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Live - Millennium Held By Russian Authorities

NJ Fred

By NJ Fred,
in Celebrity Cruises

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NJ Fred

NJ Fred

Posted
Posted

I am writing this at 10:20 PM local time in Petropavlovsk, Russia.

 

Celebrity Millennium was due to sail from its anchorage more than three hours ago.

 

Russian authorities decided to do a pre-departure recheck of all passports. Cruise Director Steve Gayda and his very able team have made several announcements in several languages directing all passengers to proceed to Guest Relations to surrender their passports. As of a few minutes ago, several passengers have failed to comply. Steve made it clear the vessel will be held until there is 100% compliance.

 

The obvious question is why the passenger list cannot be audited in comparison to those who have, in fact, surrendered their passports. The ship is being delayed and it is foreseeable that there will come a point when Russian officials will close down for the night making an overnight stay necessary and throwing Millennium severely behind schedule.

 

I will discuss Petropavlovsk in my post-cruise review. However, it is not a port I have even a morsel of desire to revisit. St. Petersburg was well worth the journey last year. This port makes me think of the South Bronx.

Wish us luck!

 

BTW, Code Red remains in full force as of this writing.

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lexdisic

lexdisic

Posted
Posted
I am writing this at 10:20 PM local time in Petropavlovsk, Russia.

 

Celebrity Millennium was due to sail from its anchorage more than three hours ago.

 

Russian authorities decided to do a pre-departure recheck of all passports. Cruise Director Steve Gayda and his very able team have made several announcements in several languages directing all passengers to proceed to Guest Relations to surrender their passports. As of a few minutes ago, several passengers have failed to comply. Steve made it clear the vessel will be held until there is 100% compliance.

 

The obvious question is why the passenger list cannot be audited in comparison to those who have, in fact, surrendered their passports. The ship is being delayed and it is foreseeable that there will come a point when Russian officials will close down for the night making an overnight stay necessary and throwing Millennium severely behind schedule.

 

I will discuss Petropavlovsk in my post-cruise review. However, it is not a port I have even a morsel of desire to revisit. St. Petersburg was well worth the journey last year. This port makes me think of the South Bronx.

Wish us luck!

 

BTW, Code Red remains in full force as of this writing.

 

We do hope you get underway soon so as not to disrupt your cruise more. Whenever there has been a request from passengers there are always some it seems that spoil the party - particularly bad of them in this situation. Are they on board even? Shame about the code red still.

We do wish you luck - and with all that is going on - you will still enjoy it

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lexdisic

lexdisic

Posted
Posted
Maybe this is in revenge for the sanctions against russia.

 

The port has consistently caused problems for X. Like the OP states - I dont know why X bothers with it - more trouble than its worth.

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TMLAalum

TMLAalum

Posted
Posted (edited)

On our 4/13 Millennium cruise from Hong Kong, our passports were taken and held so that proper visas could be stamped for Taiwan and Japan. The night before we arrived in Tianjin China we had to retrieve our passports per a schedule. This process was well-organized and upon return to the ship we again surrendered our passports to be retrieved the night before arriving in Shanghai where the cruise concluded. Had there been a forewarning about Petroplavosk, passports could have been collected similarly.

 

Sounds like a mess in Russia that may well be 'politically' motivated. I hope those who failed to comply are located soon...perhaps it's a language barrier?

 

We'd have been on this itinerary had it's original sail date of 4/26/14 not been moved:eek:!

Edited by TMLAalum
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patty1955

patty1955

Posted
Posted

When were in Petropavlovsk, we were late getting in to port. We were told on a later cruise that the Russian officials asked to examine each passport before we'd be allowed ashore. When they were brought the carefully organized passports, they dumped them in the middle of the table and went through them one by one.

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Minoushka

Minoushka

Posted
Posted

Perhaps its time to reconsider going there to spend our hard earned money ....in these times this is one place I would avoid even though certain areas are gorgeous and great tourist places ,When countries start to hastle for the he ck of it ...its time to move on....you never know when they can get crrrazy and block a ship from leaving ...it could happen

I noticed certain companies offering reduced cruise fare and free excursions in Baltics and Russia...gee i wonder why ...I would not set foot in these countries at this time ...perhaps when things settle .Who wants to get stuck in some political battle ??

