Pride of America sewage smell

I have read many posts regarding this smell. My question is does NCL identify this at all ? What is it ?

Any response is appreciated. Thanks

It's crap.... end of story.

It's crap.... end of story.

I was going to say the same thing... if it smells like poop, it probably is. Perhaps a busted line or something backing up.

Generally, its not. If the plumbers have opened a black water pipe to snake out a plug, there may be a whiff for a few minutes, but it generally goes away quickly, as the once the vacuum is restored it sucks a good bit of air from the work area, and they use an air spray when done. The "black water" from the toilets is a completely separate system (until it gets to the engine room) from the gray water from sinks, showers, deck drains, galleys, laundries, etc.

Generally, this smell is caused by the trap (that S-shaped thing under your sink at home), which is present on all sinks, showers, and drains, and which is full of water to prevent the smells backing up. When these traps see regular water added (like your cabin sink or shower), they are fine. When they don't see water on a regular basis, the A/C tends to evaporate the water in the trap and the smell shows up. Around the ship, the crew are aware of this, and when they smell something, they will go around pouring water into the drains. If you notice this in your cabin, the most likely culprit is the bathroom floor drain (not the shower), which is either a gutter across the doorway, or a round drain tucked behind the toilet. These drains don't see a lot of water unless you leave the shower curtain/door open, so a preventative glass of water down the drain daily will keep the stinkies away.

Occasionally, the vents from the sewage holding tanks (which go all the way up the funnel), combined with wind direction, wind speed, and some freaky downdrafts, will send some odor into the fresh air intakes for the A/C system. This is not real common, and would be evidenced by a whole large area of the ship smelling.

Chengkp75, great explanation! It makes perfect sense, we have the same issues at work in AZ and have to pour water down the drains. It works immediately too. Thanks for the insight!

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Chengkp75, great explanation! It makes perfect sense, we have the same issues at work in AZ and have to pour water down the drains. It works immediately too. Thanks for the insight!

 

 

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I'll just add that these smells pop up on every cruise ship from time to time, its not just NCL.

I'll just add that these smells pop up on every cruise ship from time to time, its not just NCL.

I agree, we have sailed POA 6 times in aft cabins and think we've smelt it once.

Its been no big deal for us.

been on the phone with ncl for quite a while this morning regarding the sewage smell issue. i had read about it on many reviews on google, yelp, etc. i am concerned because i will be on this ship in july, 2016.

ncl does not acknowledge any sewage smell issue. they have told me repeatedly after speaking with several people (supervisors included) in various departments, that any sewage smell problem has been resolved. when i tell them reviews from april & may of 2016 are still mentioning this they all say the same thing..."any issue would be addressed at the time it is known to them."

i did leave a voicemail message this morning for a supervisor who is out until may 31, 2016. she is in guest relations but i have been told that guest relations usually deals with post-cruise issues not pre-cruise issues. apparently ncl has no pre-cruise issue department to go to for this.

this issue has been ongoing since i read reviews from 2015 with the same sewage smell being mentioned. if you type in the google search box on the computer "sewage smell on ncl pride of america" you'll be amazed at all of the stuff that comes up. this problem has plagued this ship for years.

I'll just add that these smells pop up on every cruise ship from time to time, its not just NCL.

Chengkp75, if you are still around, I'm wondering if you have any insight into what might have been the problem on the first POA cruise post dry dock since your posts do not seem to describe the situation we encountered.

This smell was not in the cabins, or throughout a large area, but rather was noted very strongly near the doorway to the outer deck just outside the entrance to the wine bar. Since we had a suite, we passed by here several times a day going to and from Cagney's. We noticed that if someone opened the deck door as we passed by it seemed to intensify the smell inside. One day as we came into port, we walked out those doors to the outer deck. The smell out there was so intense we could not stand it for more than a few minutes. The smokers spent lots of time there, and they must have been die hard to stand it. But I would say that if your cruise habits did not take you near this area, you would have been unaware. We did not notice the smell anywhere else on board.

