sept. 11

Just curious - I was thinking........what happened to cruises on sept. 11? Did they come back to their home ports immediately or finish their itinterary? Just curious - my wife and I are getting ready for our first and I happened to think of sept. 11.

Hi..well, Sept 11th was on a Tuesday......I think alot of it was depending on where they were sailing from....

Check out the floataway lounge...there is a thread about 9/11 on it..and some of those folks who were cruising that week have replied to it.

Actually I am sailing next month...on 9-11.......

It was just a weird time. I was on, I think, the Amsterdam that day, in Halifax or just docking. The main entertainment that night was cancelled, although the small rooms operated as usual (we needed someplace to go, some quiet spots with quiet music); many people cancelled their shorex, without penalty. DSI opened the internet cafes "no charge" all that day and evening so people could contact relatives; I was helping the manager, as most of the pax were elderly and not used to those machines, especially in their state of mind.

We left Halifax on schedule and sailed to our next port, Sydney, as usual. Rumors abounded and I read one very authoritative post here on a thread I was running since starting the cruise, saying that we were being held in Halifax. "Well," I said, "I'm on the ship and we're underway for Sydney as I write this."

It was surreal: We were on this magnificent ship, being waited on hand & foot, the night spots were open ... and the world was falling down around us. It reminded me of “The Masque of the Red Death,” that story where people are dying of the plague and, inside the castle, the ball goes on.

I couldn't find any thread about this subject. I have often wondered about the same thing but never wanted to broach the subject. Now I am really curious.

Anything in particular you were wondering about?

TomC - I don't know what to say after reading your thread. Surreal is the word. What an experience, I would imagine...how horrible of a day for all of us no matter where we were.:(

I don't know what they did on cruise ships, but unfortunately, I can tell you what they did in New York City. I should know.....if was there on vacation.

"Surreal" doesn't come close to describing it............

I wasn't on a cruise that day, I was thinking about my daughter's birthday, which is September 11th. Her birthday was almost forgotton, since everyone was glued to the TV. No one was in a partying mood and I was crying off and on all day. Ever since that day, I try to make her birthday a little more special for her. :)

I was at work that day. My DH phoned to say a plane had flown into WTC. I couldn't believe it. Just asked whether it was a small or large plane, (thought there had been an accident at first). He phoned back to give us the details. We didn't have a television at work and was looking around for an old decrepid radio the boss thought we had. Nobody felt like working the rest of the day, as all our thoughts were with the people that had suffered in the attacks that day.

My friend was on a cruise ship to Bermuda on 9/11, having departed from NYC. Yes, it continued on its regular itinerary, but the port of NY was closed after the attack, so the ship docked in Boston on its return, and all the passengers were bused back.

Some friends of mine were on a RCI Alaskan cruise when this happened, and ended up at Seward, and were transported to Anchorage. There were no hotels available at all, and the planes were not yet flying again. RCI could not pick up any new passengers, because they couldn't get there, so they offered to give the old passengers a southbound cruise for $500.00 back to Vancouver, and change their departure air. The passengers basically said "No way!" (some were out of money, everyone had suitcases full of dirty clothes, etc.), so RCI gave them the southbound cruise for free and flew them home from Vancouver. A real nightmare, to say the least. I was scheduled to go on a Carnival cruise on Sept. 14, but since we couldn't get to Tampa, Carnival booked us on another 7-nt cruise out of NO in December, and the airlines changed our tickets to NO instead of Tampa.

imsulin,

It was indeed a nightmare. We were stuck in NYC for 2 days after that horrible Tuesday, as the entire city was closed and locked up tight. We finally had to rent a car and drive all the way back to NC!!! I felt like I was in the middle of a Stephen King novel. Unreal.............

