Celebrity Constellation hits Costa Magica

[dodger1964]

On 10/30/2018 at 2:15 AM, MCazer said:

When the line snapped, we were in our stateroom (1130 aft) and we listed a bit, at which time my husband yelled for me to come see that water cascaded down our wall behind and onto our couch and bed.  We pulled things away as fast as possible and called maintenance.  

 

Right after we we hung up, we went on balcony to watch in surprise as we hit the Magica.

 

we hear from friends on a lower aft cabin that the winding cleaning equipment aft was left on the Costa ship, and our gangway went into the water.  And luckily no one was on it at that time.

 

Do you know where the water was coming from?
 

 

[dodger1964]

A general question...does it take time to much start the engines, or are they always ready to be engaged??

 

Just after the collision you can see the wake from engines engaged...I wonder if they were caught off guard since they where tied up at pier...or if they were just late in reacting to breaking loose?

[chengkp75]

2 hours ago, dodger1964 said:

A general question...does it take time to much start the engines, or are they always ready to be engaged??

 

Just after the collision you can see the wake from engines engaged...I wonder if they were caught off guard since they where tied up at pier...or if they were just late in reacting to breaking loose?

When at the pier, there will be only one diesel generator running, to supply the hotel load, and the propulsion system will be shut off, and interlocked so that there must be a certain number of generators on line before they can be started.  When getting underway normally, it takes 20-30 minutes to test all the systems between the engine room, the bridge and the steering room (or azipod rooms).  In an emergency, they can bypass all of this testing and get things going more quickly.  They will have to get a call from the bridge to ECR to start engines and get propulsion ready.  Then, the engineer will have to  determine that there is no "lock out" on any system  (lock out/tag out systems are vital for safe maintenance of marine equipment that can be started remotely), and then he will start generators.  It will take about 2-3 minutes to get 2 more generators running and on line producing power, and then he can start the propulsion auxiliary systems, and then close the breakers on the main motors, and thrusters, or azipods.  He will then notify the bridge that propulsion is ready, and transfer control of propulsion to the bridge.  If nothing much is going on in the engine room that day, and the guys are really on the ball, they could likely have propulsion in 10 minutes.

 

The diesel engines are always in "standby" mode, unless secured for maintenance, which means they are ready to start with the push of a button, but there is a start-up sequence that takes half a minute or so, and then the engine needs to get up to speed and then synchronize with the generator already running, which can take another 2-3 minutes.  The propulsion systems, which include auxiliary systems like cooling water and lubricating oil, are typically secured, and will require a couple of minutes to get them all running and the alarms cleared.

[itsandreas]

I don’t often post publicly but as one of the guests onboard during the Celebrity Constellation’s allision with the Costa Magica, I have nothing but praise for the crew.

 

When we heard the moorings snap and felt the ship list I went straight up to the Reflections lounge.  By the time I got there, they had already dropped anchor and started the bow thrusters to keep us in position.  The bridge crew had the ship positionally stable within 3 minutes from the failure of the moorings, all without assistance of tugs.

 

What can’t really be seen in the videos is how close we came to the peer on the opposite side with our bow.  We were within 10 ft of the boats on that peer.  To use an analogy, the master was threading a needle - keeping a nearly 1000 ft vessel in a space with only about 50 ft to spare.

 

I can’t say that there was major damage.  The damage to the Costa Magica was less than 30 ft, mainly on the railing of the bow.  Costa cruiselines themselves have called the damage “slight”.  There was no damage evident to guests on board the Celebrity Constellation.  Obviously, the Port Office cleared both vessels to sail after the allision, so the serviceability of both ships was not compromised.  In fact, the Celebrity Constellation is currently on its way to Crete.

 

To give some context to the severity of the meteorological conditions - wind was 50 kph gusting to 70 kph at the time of the allision.  The winds stayed above 40 kph until about 2 AM.  The squall had actually caused another ship (a cargo carrier) to break it moorings and had toppled over stacks of shipping containers in the port.  For extended periods, the wind also caused the piers to flood by up to two feet of water.  Numerous trees in the town of La Spezia were either uprooted or snapped in half.  Remember, the is La Spezia - the geographically well-sheltered port that is used by the Italian Naval Academy for training because of the sheltered conditions.

