Cruiseathoning

You think the conditions will be favorable for driving on Tuesday after 120 mph winds across almost the entire state?

Ok. No further comment.

No-there is too much of that margin of error garbage. They blew it. By their whole margin of error apparently. A lot of people thought this thing had a westerly pattern. Don't tell me partly sunny with a 50 percent chance of rain then crow about accuracy or hide behind margin of error.

Lives are at stake. If I can't make accurate predictions, I am not picking a horsey.

Tony20 I don't know how you are going to drive down from Orlando on MON, when they are calling for a hurricane there.

https://www.windy.com/28.922/-81.694?2017-09-11-18,28.033,-96.899,5,m:etnadSZ

Please reconsider.

My big concern now is twofold-1. people seem to have evacuated into the storm. 2. Roads are parking lots as attempts to evacuate made them vulnerable in a car, moreso than perhaps staying home depending upon the structure of the home.

The weather experts appear to have blown this. Now the west coast is very unprepared. As we see.

USE YOUR own best judgment. I am not so confident in media, experts, people with PHD's and so on..

Contract.

Pfft.

The value of a contract is directly related to your financial ability to enforce it. Otherwise they are meaningless. If someone is willing to go the financial distance to either enforce, or disregard, the terms of agreement, there is little his or her opponent can do.

Sure one can sue. You have to be able to afford to sue.

Potential legislative remedies-1. Any tropical warning means immediate option to refund. 2. The state will make the final call on the ability of a cruise to embark. Does anybody think that issuing mandatory evacuations will simultaneously leaving it up to the cruise lines to embark, thereby drawing thousands of tourists in opposition to traffic contraflow procedure makes any sense at all?

Point 3.-Complaining about politicians is flat played out. Who put them there? If we want better people to represent us, perhaps we should collectively do more to be people worthy of quality representation.

And that includes me. Man in the Mirror and such. That is all I will delve into with regard to politics-but the discussion of legislative solutions is pertinent to this conversation.

Yes booking a cruise in hurricane season is a risk. The primary risk should be that you might not get to go on the cruise. The primary risk should not be, irrespective of any insurance purchase, encountering danger by feeling forced to travel into a disaster zone.

That is the point you seem to be missing. For some this is a one shot deal-a once in a lifetime event, one that if they lose their funds, they will not get a second chance at. Should all passengers ALWAYS buy insurance? Of course. But insurance is not a substitute for common corporate sense.

People are not expecting the cruise line to insure them. One should get over the concept of insurance as it applies to this scenario. Once there are hurricane warnings issued, and evacuations initiated, there should be no further debate about the potential for any type of marine traffic in the affected area for a period of time as determined by port authorities.

Period-end of story.

It is clear this is going to take a legislative remedy for those lacking empathy, sense, or flat out intelligence to grasp the concept of landscape altering weather events.

I agree about personal responsibility. Especially personal CORPORATE responsibility.

Do you want it translated into a different language? A CATEGORY 5 hurricane is PROJECTED to directly impact Ft. Lauderdale. It may not, it may simply skirt it, but as of now, that is the consensus, with the only variance being in intensity.

A category 5 hurricane is projected to directly impact Ft. Lauderdale Monday.

That is all that needs to be said.

And I am tired of saying it.

Past the point where people refuse to listen there is nothing more I can do.

Evacuations are being ordered out of Florida for what may approach a Category five. This model is showing 168 mph at landfall right over Ft. Lauderdale.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=hmon&region=11L&pkg=mslp_wind&runtime=2017090612&fh=96&xpos=0&ypos=118

I am not sure what more needs to be said.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at1.shtml?cone#contents

There is one M on Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale.

There is another M on Port Canaveral.

I would say full refunds at some point are a solid prediction.

Miami is likely to be evacuating soon.

we are due to fly to Fort Lauderdale but think we are going to fly to New York instead spend a few days there, then fly jfk to Fort Lauderdale Monday,, what do you think of the chances of harmonys Tuesdays departure changing?

I think an objective person would currently view any form of marine travel originating in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on next Tuesday as unlikely.

According to my understanding of the situation, these are the pertinent facts as of right now. A category 4 storm is projected to hit just east of Miami at 2am on Monday, the 11th, continue up the coast as a hurricane, possibly impacting Port Canaveral as a category 2-3 by Tuesday, and head for the Carolinas after that.

Royal Caribbean is planning embarkations for South Florida during the time frame of the 12th-13th.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at1.shtml?cone#contents

In the event a hurricane or some other event renders a port unusable, the port I have paid for us to fly into to, and they were to switch the embarkation port, am I required either by insurance or the cruise line to make arrangements to get to that port or can I request a refund if it is too difficult to change plans?

