Heidi13

Coral has provided great advice. To put it in perspective, any time we had a balcony, it was never used in Glacier Bay.

Unfortunately, as with everything these days, "Privacy Laws" must always be considered. As part of the EU, I suspect Italy, as the Flag State, has rigorous privacy laws, which may restrict any information provided to you.

Trans-Atlantic cruises are any sailing that crosses the North or South Atlantic Ocean, which can include liner voyages (QM2), repositioning cruises, World Cruises or Grand Voyages. Repositioning cruises are any cruise when a ship changes home posts, which don't always cross an ocean. The Alaska ships based in Vancouver & Seattle reposition to/from Florida, without crossing an ocean. You are incorrect that Cunard is the only cruise line crossing the Atlantic with a max of 1 port stop. The P&O World Cruise normally only has 1 stop between Southampton and Ft Lauderdale and the P&O Caribbean departures from Southampton also only have 1 stop. The Fred Olsen World Cruise also only has 1 stop between Southampton and the US East Coast.

Yes, much can change in 4 months, it can change for the better, or worse. Most WC's reach Suez around April, but that doesn't mean they have 4 months to make a decision. I also note piracy, prevalent in those waters, has been ongoing for years, not months. The additional distance around the Cape is about 5,000 miles, which at 18 kts takes 11 - 12 days continuous steaming. If they are going around the Cape and still have ports of call, the revised itinerary needs to be complete before departing Australia, which is normally February. Since working on a revised itinerary can take a couple of weeks, the decision needs to be made late January/early February. Therefore, they only have about 6 - 8 weeks to decide. The cruise lines could decide to continue, then prior to entering those waters, the Underwriters could cancel the insurance, due to a war zone. They would have no option but to round the Cape and spend long continuous days at sea, to ensure the next cruise wasn't impacted. Expect to see these decisions made earlier rather than later.

In most war zones, the decision is made by the Underwriters for the cruise lines, as hull insurance is either prohibitively expensive, or not even available. Crew costs also escalate in a war zone, so it really shouldn't be a tough decision for a ship owner. Not sailing into those waters is the easy decision, figuring out schedule changes are a little more complex. Going to be very interesting watching for changes to the World Cruises, which will be starting within the next couple of weeks, as many of them are scheduled for Suez.

Affirmative, based on most cruise line terms & conditions, if disembarked for cause, you are responsible for your own arrangements.

Affirmative, it would be the next port agreeing to accept a disembarkation.

The piping systems on the older ships was definitely a driver for scrapping a ship, as the sanitary and fire main systems were all salt water. Plumbing issues was one of the reasons one of my favourite ships, SS Oriana was sold at only 27 yrs. In addition to corrosion, the pipes also got blocked on the inside. The modern vacuum systems use small diameter stainless pipes, at least that is what we used in the shipyard when I managed a system re-piping on one of our ships. They do not use any salt water, only small amounts of fresh water. Hope this helps. For a more detailed explanation, you can try the Chief.

I certainly believe the current model is not sustainable and the mega ships will become more destination resorts, calling at possibly 1 port per week, which could be the cruise line's private island. Intensive ports of call cruises would be limited to smaller ships. I remember those days well, as in addition to TA's and their guests, we also had numerous pax family and guests aboard. Trying to get everyone ashore before departure was a challenge. This wasn't unusual, as many shipping lines kept the ships longer. When I did the 25 yr hull survey on SS Uganda, each hull plate was at least 3/4" thick, which is much thicker than modern ships. However, in the 1950's they didn't have the same quality of steel, which is why it was thicker. Drydocking intervals were also annual and with P&O lasted about 3 weeks, so more money was spent of maintenance.

personally, I use the Synopsis and Forecasts issued by a local Meteorological service. For pax, the best worldwide is probably Windy.com

As I noted in a previous response, while onboard, with the lack of response you received, I would have requested a meeting with the Staff Captain. Since the ship's security response was slow and ineffective, I would have requested the names of all witnesses to the incident. You may not speak the same language, but it isn't too difficult to get your point across. Moving forward, you can head over to Italy to report the crime, but be aware that you might be disappointed with the police response. You can also send a letter of complaint to the Costa management, outlining the scope of the issue and the poor and incorrect responses received from the ship's crew. You may want to review the Costa Cruises list of prohibited items and if drugs are included, in addition to the assault, focus on the ship not upholding Company Policy. I suspect not bringing drugs onboard is included in the Company's SMS, so failing to investigate could be a Non-Conformity under the ISM Code.

While disembarkation may seem fair, the Master needs substantive evidence and the punishment also needs to fit the crime. With respect to another pax reporting somebody smoking drugs, that is insufficient evidence, as it becomes he said/she said. However, the pax report may be sufficient justification to conduct a cabin search, and if drugs were found, the Master may be able to take action, depending on type and quantity. Regarding the alleged assault, enforced disembarkation is not warranted for this crime. This is generally dealt with by a warning. Had we disembarked every minor assault, on some cruises the pax count would have been rather low by the end of the cruise.

Yes, totally agree that a hotel space refresh enhances the pax experience and helps to maintain a cruise line's branding, which naturally changes over time. However, the fact remains that you have shiny new pax spaces on an older ship, with the associated requirement for more frequent and continuously increasing maintenance costs. This was the model used by my last company, which planned to keep the hulls for 40 years, sometimes increasing to 60 yrs. The ships were removed from service every 10 yrs, with the 1st major refit seeing an update to the hotel spaces, then after 20 yrs the ships were re-engined, new lifesaving equipment, new piping, new cables, etc. It does work, but also requires steel replacement in increasing amounts. Since our business dropped off outside of the summer months, we had sufficient downtime to remove ships from service every year for a 1-month maintenance period. That is not cost effective for cruise ships, so is another impediment for cruise lines. Unfortunately, many cruise lines place ever increasing economy of scale and reduced maintenance costs, by building ever larger new tonnage, over enhancing the pax experience on smaller, older tonnage.