 

I believe that it was the dangerous conditions on the pier that contributed to the delays in getting passengers off.  The Port Office wouldn’t open the port or allow passengers to disembark when there was still a considerable risk to their safety.  I understand that, from Celebrity’s perspective, all the necessary arrangements had been made.

 

From my perspective, the official communication was clear.  For example, Paul asked guests not to come down to try and disembark until a further announcement was made three times.  If anyone was stuck in chaotic queuing it was due to the fact that they didn’t follow crew instructions.

 

I have an aviation background and we have a saying that it is primary duty of the pilot to fly the plane; a good landing is one where everyone is safe and a great landing is one where you can use the plane again.  In this case the crew saved the ship in treacherous conditions, without loss of life and in a way that resulted in a few hours delay.  Some passengers even got into the airport earlier that they would have if everything went to plan!

 

I might have a glass half full perspective on this but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to rejoining the ship and crew in about  ten days time, when it will head off to the Suez Canal and United Arab Emirates.  This crew showed that the can face and overcome life threatening conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

[riclop]

That is why they cancel a port of call sometimes  and people complain.

[dazey]

We waited as instructed for the next group to be called for the bus which we signed up for.  That was about 11:30 or midnight.  We, along with other guests, waited with luggage and coats until after 3 AM for the call until someone went down to check on status and returned saying no more buses.  As Celebrity had our cabin number, it would have been kind if they had called us so we could go to bed.  I do believe that we probably were fortunate not to have taken the bus. We did have to reschedule our flight home to Boston and it ended up costing us almost $1500 for flight change and hotel for extra night but what can one do about it(I know - get insurance or book through Celebrity). We got to enjoy a night in Frankfort and a lovely flight on Lufthansa.

 

I do not fault Celebrity for what happened but I do believe more valuable information during this 3 day situation would have helped.  Everyone(staff and guests) seemed to just deal with it.

 

Live and learn.

[cockney1]

We were due to fly home and due to late arrival in port of Rome we were sent to a coach that was taking us to the Hilton hotel by the airport. At the time we were not aware that 2 coaches were going to two different Hilton hotels! We were given a room when we arrived and checked in. The room was good but for it being extremely hot. The aircon did nothing and when I reported it was told they had had a problem. Due to this extremely hot room and uncertainty of getting home the following day it was a terrible night. 

The celebrity staff dealing with finding us a flight were not helping that well when we were informed our names were not in5 their lists! They then said that we should have been at the other Hilton hotel.  Eventually around 11.30 that evening they had us booked to fly from Rome to Barcelona and then another flight to Gatwick. Our car was left at Heathrow terminal 4 car park!  They could not change this as no other flight was available. How we got from Gatwick to Heathrow they didn't have a answer for. 

I rang our travel agent the next morning (Wednesday 31st) and explained the problem and had given them contact numbers for help line and also a London phone number. Lisa at Cruise Specialist was very helpful and said she would ring around to get information on this. When I rang her back she was fabulous and said that when we arrived at Gatwick there would be celebrity staff who would direct us to shuttle bus to get us to Heathrow!  None of the Celebrity staff in Rome Hilton told us this. Had they done we might have slept more relaxed,  although the bedroom was like a oven and extremely uncomfortable. We had so much on our mind about flight home we could not sleep. 

We left Rome on Iberia flight having about 1hour 40min to spare between the flights. We were 1hour 10min late leaving!  Arrived and didn't manage to get ourconnection and were given more flight tickets and hotel voucher for the Ibis hotel. We teamed up with another couple on our flight and got taxi to Ibis that evening. That night at Ibis we found another 6people also travelling to Gatwick but booked onto later flight. We left Thursday morning 1st November to get our flight with Iberia airways to Gatwick. We were told by my TA who was marvellous to get taxi and keep receipts for all expense we incurred. 

