Escape currently stuck on a sand bar leaving Puerto Plata

[oracer]

Do you think future cruises using this port will be cancelled?  Meaning picking a different destination other than St Thomas?

Edited March 16, 2022 by oracer

[Javajitterz]

32 minutes ago, oracer said:

Do you think future cruises using this port will be cancelled?  Meaning picking a different destination other than St Thomas?

This was the new Taino Bay port in Puerto Plata, DR, not St Thomas

[bigrednole]

8 hours ago, AMP72 said:

I did the same. I was booked on Escape this weekend. Moved it to Encore itinerary from Miami instead. Now the fight to get refunds of flights and hotel bookings (booked separately).

If booked separately, that is going to be a pain. Insurance looks at each as a separate piece. The flights are not bound by the cruise. If the flights go and the cruise doesn't, then the flights are not covered nor the hotel. The reason is you can still fly and stay at the hotel. Best thing to do is see if they will cover flight changes and get to Miami to limit losses.

[Flipchild32]

Looks like they found something or are being cautious as I saw on Reddit this morning and here that they are sending everyone home and cancelled current cruise the next one. Think it's probably smart. People were posting they weren't too upset as they get to continue to do everything on onboard. They get 100% refund and 100% FCC.

[LGW59]

On 3/14/2022 at 9:15 PM, BirdTravels said:

Captain has only been on a ship for a week (really).

what's your point?  

[JustAPilot]

Are there not sophisticated radar systems that map the sea floor and show depth and obstacles? I have friends with recreational boats that have Garmin's that show this..

[julig22]

5 minutes ago, JustAPilot said:

Are there not sophisticated radar systems that map the sea floor and show depth and obstacles? I have friends with recreational boats that have Garmin's that show this..

Guess you've never been in a windstorm. 

[bstel]

8 minutes ago, JustAPilot said:

Are there not sophisticated radar systems that map the sea floor and show depth and obstacles? I have friends with recreational boats that have Garmin's that show this..

The azipods can only do so much when the wind hits the broad side of the ship.  Its just in this new port there is zero room for error, since the port really wasn't designed for these large ships and they did the minimum dredging to make it feasible.

 

This same issue could also happen in Bermuda, where the reef channel is super narrow, hence why alot of times ships are delayed in docking.

 

This also happened back in 2019 in Cozumel, where the wind pushed 1 Carnival ship into the other other docked Carnival ship.

 

 

[gardengalaz]

On 3/14/2022 at 11:31 PM, Middleager said:

After everyone jumps off the boat, the boat would be light enough to float without them pushing.  They'll need to jump back in quickly before the boat moves too far away.

We were on an Alaskan cruise years ago and our ship got stuck on a sandbar.  We brought up the question about offloading passengers and the Captain told us with a bit of a chuckle that the total weight of the passengers is insignificant.  He said that IF they couldn't maneuver the ship to free itself that the next course of action would be to offload the FUEL.

[Middleager]

16 minutes ago, gardengalaz said:

We were on an Alaskan cruise years ago and our ship got stuck on a sandbar.  We brought up the question about offloading passengers and the Captain told us with a bit of a chuckle that the total weight of the passengers is insignificant.  He said that IF they couldn't maneuver the ship to free itself that the next course of action would be to offload the FUEL.

I was only joking.  But good to know from a captain that passengers' weight is insignificant.  That means we can eat more without worrying about our weight. 😜

[CPT Trips]

1 hour ago, bstel said:

The azipods can only do so much when the wind hits the broad side of the ship.  Its just in this new port there is zero room for error, since the port really wasn't designed for these large ships and they did the minimum dredging to make it feasible.

 

This same issue could also happen in Bermuda, where the reef channel is super narrow, hence why alot of times ships are delayed in docking.

 

This also happened back in 2019 in Cozumel, where the wind pushed 1 Carnival ship into the other other docked Carnival ship.

 

 

It has happened in Bermuda, I don’t recall exactly when, sometime pre Covid era.

[njhorseman]

49 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

It has happened in Bermuda, I don’t recall exactly when, sometime pre Covid era.

Norwegian Dawn in May, 2015.

[vamartha]

On 3/15/2022 at 8:18 AM, chengkp75 said:

Okay, let's address the Captain/Pilot relationship first.  

Thank you sir! You always provide us with worthwhile information! 