A couple of ships reportedly had them in cabins as early as the 1960's, with the numbers starting to increase in the late 1980's/early 90's.

Sorry, can't remember the deck number, as our last cruise on Sapphire was 2014. Since the Bridge is on Dk 14, I believe Coral is correct. However, it's easy to find as it is accessed by a couple of gates at the fwd end of the deck.

Don't believe I am missing any points, as being a retired professional mariner, I start with regulatory approvals with any new initiative. With Flag/Class approvals, being step 1, it most likely won't get to step 2.

Hotels in downtown Vancouver are extremely expensive, so without knowing your budget, it is impossible to suggest a hotel, as if downtown is out of your price range, cheaper options are available around the airport and in Richmond. Assuming, you opt for a downtown hotel, transportation options are Skytrain, fixed price cab, UBER and limos. Skytrain is the cheapest, but not the easiest with cruise luggage.

When onboard a vessel in International waters, you're subject to the laws of the Flag State, which is the country where the ship is registered. Unless you were on UK flagged tonnage, the UK has no jurisdiction. If not satisfied with the response received onboard, you should have asked for an appointment with the Staff Captain and submitted a complaint in writing. However, you also need to consider the context. Our SIL is a police officer and these types of complaints receive an interview, a file started and then move on to the next. The ship probably took more action by talking to the offender than most police forces, who have neither the time nor manpower to follow up minor complaints. Unless the port you were unable to go ashore was the ship's Flag State, their police also had no jurisdiction.

The 2023 WC we booked was published on 9th December 2021 and the 2020 WC was published in April 2018, so for a WC departing in Dec 2025/Jan 26, expect it to be published from within a few days to couple of months. You can try a shorter Viking cruise, but from all of our research, they really step up the quality on a WC, so the shorter cruises may not give you a clear indication of what to expect. If they revert to a single ship WC, expect it to sell out in a few months, but if they have 2 ships sailing WC's, it may take 6 -9 months to sell out both ships. Note - Viking have a history of increasing WC prices once the ships are almost sold out. The T&C usually require a $1,000 pp cancellation fee, if cancelled more than 6-months before departure. That can often be covered by travel insurance, if you cancel for a covered reason.

Basically everything used on board must be type approved by the Flag State and/or Classification Society. The UL standards does not meet the marine standard and in my experience, many of the Classification Societies did not accept the EU wheelmark, which is a European marine approval. My ships were all delegated to Class, so all inspections were completed by Class Surveyors. I dealt with both Lloyds and ABS. When checking approvals, they would grudgingly accept a Flag State approval, but if no Flag State Approval, then they wanted the product to be tested in accordance with their Class requirements, paying the requisite fees. If it passed, it received a Class approved designation, and I could use it on any ships classed by that society. Every equipment, furnishing, fabric, panel, etc has performance standards. When testing carpet, a sample is placed in a burn chamber and set on fire. We observe the process and time how long it takes to actually catch fire. If it passes, it received a certificate of approval and provided the manufacturer continues making to those specs, it retains approval. Approvals are usually issued for 5 yrs and are mostly renewed upon application. Separate testing standards are developed for everything requiring approval. The approval costs are not inexpensive, being thousands of dollars and must be completed by the manufacturer.

They may have refreshed the hotel spaces and even upgraded the machinery, but they are hardly almost totally new ships. From a pax perspective they may look new, but from a Flag/Class perspective they remain the same age as the existing hull. It is the age of the hull, not hotel spaces that determine maintenance costs, which increase with age, then increase exponentially after about 20 - 25 yrs. In the drydocking they may have replaced some steelwork, but that will only continue to increase as the hulls continue aging. When all costs and downtime are considered, it is usually more cost effective to build new and offload older tonnage.

Since mega ship owners are all about maximising onboard revenue, if it was that easy, why aren't any of the cruise lines already doing it????? You do also know that the VR equipment must be Flag/Class approved before it can be used onboard a ship. The approval process is expensive, especially as many of the Class Societies require their own approval. When it is a limited market, most companies will not pay the cost of the approval process. I know this from experience, since I have approached potential vendors to get Flag/Class approval for their product, so I could purchase it for the fleet. Even with 35 ships, the approval costs were not acceptable. Those of us that have worked in the industry fully understand all the multiple challenges with regulations, approvals, crewing, etc. I can assure you, nothing in the marine industry is as simple as you clearly believe.

The latest version of Lightroom CC is way more user friendly than previous versions, especially for selecting backgrounds, people, pets, objects, etc. In many cases it only requires a single click and the software mostly does an excellent job of selecting what you want. Still has the ability to fine tune the selection, but I find I rarely need to add or subtract. I also have Elements 21, but am now using Lightroom most of the time.

I wouldn't believe everything you receive at those presentations, especially as some answers must follow Corporate. From 2026 the cruise ship order books are starting to look fairly thin. I'll suggest slots are available at some, if not all of the 4 major European yards in 2026, and you also have some other worldwide shipyards capable of building pax vessels. Since a number of ships are fitting out and being delivered in 2025, they may even have some slots available that year to start cutting steel, building blocks and then block assembly in a building dock. I'll suggest the primary reason Carnival has not ordered new tonnage is a lack of capital funding, while they endeavour to pay down the COVID incurred debts.

The bow on Princess ships is the crew's open deck space. You may have seen people up there, but they will have been crew members. On Sapphire, the Monkey Island up above the Bridge was open to pax on our last cruise on her. This was a great spot for GB and arrivals/departures.