 

No Ruusian stops should be eleminated

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rnrcruzin

rnrcruzin

Posted
Posted
I agree! On our Asia cruise we were also delayed by pax that refused to report as requested. The CD made many, many announcements for them to hand in their passports.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Yeahbut you Canucks have nothing to worry about. Everybody loves Canada.

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TeaBag

TeaBag

Posted
Posted
I am writing this at 10:20 PM local time in Petropavlovsk, Russia.

 

Celebrity Millennium was due to sail from its anchorage more than three hours ago.

 

Russian authorities decided to do a pre-departure recheck of all passports. Cruise Director Steve Gayda and his very able team have made several announcements in several languages directing all passengers to proceed to Guest Relations to surrender their passports. As of a few minutes ago, several passengers have failed to comply. Steve made it clear the vessel will be held until there is 100% compliance.

 

The obvious question is why the passenger list cannot be audited in comparison to those who have, in fact, surrendered their passports. The ship is being delayed and it is foreseeable that there will come a point when Russian officials will close down for the night making an overnight stay necessary and throwing Millennium severely behind schedule.

 

I will discuss Petropavlovsk in my post-cruise review. However, it is not a port I have even a morsel of desire to revisit. St. Petersburg was well worth the journey last year. This port makes me think of the South Bronx.

Wish us luck!

 

BTW, Code Red remains in full force as of this writing.

I agree with you Fred about Petropavlovsk. We only took a tour so we could say we were in Russia. I found the place absolutely depressing. I don't know why Celebrity bothers to go there.

We were very late leaving also, because of some passport problems. I think one of the tours was very late getting off the ship because the Russian officials insisted on going very slowly through the passports of those individuals and then, of course, they were very late reboarding. I hope you get out of there PDQ.

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20pluscruises

20pluscruises

Posted
Posted (edited)
I am writing this at 10:20 PM local time in Petropavlovsk, Russia.

 

Celebrity Millennium was due to sail from its anchorage more than three hours ago.

 

Russian authorities decided to do a pre-departure recheck of all passports. Cruise Director Steve Gayda and his very able team have made several announcements in several languages directing all passengers to proceed to Guest Relations to surrender their passports. As of a few minutes ago, several passengers have failed to comply. Steve made it clear the vessel will be held until there is 100% compliance.

 

The obvious question is why the passenger list cannot be audited in comparison to those who have, in fact, surrendered their passports. The ship is being delayed and it is foreseeable that there will come a point when Russian officials will close down for the night making an overnight stay necessary and throwing Millennium severely behind schedule.

 

I will discuss Petropavlovsk in my post-cruise review. However, it is not a port I have even a morsel of desire to revisit. St. Petersburg was well worth the journey last year. This port makes me think of the South Bronx.

Wish us luck!

 

BTW, Code Red remains in full force as of this writing.

 

Is the code red the reason for the delay? Or is there some other reason?

Edited by 20pluscruises
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Goldenco

Goldenco

Posted
Posted
The delay is because some passengers are not following instructions to bring their passports to Guest Services:mad:

 

...and primarily the Russian authorities decided to do a re-check of passports, which is something I've never heard of before. Not excusing the pax that didn't give them the passports. :confused:

Goldenco

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20pluscruises

20pluscruises

Posted
Posted
The delay is because some passengers are not following instructions to bring their passports to Guest Services:mad:

 

That's frustrating!!! I remember years ago several times we couldn't leave the ship to go home because some didn't pay their bill...I can't even tell you the number of times they were paged/loudspeaker to do so. I recall some were so angry they took it upon themselves to pound on the guests door.

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DebbieMacG

DebbieMacG

Posted
Posted
I couldn't. Could someone please explain this code red?

Thanks,

Goldenco

 

It means there is a significant number of noro virus cases on board and the ship puts in place extra cleaning and counter measures (no self serve items in buffet etc) to cope with this

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