

It was Rolls Royce that supplied the pods and they were the ones that were sued.

 

 

The point was that there was a law suit ;but ,how did it all turn out . Millie had to have a complete new engine put in last year according to cruise critic news:eek:

[Beachdude]

Carnival spent some 700 to 800 million backing up their systems due to similar failures ;). when a ship looses all power ,it should have a back up system in place to take over from the failed system ;)

 

Of what I understand, Carnival change the power systems so that one power system at failure doesn't take out the other power system. The back up system IS the other system, not an additional system.

 

Burt

[ghstudio]

Of what I understand, Carnival change the power systems so that one power system at failure doesn't take out the other power system. The back up system IS the other system, not an additional system.

 

Burt

 

And that's the way celebrity ships are (supposedly) designed....which is why it's important, at least to me, to understand what happened. We will be crossing the Atlantic on the Infinity.

[Beachdude]

And that's the way celebrity ships are (supposedly) designed....which is why it's important, at least to me, to understand what happened.

 

Yep, I fully agree.

 

Burt

[LetsGetWet!]

When Celebrity had the French ship yard build the 4 millennium class ships it was later found out about the engine problems & some remedies were done ;however ,it did take a complete new engine install with millennium in 2013 .

 

Celebrity /RCL sued the French builder for some very large sum .Think it was in the vicinity of $750 million

The point was that there was a law suit ;but ,how did it all turn out . Millie had to have a complete new engine put in last year according to cruise critic news

That is a completely separate and different thing than losing all electrical power as apparently happened in this incident.

Edited May 15, 2014 by LetsGetWet!

[Chunky2219]

This is terrible. After our stop at Le Havre last year I'd have been happy to be departing before lunchtime. On the first day. Thinking you were escaping only to be dead in the water within sight of the place must have been awful. :p

 

On a more serious note, did the elevators continue to work (at least to disgorge passengers) or were people stranded?

 

 

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[boogs]

When Celebrity had the French ship yard build the 4 millennium class ships it was later found out about the engine problems & some remedies were done ;however ,it did take a complete new engine install with millennium in 2013 .

 

Celebrity /RCL sued the French builder for some very large sum .Think it was in the vicinity of $750 million

 

That is still a different problem that what the OP reported. Losing all power is not a pod problem, but an electrical problem.

 

And not all M class ships have had serious problems such as these.

 

The point was that there was a law suit ;but ,how did it all turn out . Millie had to have a complete new engine put in last year according to cruise critic news:eek:

 

No. The point is that you are posting incorrect information.

Edited May 15, 2014 by boogs

[ghstudio]

That is still a different problem that what the OP reported. Losing all power is not a pod problem, but an electrical problem.

 

And not all M class ships have had serious problems such as these.

 

As far as I can remember, this type of complete outage has never been reported before on a celebrity m-class or s-class ship which is what makes it so notable.

 

It's important to remember that we have one report of this incident.... I'd like to see a little corroboration and amplification of the facts before being too concerned.

Edited May 15, 2014 by ghstudio

[BMT]

I remember a Celebrity ship a few years ago losing all power and drifting onto the rocks in, I think it was, Santorini! Have a feeling it was the Millennium. I know someone who was on the bridge at the time and since he is still with the Company, it had to be a technical error and not human. It was glossed-over as are all these things. Ships cannot go dead in the water we are told........really?:D:D Just adds to the excitement of cruising I suppose.

[Patrick IL.]

It happened to us right after we ported in Key West last Feb on constellation. We just walked down the stairs and went in port. We were not at sea! It took about 2 hours to get the power on.

[DWhit]

As far as I know, most cruise ships have redundant power trains/systems with the idea they might lose one system, but would still have one or more others available. They are typically designed to be totally independent, with sufficient physical separation. The problem is when you have a common-mode failure that affects multiple trains/systems. For the Carnival ship, I believe the common mode failure was a fire that took out all power systems.

 

Common mode failures are indeed significant, in that they defeat the redundant design of the ships systems. They should not happen, but obviously sometimes they do.

[cruisestitch]

I was on Millie when the propulsion gave out for the second time in a week. We had all electrical power, the lights worked, the elevators, the shows went on. This is clearly something other than the propulsion pod. And even when that pod quit, the other one, as well as the bow thrusters, still worked. The ship was able to move itself to dry dock in the Bahamas, and back through the Panama Canal.

 

There have been a couple of reports of general electrical failures, lasting short amounts of time. The Constellation problem in Key West was one of them.

 

There are propulsion problems, and generator problems, and it's best if the discussion stick to the issue at hand.

[ghstudio]

I"m much happier now that I've learned this has happened before. Whatever causes these electrical outages must be known and they apparently know how to fix them. That actually is comforting news.