Did anybody watch the HBO Documentary "The Last Cruise"?

[CapeLibertyGirl]

Story of the Diamond Princes during the beginning of the pandemic.  Wow!

[Sea Dog]

Going to watch it tonight. It should be very interesting. May not be for everyone as it talks about a tough time in cruising but important never the less. I think lessons were learned.

[pstone1]

We recorded it last night and plan to watch tonite.

[reallyitsmema]

I just set it up to record tonight.  Thanks.

[Ashland]

Oh...thanks...I'll watch or record. Doesn't HBO play things over-n-over?

[livingonthebeach]

5 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Oh...thanks...I'll watch or record. Doesn't HBO play things over-n-over?

 

Yes - it's also on HBOMax to watch anytime.  Very interesting documentary.  I would not have liked being on that ship and am grateful I got to see a glimpse of Asia a few months before Covid hit. 

[lovelife]

Hadn't heard about it - thanks.  Just set up to record. 

[GJustice]

Horrible for the people stuck on the ship for weeks. Fortunately a LOT was learned about the virus from it.

[bonsai3s]

Yes, we watched it last night. Felt bad for the passengers, even worse for the crew. The documentary said 14 died...condolence to the families.

[cruiselvr04]

So much has been learned since then.  I feel for everyone on board including the crew.  So hard.

 

I wish at the end they would have had a brief synopsis of what the end story was.  They showed their picture but not anything after they left the ship, how long before they actually got home etc. 

[Sea Dog]

I thought it was very interesting and I was impressed how people documented their situations on video. Ended kind of abruptly, like is this the end? luckily the one crew member said he will be back and likes working on a cruise ship.

[PhoenixCruiser]

We watched it tonight. Don't want to post spoilers but it was interesting to watch since we are 14 months out and still dealing with some of the same issues.

[HUNKY]

I was on the last sailing of Regal Princess out of Ft. Lauderdale, originally disembarking on Sunday, March 8th, 2020 at 6AM.  As two crewmembers were previously on the Grand Princess, they needed to be tested for Covid before we could dock.  Thankfully they were negative.  We took a Lyft at 1:30AM on March 9th to a hotel, which Princess paid for.  It all worked out, but it could have been bad.

[KroozFoolz]

I haven't watched the HBO documentary, but feel like I pretty much followed the story live via posts here on CC which led me to following Dave and Sally Abel on FB and youtube as it was happening.

 

[billslowsky]

7 hours ago, PhoenixCruiser said:

We watched it tonight. Don't want to post spoilers but it was interesting to watch since we are 14 months out and still dealing with some of the same issues.

 

Spoilers?  There's nothing to "spoiler".

 

The doc is very skimpy on what barriers were set up to keep people from leaving which is a huge part of the real story.  It's really just anecdotal with a date and incidence count every so often.  As far as the crew's treatment went, it tells us nothing of why the Indonesian crew members were not allowed to leave until last, the actions of its government.

 

There's no revelations in this documentary, just some moments of frustration from people who are literally trapped and kept in the dark.  And then it ends.

[smokeybandit]

What happened on the Diamond Princess, albeit a hell for those on board at the time, actually showed with the benefit of hindsight how unlikely an outbreak would be on a cruise ship in today's context of covid.

[dswallow]

The documentary was sort of like what you'd put together to show to an investor what you wanted to do and where you'd go if they would give you some money to complete it. So it appears that nobody wanted to give them anything so they released it as is, and HBO picked it up to include on their channel and streaming service.

 

It was pretty terrible, really, and lacked much of a point. It didn't give you any sort of closure on the people who actually allowed their video content to be used. There was no analysis-after-the-fact about perhaps what should really have been done, or even why things went out of control on the ship and what might have mitigated it in future changes. Nothing. It was basically 35 minutes of rehash a small subset of news snippets and video taken by some of the people who were quarantined in cabins or worked on the ship and had some ability to wander more freely at times.

[livingonthebeach]

14 minutes ago, dswallow said:

The documentary was sort of like what you'd put together to show to an investor what you wanted to do and where you'd go if they would give you some money to complete it. So it appears that nobody wanted to give them anything so they released it as is, and HBO picked it up to include on their channel and streaming service.

 

It was pretty terrible, really, and lacked much of a point. It didn't give you any sort of closure on the people who actually allowed their video content to be used. There was no analysis-after-the-fact about perhaps what should really have been done, or even why things went out of control on the ship and what might have mitigated it in future changes. Nothing. It was basically 35 minutes of rehash a small subset of news snippets and video taken by some of the people who were quarantined in cabins or worked on the ship and had some ability to wander more freely at times.

 

True, but nonetheless, it was interesting to see the actual footage of people trapped and the sequence of events as they unfolded.  One can only imagine what it would be like, but seeing it unravel in real life gives the true picture in its raw form.  

[not-enough-cruising]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:29 PM, GJustice said:

Horrible for the people stuck on the ship for weeks. Fortunately a LOT was learned about the virus from it.

Unfortunately the CDC took months to take the FACTS that were learned from American physicians on site, and put that into an action plan.

[NightOne]

I watched the documentary the other night and it is meh

 

The saddest part about the Diamond Princess is that the CDC literally used it as the basis for the No Sail orders.

 

 

[Mapleleafforever]

One part that stood out for me was when the crewmember mentioned the rumours about plans to sink the ship with passengers and crew onboard. 

[ipeeinthepool]

I wonder if they had to settle-up their on-board accounts before they got off the ship.

[George C]

We just watched it, this confirms our choice of booking the largest suite in our budget. Terrible situation for those on board. 

[Lady Hudson]

Just watched.  I can see how watching this show would keep Cruise newbies from ever sailing!   Can’t imagine being stuck in a small cabin for so long.  The crew members were heroic!

[reallyitsmema]

47 minutes ago, George C said:

We just watched it, this confirms our choice of booking the largest suite in our budget. Terrible situation for those on board. 

 

I agree, watching this confirmed that we made the right choice with our sky loft on our Quantum Alaska sailing.  Even in a balcony cabin, it must have been terrible for those people stuck in the cabins for weeks.  I can't even imagine what it was like for the crew!