Eventually we got taxi to Heathrow and collected our car and got home Thursday afternoon.  

This was such a stressful ordeal but we were lucky to share with the other couple we travelled with and this helped us get through this ordeal. 

I believe the information given to us by Celebrity staff at the Hilton was extremely pathetic and not helping us deal with the situation. 

A letter detailing all these problems is going to our TA and they are forwarding onto Celebrity. 

We will await their reply as we have another cruise booked with them fot next year. 

 

[jakob71]

22 hours ago, dazey said:

We waited as instructed for the next group to be called for the bus which we signed up for.  That was about 11:30 or midnight.  We, along with other guests, waited with luggage and coats until after 3 AM for the call until someone went down to check on status and returned saying no more buses.  As Celebrity had our cabin number, it would have been kind if they had called us so we could go to bed.  I do believe that we probably were fortunate not to have taken the bus. We did have to reschedule our flight home to Boston and it ended up costing us almost $1500 for flight change and hotel for extra night but what can one do about it(I know - get insurance or book through Celebrity). We got to enjoy a night in Frankfort and a lovely flight on Lufthansa.

 

I do not fault Celebrity for what happened but I do believe more valuable information during this 3 day situation would have helped.  Everyone(staff and guests) seemed to just deal with it.

 

Live and learn.

 

[KateDen]

I'm so sorry to hear about the ordeal that my fellow cruisers, my friends, had to endure to get home. There is nothing worse than uncertainty when traveling and it's worse when information is at best scattered and at worse nonexistant. We had planned to stay an extra day and In the end were thankful we had made that decision, even though we didn't get to Rome. 

 

I cannot imagine the chaos that ensued when the very late and very vague announcement was made that people could take buses in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm. I do know that any information was pretty much nil throughout the day. realize that they were trying to work things out, but even an announcement saying that would have been better than silence. 

 

I'm so sorry to hear about the extra expenses and stress that you had to go through. It was such a perfect cruise until it wasn't. I'm just happy that everyone did finally arrive home safely. 

 

To the person who made the unhelpful comment about people complaining about missing ports, you obviously didn't read any of the posts. No one complained about missing ports, only about the lack of  communication and organization throughout the process. You weren't there so you don't know how we were well aware that trying to get to the ports would be dangerous and foolhardy. 

[jakob71]

My wife and I also signed up at the Guest Relations Desk in the evening, for a free bus service from the port in La Spezia to the airport in Rome.

After a some hours, we really reacted to the lack of information about the bus departures. Around 1.30 am we therefore took our baggage from the stateroom, and found a place to sit down with many other passengers near Guest Relations on deck 3. It was really a good decision.

 

After a while we realized that there was no system at all for who would be offered a seat on the buses! You just had to queue up!

We now realize that we probably were some of the last ones who got a bus ride to the airport in Rome.

Our bus left the port around 03.00 am, and the bus ride took about 6 hours, including an approx. 30 minute stop.

Due to lack of space for suitcases on our bus, the bus was not full. So we had a relatively ok bus ride on mostly highways to the airport.

 

We arrived well in advance to our previously booked flight.

 

[cachouonacruise]

Thank you very much Itsandreas for taking the time to post a factual and very interesting account of events! 

 

Celebrity always say that passenger safety is the first priority. As much as I find the experienced event unfortunate and inconveniencing for all, I’m pleased to read that crew actions were efficient in ensuring safety! 

On 11/1/2018 at 3:38 PM, itsandreas said:

I don’t often post publicly but as one of the guests onboard during the Celebrity Constellation’s allision with the Costa Magica, I have nothing but praise for the crew.

 

When we heard the moorings snap and felt the ship list I went straight up to the Reflections lounge.  By the time I got there, they had already dropped anchor and started the bow thrusters to keep us in position.  The bridge crew had the ship positionally stable within 3 minutes from the failure of the moorings, all without assistance of tugs.