Wow, Catnip!! What a story! Not to be nosy, but what was the reason you were in NYC? I remember watching the "Today Show" that morning, when they broke away to show the first tower burning. I was watching it live when the second plane crashed into the other tower, and my immediate thought was "terrorists". I had to go to work, and was late, because I couldn't tear myself away from the TV. When I got to work, no one there had heard anything. We had a small TV in the office, which we turned on and watched all day. I can't IMAGINE what it must have been like for you to have been there! Thanks, Catnip!

imsulin,

We had gone up the Saturday before for a long weekend trip. (We were supposed to leave to come back home on Wed, Sept 12.) After they hit the first tower, everything was mass confusion, as you can imagine. We were staying in a hotel at 42nd St and could see straight down Madison Avenue towards the area that it happened. After the 2nd tower was hit, we went outside and were able to see when the 2nd tower was collapsing. Talk about unreal! All this time, nobody really knew what was going on. Cell phones were down and it was hard to get a land line. We finally got through so I could call my mother and let her know we were ok. Within the first 20 min after the first hit, Grand Central Station was closed & the city was shutting down. By late afternoon, downtown was a ghost town--everybody had left the island to go home. We were walking down 5th Ave about 6pm and could actually walk in the middle of the street--no cars & no buses anywhere. Very surrreal...........We finally got to rent a car on Thursday and left and drove all the way back to NC.

WHEW!!!!!! What an experience! :o

I had a coworker who was on a New England/Canada cruise at the time. The cruise had departed from Boston. The continued the cruise and were even offered to stay on the following week for just port fees and taxes. They accepted the offer and the second week was a ghost ship, only about 30% occupancy.

I have a friend who had friends I don't know who got stranded in Vancouver after their Alaska cruise. Total strangers took them in and put them up for several until they were able to fly home. If you remember if you were out of the US-it took even longer to get back as the out of US flights to US were banned longer.

Hubby had a workmate who was in Cozumel and could not get a flight back. She ended up getting on a Carnival ship that was headed back to Tampa. From Tampa she was able to fly home.

Funny thing was she was not impressed with cruizing-hubby told her to not base cruising on that trip at such a stressful time. Last year she took a RCCL Alaska cruise. She still says she is not crazy about cruising. I gues we are all different.

0Satb-man, I was on the Carnival Spirit sounthbound from Alaska. We were headed South throught the Inside Passage. We woke around 7 am hearing the Captain speaking to all the passengers. We thought they were seeing more whales. We were told to turn the TV on and watched the 2nd plane hit the twin towers. The ship was ordeded out the sea for the rest of the day. The only thing we saw was 1 military plane that passed overhead. When we got to Canada we sat on the ship for hours. We had a hotel arranged prior to the cruise so finally they let people off who had previous plans. We went to our hotel. The Ship was in port for 3 days. They found hotels for some people and let others stay on board. People were able to book shore excursions and tours as they wished. The ship then gave people the choice to stay on board and go back to Ketchican or stay in Van Couver. Plane flights were cancelled so we could not go home. After staying two extra days, we were able to catch a bus to Seattle and Am track to Martinez, Cal. Then a bus to Santa Rosa and a taxi to the Airport. I booked through AAA travel agency. We got insurance from them ( Access America ) They reimbursed our plane fare, paid the train, buses, our extra hotel time, and meal we had receipts for. They didn't cover, subway cost, taxi, bus to and from airport ( a commuter service from Santa Rosa Airport where we parked for $ 60.00 for 2 weeks ,) to the San Francisco Airport where we caught the plane. Carnival then sent my travel agent a credit of $ 50.00 each for not seeing the Inside passage ( $25.00 each refunded ) and $25.00 each for the Hubbard Glacier portion of the cruise that we missed because of a storm. I think the cruise line did there very best to take care of there passengers. We were very sad, but satisfied.

Wow, I get goose bumps just thinking about this again. We were up in Alaska looking at the glaciers and people where out on the deck crying and in a catatonic mood. Our Butler woke us up and asked us to turn on the television to see what was going on. We were glued to CNN for the rest of the week and the trip was just not the same. When we docked in Vancouver on Sunday there were no flights going into the usa. We were not going to be able to get out until Wednesday. The Celebrity Infinity put us up for 3 days, with all meals and eventually we got on the first flights out of Vancouver but I had heard the ship was going to go down into Seattle to get passengers home or atleast to the USA. They bent over backwards for us and we are cruising the Mercury in October for because we are very loyal to this cruise line.

I was at Heathrow airport in London, the towers were struck one hour before our take off time.I was in England for a week with my 81yr.old mother, my brother and two of my sisters. We had gone up to the high lands of Scotland to look at the area my grandmother was from. My mother had always dreamed of going there. When she was diagnoised with ALS in August of 2001 we deceided to take her there.She died one month after our return. They closed the airport,did not give us any assistance. We saw a airplane mechanic and he let us use his cell phone. All of the hotels were full so we had no choice but to go to a Bed and Breakfast. They charged us $475.00 a night for one room, one double bed.There was barely enough room for us to sleep on the floor. We stayed there Tues., Weds,Thurs, and they charge us for Fri. because we didn't know we were leaving until 6pm that night when the airport contacted us.We called the US embassy and they were of no help. We finally got the first flight back to the USA on that Friday. But it flew into JFK in New York and we are from the midwest, so we had to rent a car and drive home. That cost us $250.00 for a 24 hour rental.Need I say that cost of our trip was much more than anticipated.