We were also on the POA in 2014, but not in a suite. I have no recollection of bad smells, but we probably spent little time in that area on that cruise. Others indicate the problem goes way back, but we just assumed it was related to the dry dock work. Never encountered anything like it in 9 cruises on NCL.

I don't remember the exact placement of equipment on the POA, but that area seems to be directly below the stack. The sewage tank vents go up the stack to the top, but it may be that some downdrafts were taking the smell back down. There may be a booster pump room for the pulpers (central garbage disposal system) in that area (somewhat logical a couple of decks up) and they may have a problem in that space (the pulper water smells worse than anything you can imagine). Since it was post drydock, it may be that a deck drain in a mechanical space above that area dried out and the smell was coming back just like other drains.

I don't remember the exact placement of equipment on the POA, but that area seems to be directly below the stack. The sewage tank vents go up the stack to the top, but it may be that some downdrafts were taking the smell back down. There may be a booster pump room for the pulpers (central garbage disposal system) in that area (somewhat logical a couple of decks up) and they may have a problem in that space (the pulper water smells worse than anything you can imagine). Since it was post drydock, it may be that a deck drain in a mechanical space above that area dried out and the smell was coming back just like other drains.

The smell did not seem to abate any during the entire 11 days and it did not seem to matter if we were docked or moving. I don't know if there were any complaints, there is no way they were not aware of it. The concierge was in that area constantly.

A recent trip report mentioned a slight smell, but not clear from what area. So perhaps the problem has been mostly resolved. Thanks for your insight. Interesting as always.

Just off the ship on Saturday and did not notice the smell anyway.

We use Cagneys a lot and never noticed anything coming or going from there.

It was very noticeable every morning at breakfast and then at lunch as we approached the wine bar. It was poop. No other words to describe it.

It's poop. Poop tends to smell like poop.. so there ya go :p

It's spreading!! Now on POA; the ship must have caught it from the Sun!! It was very bad on the Sun while in South America and reports are it is surfacing again now the Sun is on the Alaska run.

It was very noticeable every morning at breakfast and then at lunch as we approached the wine bar. It was poop. No other words to describe it.

It's poop. Poop tends to smell like poop.. so there ya go :p

I don't doubt your experience, but having had to learn to differentiate between the vile odors of the separate systems onboard ships for "poop" (black water), decomposing food waste (pulper water), and mixed food waste and body oils (gray water from sinks, showers, and galleys), there are a lot of things that smell like "poop" to the uninitiated.

However, I'm not sure if POA has this system installed, but I think so, there is a system where the solid waste left over after the waste water plant has treated it, and which consists almost entirely of paper fibers (the "septic" tanks on the ship process water too quickly to break down paper like your septic system at home does), where they take this "mush" and mix it with deodorant chemicals, dry it, and burn it in the incinerators. This has caused some pretty bad odors from the stack when in operation in the past. They weren't using it on the Hawaiian ships back in 2008, but they may have been trying it on the crossing from the West Coast. I do remember that one of the first ships they installed this on, the intake air vent for the MDR a/c was below the incinerator stacks, and a downdraft sent this god-awful smell into the MDR at meal time. It was back to the drawing board for both NCL and the waste treatment manufacturer after that.

Is the SUN a sister ship to the POA because her aft smells too! From what I've read and experienced from my recent cruise on MAY 8-16, I'd say they (both ships and their poopy smells) are definitely related.

Is the SUN a sister ship to the POA because her aft smells too! From what I've read and experienced from my recent cruise on MAY 8-16, I'd say they (both ships and their poopy smells) are definitely related.

No, the Sun is sister to the Sky. The POA was a one off design by a US shipyard and US naval architect firm for the now defunct American Hawaiian Cruise Line.

The solid waste burning systems were pretty much planned to be fleetwide, but as I'm no longer with them, and have lost most of my connections there, I can't say if there has been a new wave of interest in getting these up and running, which may be causing the problems.