 

What can’t really be seen in the videos is how close we came to the peer on the opposite side with our bow.  We were within 10 ft of the boats on that peer.  To use an analogy, the master was threading a needle - keeping a nearly 1000 ft vessel in a space with only about 50 ft to spare.

 

I can’t say that there was major damage.  The damage to the Costa Magica was less than 30 ft, mainly on the railing of the bow.  Costa cruiselines themselves have called the damage “slight”.  There was no damage evident to guests on board the Celebrity Constellation.  Obviously, the Port Office cleared both vessels to sail after the allision, so the serviceability of both ships was not compromised.  In fact, the Celebrity Constellation is currently on its way to Crete.

 

To give some context to the severity of the meteorological conditions - wind was 50 kph gusting to 70 kph at the time of the allision.  The winds stayed above 40 kph until about 2 AM.  The squall had actually caused another ship (a cargo carrier) to break it moorings and had toppled over stacks of shipping containers in the port.  For extended periods, the wind also caused the piers to flood by up to two feet of water.  Numerous trees in the town of La Spezia were either uprooted or snapped in half.  Remember, the is La Spezia - the geographically well-sheltered port that is used by the Italian Naval Academy for training because of the sheltered conditions.

 

I believe that it was the dangerous conditions on the pier that contributed to the delays in getting passengers off.  The Port Office wouldn’t open the port or allow passengers to disembark when there was still a considerable risk to their safety.  I understand that, from Celebrity’s perspective, all the necessary arrangements had been made.

 

From my perspective, the official communication was clear.  For example, Paul asked guests not to come down to try and disembark until a further announcement was made three times.  If anyone was stuck in chaotic queuing it was due to the fact that they didn’t follow crew instructions.

 

I have an aviation background and we have a saying that it is primary duty of the pilot to fly the plane; a good landing is one where everyone is safe and a great landing is one where you can use the plane again.  In this case the crew saved the ship in treacherous conditions, without loss of life and in a way that resulted in a few hours delay.  Some passengers even got into the airport earlier that they would have if everything went to plan!

 

I might have a glass half full perspective on this but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to rejoining the ship and crew in about  ten days time, when it will head off to the Suez Canal and United Arab Emirates.  This crew showed that the can face and overcome life threatening conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your post! 

[Georgia_Peaches]

On 10/30/2018 at 5:40 AM, nixc said:

I have to say that I think Celebrity really messed this up terribly - the freakish bad weather can’t be helped, however there is no excuse for the shambolic lack of communication.

 

The collision with the Magica happened around 3:30pm but the captain didn’t make a formal announcement until 20:30 and we were given no assurances as to the general status of the ship or when/if we would be sailing. The staff were extremely unsympathetic to people’s concerns about getting home safely.

 

In fact as of dinner time all staff were sticking to the party line that we would dock normally in Citivechia this morning which was so patently untrue it was actually pretty insulting to guests’ intelligence.

 

At 22:30 the captain made a second announcement that people could disembark between 23:00–1:00am for a free transfer to Rome Fiumicino Airport  OR stay onboard as the ship would move as soon as possible once the high winds died down (yep that’s half an hour’s notice of a pretty major decision). 

 

I’m one of the people who decided to get the coach, staff were obviously tired and stressed but that doesn’t excuse how hostile and unpleasant they were to guests. As the initial announcement said we could disembark from the gangway at 11pm myself and several others went straight to Deck 1 to disembark at 11 only to discover that this time was wildly  inaccurate as we weren’t able to leave and board the coach until after midnight.

 

We arrived at the airport at 6am after a long, stressful and unpleasant end to what should have been a lovely trip.

 

This should and could have been handled better as even our iphone’s Weather app was showing terribly stormy conditions in La Spezia - so much so in fact that my partner opted to disembark early on Monday and miss the crazy weather 

 

 

It's a shame that your vacation ended in this manner and I feel for all those who were on board.  Just glad everyone involved is safe. Having said that, I think it's really easy to sit back and "arm-chair quarterback" every move that Celebrity made (or didn't make) in the situation...what they should have done, could have done, or didn't do is easy to speculate on after the fact.  I'm sure crew on board did their very best to accommodate passengers in what was certainly a stressful situation.  