Past the point where we have made good faith arrangements to arrive at agreed port, I don't feel I should be required to change plans if the travel is too difficult. However, the insurance company has no idea, possibly because it has never happened. I ask because were a 180 mph monster hurricane to hit or affect Ft. Lauderdale it is not unreasonable to project a period where the port is unusable.

Oh look, a 180 mph monster hurricane projected to hit or affect Ft. Lauderdale..:o

And yes I know our cruise is insignificant compared to human suffering. But I have to consider business aspects all the same.

Ok where? They could not take Liberty to NOLA. I think at a certain point you are talking tendering with luggage because otherwise, if FL is unavailable, your best option is debark in Galveston-but then there is a storm that is brewing there too. So it is theoretically possible storms might hit all three viable ports on the same day.

All of this is more a way of saying the wave of the ship future I feel is high end and smaller, not larger. I think as awesome as these ships appear to be, the risks involved with having so few port options might deter companies from building ever larger ships.

A lot of this will depend on how Virgin is received, but I think they concern NCL more, as the demographics more closely align. Some of the best times I ever had were on a <100,000 ton ship.

If people that dock in FL have to be taken to Barcelona I am headed for the mountains.

This is a bizarre storm track, because it essentially would preclude Allure from going to either Florida port. One because Hurricane Irma is shown as precisely hitting both ports, two the timing is such it would have to beat the storm to Port Canaveral, and then you risk an Anthem redux as it would be on the east side of the storm. Since it switched to Cozumel anyway, is Galveston capable of handling an Oasis class ship?

My question is what do they do if Liberty and Allure, and Oasis have to dock and two of the three main ports are unusable?

We are way beyond mere concern for the next cruise. Kingwood has water to the second story, thousands of people are trapped and the call to any able bodied persons, especially with a boat, has been sent.

Quite literally, all hands on deck.

I have addressed my concerns with our travel agent and will make them known in writing to upper management. As a consultant, and particularly a project and marketing consultant after I shed my political past, I am geared towards solving problems, not pointing fingers.

This is not to be construed to mean I feel this is something to be glossed over. Rather, to mean that my preference is for an organization I have an established relationship with to be given the opportunity to review its decisions and procedures and continually strive for improvement. Perhaps I am a forgiving person, maybe patient, maybe pragmatic.

But beyond cruises, beyond itineraries, beyond even road closures, the only thing that needs to be focused on, right now, is best exemplified by the acknowledgement of this reality:

There were people on the SECOND floor of their homes waiting the flood out. They had to evacuate.

Perspective.

One of the concerns in this situation is that not all facts can be ascertained at this time. For example we do not know RCI's reasoning or internal debate. Therefore we can not at this time determine their thinking or motivations for their decision making. There is broad consensus that this was not handled optimally, however one can not credibly make a claim against RCI's handling that questions their commitment to passenger safety. Assumption is no substitute for evidence. Whatever is said in an interview must factually reflect individual experience. The urge to speculate or extrapolate should be resisted.

Hold on-BarryH is trapped on a vacation he probably wanted to end 24 hours ago, no doubt concerned about career and property, so perhaps we should cut him some slack for making certain assumptions. I postulate that it is difficult for Freedom Class to enter NOLA, I don't know if it is possible one way or another.

Despite this, none of this changes the fact that he could have disembarked yesterday from Miami with different decision making. At the very least, it is important that as part of the aftermath of these decisions we know for future reference what is or is not viable. And as a corollary, perhaps it would be in everyone's best interest to design and develop more and larger ports if not for commerce, then for security. Building ships so large it can only dock in certain places has its drawbacks. Especially if those certain places are unreachable. BarryH might have been able to take binoculars and see his vehicle sitting outside Galveston and was told he has to go to Miami.

Consider context, people.

One thing that has been overlooked-is that Liberty sitting in the Gulf made it vulnerable to water spouts, which could have been an unimaginable disaster, so no-it can not be credibly said that passengers were ideally positioned because even a cursory education in meteorology tells you that tropical storms bring tornadoes. Indeed, this has been a constant threat in the area.

Again I emphasize that it is appropriate to give the organization a chance to conduct appropriate internal reviews and make the necessary changes as needed. BarryH I feel an immediate departure from Cozumel to Miami would have been prudent. They chose not to do that. I am always perplexed when I see top down decisions of no perceivable logic not get blocked or edited on the way down the pike. But mostly all you here from people anymore is "I am just doing what I am told," or "Just doing my job." At some point people at some level need to demonstrate courage and challenge hubris.

But I see these sorts of actuarial mistakes constantly.