Another landslide in Skagway. Anyone currently on the Encore?

[HBCcruiser]

Another landslide occurred in Skagway today. Passengers on the Encore had to be tendered by a HAL ship. Great teamwork! I hope everyone is safe. 🙏 Can anyone on the Encore give an update? 
 

https://youtu.be/yoWme7nb_-o

 

[Jember]

I read on the facebook page passengers waited in a very long line in the rain to tender back to the ship. I find it odd Encore doesn't have it's own tenders. 

[hallux]

I'd have to compare the Encore, Joy and Bliss to see what the lifeboats look like but I THOUGHT the Bliss used a mix of ship-provided tenders and port-provided tenders when I was in Cabo.  If that was the case, this would be a difference between the Encore and at least one of the similar BA+ ships.

[BirdTravels]

At 5 pm, I am surprised that they just didn’t move the ship to another dock. And have buses to get the passenger to the mill side. 

[drumming cruisers]

I thought the Bliss used lifeboats as tenders. Why couldn tthe Encore?

We are leaving next week on Encore. Wonder if Skagway will still be on our port  schedule. 

Edited August 4, 2022 by drumming cruisers

[chengkp75]

The USCG has additional regulations for foreign flag cruise ships that use lifeboats as tenders, in US waters.  It is likely that the Encore, which was not scheduled to use tenders in Alaska, has not met these requirements.  There is additional equipment and additional training and certification that needs to be met, and this needs to be certified by the class society on an annual basis.  

[cocod08]

4 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

At 5 pm, I am surprised that they just didn’t move the ship to another dock. And have buses to get the passenger to the mill side. 

the only other dock in that port was already closed due to the rock slide in June. 

[Travel some more]

18 hours ago, cocod08 said:

the only other dock in that port was already closed due to the rock slide in June. 

This is the same dock that we are talking about, the Railroad Dock.

[cocod08]

5 hours ago, Travel some more said:

This is the same dock that we are talking about, the Railroad Dock.

I believe so there were only 2 berths at the dock and one was already down from the rock slide in June and this slide closed the the NCl berth. Hopefully its only temporary 

 

[deliver42]

That's the only dock that can accomodate the mega ships.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I don’t know how ships could get away with not having appropriate tenders. Emergencies like this can happen.

[chengkp75]

27 minutes ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

I don’t know how ships could get away with not having appropriate tenders. Emergencies like this can happen.

What exactly are they "getting away with"?  Tenders are not safety equipment, so not required.  Many large ships, the Oasis class comes to mind, do not have lifeboat/tenders, and do not perform tendering operations.  What "emergency" happened?  At worst, it would have been an "operational delay" waiting until another ship left and Encore could dock and pick up the passengers.  It was, in no way, an emergency.

[MarkNH]

I was on the Encore and saw the rockslide from deck 8 aft.

 

All the passengers on the way back to the ship were safe but it was scary and everyone ran.

 

The rockslide was contained by the wire netting put in place after the previous slide.

 

Police responded within a few minutes and the dock was closed temporarily, some passengers had a long wait for a tender from another ship, and there was some friction when Haven passengers were given priority. The dock was reopened before Encore's departure time and the last few passengers got to board via the dock.

We met the the cruise director in the Haven restaurant and he said this week's sailing will call at Icy Strait Point instead of Skagway.

[gvgseg]

I was onboard and ended up waiting in the rain for about 1 1/2 hours (got in line at 5:50). Thankfully, things remained very peaceful with little complaining even though the line was moving very slowly. They could only take 50 people at a time. Crew members, including senior officers, were handing out free ponchos which they had originally charged $3 for when we were disembarking in the rain in Juneau.

 

I did start to wonder why there were some people who were taken to a secondary line even though they were not needing wheelchair assistance. This did result in some "friction" as most people had been waiting around an hour in the rain at this point. I didn't realize that they were Haven guests or I would have been more upset. I was very close to the front of the line when this happened and the line suddenly came to a standstill for at least 10 minutes for no apparent reason. Around 7:30, they were finally able to also utilize shuttle busses so that they could use both busses and tender boats concurrently. Once that happened, the line moved much faster and somehow we managed to leave Skagway only about half an hour later than scheduled. 

Edited August 8, 2022 by gvgseg

[drumming cruisers]

Icy Strait Point instead of Skagway

[gvgseg]

Another rockslide occurred 2 days later on Friday, 8/5. Skagway has officially closed Railroad Dock where Encore and Discovery Princess dock for remainder of 2022. They will reroute to Icy Strait Point or Sitka.

[atanac]

Sitka is a great port and a worthy substitute. Icy Strait is a total bore barely worth a 2 hour visit much less a fifteen hour one.