[lvz2cruz]

3 hours ago, KateDen said:

I'm so sorry to hear about the ordeal that my fellow cruisers, my friends, had to endure to get home. There is nothing worse than uncertainty when traveling and it's worse when information is at best scattered and at worse nonexistant. We had planned to stay an extra day and In the end were thankful we had made that decision, even though we didn't get to Rome. 

 

I cannot imagine the chaos that ensued when the very late and very vague announcement was made that people could take buses in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm. I do know that any information was pretty much nil throughout the day. realize that they were trying to work things out, but even an announcement saying that would have been better than silence. 

 

I'm so sorry to hear about the extra expenses and stress that you had to go through. It was such a perfect cruise until it wasn't. I'm just happy that everyone did finally arrive home safely. 

 

To the person who made the unhelpful comment about people complaining about missing ports, you obviously didn't read any of the posts. No one complained about missing ports, only about the lack of  communication and organization throughout the process. You weren't there so you don't know how we were well aware that trying to get to the ports would be dangerous and foolhardy. 

 

 

I think his comment was saying that people complain when ports are missed but this is what could happen if they docked.  He wasn't being rude. 

 

[cockney1]

This was an epic  cruise for many reasons but we will still sail with Celebrity even though there was lack of information given and  that people were concerned. Hope that lessons are learned from this. 

Brian and Maureen Adams 

[KateDen]

13 minutes ago, cockney1 said:

This was an epic  cruise for many reasons but we will still sail with Celebrity even though there was lack of information given and  that people were concerned. Hope that lessons are learned from this. 

Brian and Maureen Adams 

 

1 hour ago, lvz2cruz said:

 

 

I think his comment was saying that people complain when ports are missed but this is what could happen if they docked.  He wasn't being rude. 

 

 

We would certainly sail with Celebrity again. We really enjoyed the cruise and the many crew members who made the cruise special. I agree that hopefully lessons will be learned about better communication. And if I misconstrued the post about missing ports I do apologize. 

 

Kate

[MCazer]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:56 AM, dodger1964 said:

 

They believe the amount of water on movie deck poured down the electric lines that were at the base of the seating area by the movie screen.  They said they would be sealing those areas, after they opened our ceiling to make sure there was no other place it was coming from. 

 

Our steward told us that the rooms on starboard aft also got water in their rooms.

[sueajp]

Steve, on another note, we did enjoy your performance with the juggler!

[MCazer]

7 hours ago, sueajp said:

Steve, on another note, we did enjoy your performance with the juggler!

OMG, that was so funny. I told him he was going to get picked.  He was trying to avoid eye contact!   I videoed the whole thing on my phone! LOL

[cockney1]

We have just been informed by phone call from Celebrity Miami head office that they would NOT  be reimbursed for for our out of pocket expenses for extra days parking due togetting back two days after our expected return. Also cost of returning from Gatwick airport then travel on to Heathrow to collectour car. 

Has anyone put claim into Celebrity?  

 

[hal279@aol.com]

On 11/27/2018 at 6:18 PM, cockney1 said:

We have just been informed by phone call from Celebrity Miami head office that they would NOT  be reimbursed for for our out of pocket expenses for extra days parking due togetting back two days after our expected return. Also cost of returning from Gatwick airport then travel on to Heathrow to collectour car. 

Has anyone put claim into Celebrity?  

 

Yes I went to the very top for hotel expenses.but no joy they could not care loss my 5th cruise with celebrity and last.

[cockney1]

We got our TA involved and they were very keen and wanted us to get some compensation for out of pocket ex's. We were lucky to have booked flight and trasfer from airport to port so the UKcelebrity office did manage to get around the NO  compensation statement by Miami head office. They refunded our airport to port tranfers so we managed to get the car park extra days cost and taxi fares back. Not happywith Celebrity head office not caring for people who were out of pocket though!