[BermudaBound2014]

4 hours ago, njhorseman said:

Norwegian Dawn in May, 2015.

Did you pull that from memory or google? Because Im starting to think you may be one of the few people

who have an even greater love of cruising history than I do.

[njhorseman]

30 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Did you pull that from memory or google? Because Im starting to think you may be one of the few people

who have an even greater love of cruising history than I do.

I remembered it was the Dawn, but I had to look up the date.

[BermudaBound2014]

14 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

I remembered it was the Dawn, but I had to look up the date.

Impressive 🙂

[njhorseman]

10 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Impressive 🙂

Not to brag, but years ago a Bermudian who posts on Cruise Critic commented that I knew Bermuda's bus routes better than they did. 😉

[Adventure_on]

 

We are actually disappointed in NCL right now. We were booked for the 19th and were  given options of

*pick another cruise this week..one out of 3 choices or

* get full credit. We chose to cruise on the  Dawn out of Tampa Sunday as we live in the area.

 

It became a mess. They booked us in an interior cabin and added $700.  We originally had a regular balcony and  paid almost $3000. More than the current price of a club balcony on this cruise.

We finally got that fixed and we now have exactly the same type of room and deals we expected on the Escape. YAY!

They did not, however, give us the promise future cruise credit. so, we get to go back through this again.

I honestly had to go back and reread the email after seeing the FFC done were getting. I didn't see it as I was not the primary email  and they never once offered it while I was on the phone. 

I get that they are busy..but still...

I am super glad I read these posts!!

Edited March 17, 2022 by Adventure_on
new info

[zeroed]

1 hour ago, Adventure_on said:

 

We are actually disappointed in NCL right now. We were booked for the 19th and were  given options of

*pick another cruise this week..one out of 3 choices or

* get full credit. We chose to cruise on the  Dawn out of Tampa Sunday as we live in the area.

 

It became a mess. They booked us in an interior cabin and added $700.  We originally had a regular balcony and  paid almost $3000. More than the current price of a club balcony on this cruise.

We finally got that fixed and we now have exactly the same type of room and deals we expected on the Escape. YAY!

They did not, however, give us the promise future cruise credit. so, we get to go back through this again.

I honestly had to go back and reread the email after seeing the FFC done were getting. I didn't see it as I was not the primary email  and they never once offered it while I was on the phone. 

I get that they are busy..but still...

I am super glad I read these posts!!

That’s what I was afraid of. I’m on the April 2nd but it’s looking more like it’s going to get cancelled too. Are they only offering FCC or was full refund an option too? 
 

[Caligirl1]

9 hours ago, bstel said:

This also happened back in 2019 in Cozumel, where the wind pushed 1 Carnival ship into the other other docked Carnival ship.

The Escape was docked in Cozumel next to those 2 ships when it happened.  I was on that cruise. 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Caligirl1

[missyhr3x]

35 minutes ago, zeroed said:

That’s what I was afraid of. I’m on the April 2nd but it’s looking more like it’s going to get cancelled too. Are they only offering FCC or was full refund an option too? 
 

Just wondering why you think you’ll be canceled? I’m the 26th and they have told us we should sail.  I’m sitting in 6ft of snow and now pins and needles, so I’d really like the cruise to happen! 

[zeroed]

A person on the Escape said some of the crew members are being told they will be sent home early and their contracts paid out. Other crew members are waiting their fate. 
 

If true, that doesn’t sound like they’ll be sailing for a few weeks. While there’s no official word, the bits of info leaking from passengers and circumstances are starting to paint a picture. If the boat could sail safely it would’ve instead of spending so much to fly folks home.
Total speculation on my part is that there may be propulsion issues and/or engine cooling system damage. They’re not going to take a chance of getting dead in the water like the Carnival Triumph.

 

 Let’s hope I’m wrong. 
 

Batter make a back up plan just in case. 😉

 

ps. Pay attention to the AIS data once she leaves DR. If she can’t make decent speed in open ocean (more than 10 knots) she’s got propulsion issues whether prop or engine related. 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by zeroed

[BirdTravels]

6 hours ago, zeroed said:

A person on the Escape said some of the crew members are being told they will be sent home early and their contracts paid out. Other crew members are waiting their fate. 
 