I don't doubt your experience, but having had to learn to differentiate between the vile odors of the separate systems onboard ships for "poop" (black water), decomposing food waste (pulper water), and mixed food waste and body oils (gray water from sinks, showers, and galleys), there are a lot of things that smell like "poop" to the uninitiated.

 

However, I'm not sure if POA has this system installed, but I think so, there is a system where the solid waste left over after the waste water plant has treated it, and which consists almost entirely of paper fibers (the "septic" tanks on the ship process water too quickly to break down paper like your septic system at home does), where they take this "mush" and mix it with deodorant chemicals, dry it, and burn it in the incinerators. This has caused some pretty bad odors from the stack when in operation in the past. They weren't using it on the Hawaiian ships back in 2008, but they may have been trying it on the crossing from the West Coast. I do remember that one of the first ships they installed this on, the intake air vent for the MDR a/c was below the incinerator stacks, and a downdraft sent this god-awful smell into the MDR at meal time. It was back to the drawing board for both NCL and the waste treatment manufacturer after that.

We have driven past paper mills in the south, and if they produce a similar smell to the process you are describing, then it is indeed nasty. I would not describe the smell on the POA as "poop". It was more like strong "urine" to me. In fact, it crossed my mind that some of the contractors had perhaps been using that outer deck as a port a potty for a few weeks and it had saturated the wood decks.

Anyway, OP, it sounds like the smell has disappeared or they have somehow resolved the issue. The POA is a great way to see Hawaii.

We have driven past paper mills in the south, and if they produce a similar smell to the process you are describing, then it is indeed nasty. I would not describe the smell on the POA as "poop". It was more like strong "urine" to me. In fact, it crossed my mind that some of the contractors had perhaps been using that outer deck as a port a potty for a few weeks and it had saturated the wood decks.

 

Anyway, OP, it sounds like the smell has disappeared or they have somehow resolved the issue. The POA is a great way to see Hawaii.

Oh, yeah. We've had paper plants here in Maine, and a chicken rendering plant in downtown Portland before. We've actually resorted to police officers trained in "odor intensity" to determine if an odor is strong enough to violate the city ordnance. Doesn't have to be bad smells. We have the B&M baked bean factory here (only plant in the US to still actually bake beans, not steam them), and when they open the ovens, the smell is heavenly, but you can smell it for miles.

While the outside deck drains go directly overboard, they do so under the waterline, so there is always some water trapped in the bottom of the line, and if food has been washed down the drains, it can sit there floating in the main drain line for quite some time, and get pretty ripe.

Is not just the POA. We were on the Jewel in 2011 and we had that problem in our stateroom. We reported it, they came, they try to fix it and it was not. We asked to change of stateroom and we realized it was the whole deck where our stateroom was that smelled like that. Unfortunately they were not able to give us a new stateroom on a new deck, needless to say it was not an enjoyable cruise. I think at some point some cruises have that problem. :cool::(

After 45 cruises the POA was the only one that smelled like poop!

We had that issue on the Disney Magic a few years back, in my mothers accessible cabin. It was a floor drain.

spoke to another supervisor this morning regarding this issue. he said he has never heard of this problem. asked how long he's been with ncl. he said 5+ years. asked to escalate the issue to his supervisor. was told he would do so & get back to me by june 3, 2016. would not give me the contact info for his supervisor. said he would handle at his "escalation area."

was looking at reviews today and saw sewage smell problems in reviews dated january 2006 (cruisereport.com). also read another review talking about the same problem dated january 2012 (ripoffreport.com). so it's something that has been around for at least 10 years.

I know we discussed this on one of the other threads but we were on the trip with Merriem and Punkincc. To add a bit, it was mostly by Napa but one day on the trans-pacific we also caught it in the inside stairwell area by Cadillac Diner and a floor above and below it. I guess it could have gotten blown in from the doors by Napa. We never smelled it in that area again.

On the last day it wasn't really noticeable by Napa but we hit it by the library which is forward of Napa so again, maybe it got blown in from outside but it was really strong there.

Eggplant - I guess I'm not sure what the concern is unless you have a room in that immediate area - just walk through it - you won't come out smelling like poop or pee.