Security on /celebrity ships in Indian subcontinent and middle east

[parkridge]

Does anyone one know if the celebrity ships in the above areas hire extra security contractors for cruises to these areas?

[Project_gal]

I doubt that they would tell you if they did but you should not be overly concerned. We sailed through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden shortly after the Mumbai attacks and at the time that Captain Smith was being towed behind his vessel by pirates on Azamara (while they were much more closely associated with Celebrity).

 

Security was tight and appropriate. We were kept fully informed about what our parts in this was. If anything, it improved the comradeship on board.

[gek]

Cruises through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have significantly enhanced security on board to protect against piracy but to my knowledge there is no increased security once out of these areas. Pirates would have to be very will equipped and organised to attempt an assault on a large modern cruise ship.

[G.M.T.]

Heard that because of drop in profits, extra security can not be afforded.

 

So it is expected that passengers are expected to take security into their own hands and supply the necessary equipment.

 

See attached.

cruise safety .pdf

[princeton12321]

There's also a large naval task force in those waters made up of an international coalition. Cruise ships make their presence known before sailing to the ships on patrol. In any regard, cruise ships are terrible targets for pirates. Full of people and nothing of real value. Not to mention much faster than tankers or container ships. Seabourn Spirit was attacked a few years ago I believe and even she was able to outrun them out to sea (and the small Seabourn sisters were never that fast). She did take a few rocket launch grenades into her hull I believe.

[Lisah101]

We cruised the Suez Canal from Abu Dhabi to Rome and when in the "pirate zone" there was extra security all over the ship and we also had to do a Pirate Drill. I always felt safe especially as you enter the Suez canal and the ships are lined up - so many commercial and passenger vessels that I doubt they could have hijacked anyone. However as we passed by Somalia there was definitely more security and all exterior lights were off at night. We just moved the party to interior portions of the ship for those nights.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Lisah101

[Project_gal]

.... Not to mention much faster than tankers or container ships. ...

 

... and more manoeuvrable.

[ReneeFLL]

I doubt that they would tell you if they did but you should not be overly concerned. We sailed through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden shortly after the Mumbai attacks and at the time that Captain Smith was being towed behind his vessel by pirates on Azamara (while they were much more closely associated with Celebrity).

 

Security was tight and appropriate. We were kept fully informed about what our parts in this was. If anything, it improved the comradeship on board.

 

What/when was this "Captain Smith was being towed behind his vessel by pirates on Azamara." I googled and couldn't find anything about it. Maybe were you talking about Captain Phillips?

[Project_gal]

What/when was this "Captain Smith was being towed behind his vessel by pirates on Azamara." I googled and couldn't find anything about it. Maybe were you talking about Captain Phillips?

 

I thought in the film they made of the incident they called him "Captain Smith". I never go to the cinema, so apologies if I misremembered the name but people usually remember the film and not the news reports. Otherwise, we were on Azamara Quest for the whole period of the incident. Perhaps I should have used more punctuation. I was simply trying to explain that there was a higher level of concern at the time we cruised the region than at present.

[gek]

Piracy in the area peaked around 2010 but was virtually non-existent in 2015/16 according to various piracy tracking websites. It seems there has been a slight uptick in incidents this year, but cruise ships have not been targeted. Given that everyone is hyper-alert to the threat and determined to eradicate it I'd say the area is safer than most other places these days. Many more incidents occur regularly in the waters around Malaysia, but once again cruise ships are not the target.

[princeton12321]

Piracy in the area peaked around 2010 but was virtually non-existent in 2015/16 according to various piracy tracking websites. It seems there has been a slight uptick in incidents this year, but cruise ships have not been targeted. Given that everyone is hyper-alert to the threat and determined to eradicate it I'd say the area is safer than most other places these days. Many more incidents occur regularly in the waters around Malaysia, but once again cruise ships are not the target.

 

 

 

It just doesn't make any sense for pirates to attack a ship with 2500 people onboard and no valuable cargo when they can attack slower ships with 24 people onboard and cargo worth millions of dollars they can hold hostage.

[suenneil]

we did Suez cruise this past April, we did have extra security onboard and safety was taken very seriously. The pirates are still active and a tanker 3 hrs behind us was taken. The cruise was amazing and will do it again sometime in the future. hope this helps