If true, that doesn’t sound like they’ll be sailing for a few weeks. While there’s no official word, the bits of info leaking from passengers and circumstances are starting to paint a picture. If the boat could sail safely it would’ve instead of spending so much to fly folks home.
Total speculation on my part is that there may be propulsion issues and/or engine cooling system damage. They’re not going to take a chance of getting dead in the water like the Carnival Triumph.

 

 Let’s hope I’m wrong. 
 

Batter make a back up plan just in case. 😉

 

ps. Pay attention to the AIS data once she leaves DR. If she can’t make decent speed in open ocean (more than 10 knots) she’s got propulsion issues whether prop or engine related. 

 

As of this time, NCL a has only cancelled this week and next week. They have not touched reservations beyond,,,, yet. (Folks would normally see the dreaded screen of death online long before they get a letter). None of that has happened,,,, yet. Maybe soon. 
 

NCL has given themselves time to take the ship for proper inspection, if needed. Or even to a shipyard like Freeport for a quick dry dock inspection. And no,,, at this point, they would not need to operate the ship at speed to make it back to Miami in a week. So,,, something less than 20 knots is not an indication of propulsion problems. 

[aswmammoth]

9 hours ago, Adventure_on said:

 

We are actually disappointed in NCL right now. We were booked for the 19th and were  given options of

*pick another cruise this week..one out of 3 choices or

* get full credit. We chose to cruise on the  Dawn out of Tampa Sunday as we live in the area.

 

It became a mess. They booked us in an interior cabin and added $700.  We originally had a regular balcony and  paid almost $3000. More than the current price of a club balcony on this cruise.

We finally got that fixed and we now have exactly the same type of room and deals we expected on the Escape. YAY!

They did not, however, give us the promise future cruise credit. so, we get to go back through this again.

I honestly had to go back and reread the email after seeing the FFC done were getting. I didn't see it as I was not the primary email  and they never once offered it while I was on the phone. 

I get that they are busy..but still...

I am super glad I read these posts!!

We were booked for the 19th as well.  As soon as we got the cancellation email with our options, we researched the 3 other cruises and got on the phone ASAP, as it looked like certain room categories were almost full.  When we finally were connected to the right person, they had two rooms left on Encore in our same category from the Escape, so we were lucky.  Glad to hear you got that fixed!

7 hours ago, missyhr3x said:

Just wondering why you think you’ll be canceled? I’m the 26th and they have told us we should sail.  I’m sitting in 6ft of snow and now pins and needles, so I’d really like the cruise to happen! 

If they decided to cancel the 26th sailing, I would guess you would find out sooner than we did.  For us, we were given basically 24 hours to call and have our reservation switched to another cruise from our list of options (our PCC hadn't even been made aware of the situation yet when we reached him), or you would automatically be refunded and receive the 50% FCC.  I'm sure they would ideally like more time than that to handle switching reservations over, changing flights and hotels for those booking that thru NCL, etc. if they unfortunately had to cancel another week.  I heard customer support was overloaded with all that yesterday.

[chengkp75]

7 hours ago, zeroed said:

Total speculation on my part is that there may be propulsion issues and/or engine cooling system damage. They’re not going to take a chance of getting dead in the water like the Carnival Triumph.

While grounding frequently results in cooling water issues, these are easily taken care of (with lots of work and a bit of time) by the crew, in cleaning strainers and opening coolers.  Not sure what "damage" could be done to the cooling system from grounding.  The engines use a fresh water cooling system, that is then cooled by the sea water.  But, unless the coolers themselves were plugged with sand, shifting to the off-line sea suction (there is a high and low for each engine room) will get the system up and running in short order.  Even damage to pump seals would be completed by the crew within a day.

38 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

NCL has given themselves time to take the ship for proper inspection, if needed. Or even to a shipyard like Freeport for a quick dry dock inspection. And no,,, at this point, they would not need to operate the ship at speed to make it back to Miami in a week. So,,, something less than 20 knots is not an indication of propulsion problems.

Yes, from where the Escape is now, to Miami (potential spot for in water repairs) is less than 4 days.   at 10 knots.  And, unless both propellers were damaged, you can get more than 10 knots from one shaft, more like 14-15 knots, and if they were, for some reason, not able to get cooling to one engine room, the power from the engines in the other engine room (each engine room has a common sea water cooling system) would allow both propellers to operate at 50% power, which would still give 14+ knots.

 

Typically, these types of repairs would be started while the ship is underway to the repair port.  There are trained personnel onboard who can start the repairs.