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My husband is a firefighter for the Navy. He called me to say "I'm ok, we're OK, but I won't make it home for the wedding". I left work that day as per my bosses to get things cancelled. All vendors told me to stick it out until Saturday, they'd refund me if he didn't make it home. DH to be made it home 6 hours before our wedding. He hadn't slept much and looked tired. We married minus 1/2 our guests, danced until the wee hours, then he deployed for New York as he is on the Federal Distaster Team. We took our honeymoon 6 months later and had a wonderful time. In fact, I hadn't thougt about that week for a while, just brought back a chill and some memories :)

I wasn't on a cruise, I was at work.... then I picked up my daughter from school.. gave her a hug, went home... and looked out the window.... we shut off tv's, snuggled, prayed and cried....

that's what we did... on 9/11/01-----> no cruise...

I went to liberty park 2 months later... and there was still smoke rising from the grounds of the wtc.... so sad....

I was at Heathrow airport in London, the towers were struck one hour before our take off time.I was in England for a week with my 81yr.old mother, my brother and two of my sisters. We had gone up to the high lands of Scotland to look at the area my grandmother was from. My mother had always dreamed of going there. When she was diagnoised with ALS in August of 2001 we deceided to take her there.She died one month after our return. They closed the airport,did not give us any assistance. We saw a airplane mechanic and he let us use his cell phone. All of the hotels were full so we had no choice but to go to a Bed and Breakfast. They charged us $475.00 a night for one room, one double bed.There was barely enough room for us to sleep on the floor. We stayed there Tues., Weds,Thurs, and they charge us for Fri. because we didn't know we were leaving until 6pm that night when the airport contacted us.We called the US embassy and they were of no help. We finally got the first flight back to the USA on that Friday. But it flew into JFK in New York and we are from the midwest, so we had to rent a car and drive home. That cost us $250.00 for a 24 hour rental.Need I say that cost of our trip was much more than anticipated.

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that is so sad that people were not more generous but out to make a buck if they could-I have heard so many other generous stories that people told where total strangers were helpful and generous. I am glad though you got to take your mother on her dream trip-I hope 9-11 didn't hasten her death from being so distressed and depressed over the situation.

A friend of mine was an assistant cruise director on an NCL ship that was to dock in New York later that week. Needless to say, they were redirected.

I was working as a school counselor in Texas on that fateful day. We were suppose to be getting ready for Parent's Lunch day. When the news struck, the other counselor and I had to inform the all of the classes of 4th and 5th graders of what had happened so when the parent's arrived, the children would be as prepared as possible (not that you can really prepare them for this type of tragedy). In all of the years of counseling I have done, this was the most difficult counseling task I ever did. Not only did I have to help the students, but I had to deal with my own emotions at the same time. I am just grateful that I had counselor friends who helped debrief me afterwards. I am just amazed at how well the children handled the situation.

Actually I am sailing next month...on 9-11.......

I'm out on 9/11 as well.... (on your favorite ship no less).

Before reading this thread, I always wondered what the cruise ships did right after. I figured they had to dock somewhere.

For this year, I just picked the cheapest cruise of the year on my favorite cruise-line, and it fell on 9/11. I didn't give it a second thought at first.

But... I'm flying out of logan, and my main concern is that 9/11 FALLS on a SATURDAY! This means I can expect to be waiting in a line FOR AT LEAST 2 hours!! Yikes. Delta just started some sort of "online preregistration" that allows you to skip the line, so I'll give it a try.

My wife, however, is a little nervous. She keeps hearing on the news that "the terrorists have a major attack planned for the fall". I told her the only thing she has to worry about is a hurricane... and after the recent one.. well, she is now more nervous then before!

I think she REALLY NEEDS a vacation.

Nick

Hi Nick:) Oh you are going on the Century?....have a wonderful cruise:D she is my favorite! Need to figure out when I can sail her again!