cable

Trusting anything from NCL that has to do with the condition of an old ship is total folly. These are the people who lied for years about the operation and care and condition of the boilers on the Norway. The survey in which my friend was involved was for a potential buyer who declined to buy the hulk.

 

I fear that those of you who want to spend other people's money (you have none of your own or you would have spent it already) are wearing rose colored glasses.

 

As a museum, the ship has no value as there is nothing to look at except to drive up to the dock as say, "Oh look, Martha, there's a pretty ship." There are a large number of you folks who think it can be returned to operation; that is total folly. You remind me of the group that was trying to return rail service to eastern North Carolina about 25 years ago. They said they had cars. They did - two old camp cars that the Aberdeen and Rockfish had abandoned.

 

I have tried to avoid being cruel through several years of threads from proponents of saving the United States. Quite frankly, the effort has resulted in continued pie in the sky dreams and that is all you have or ever will have. The only possible customer for the hulk that exists is the scrappers.

 

Doc

Very well said. Another thing to consider is that even if it was financially feasible and mechanically possible to restore this ship, it would have none of the amentities required by modern cruise passengers. How are you going to add balcony cabins, multi-story atriums, swimming pools, rock climbing walls, ice skating, and all the other crap that people seem to want without radically altering the profile and character of this ship? I seriously doubt there are enough liner fans out there to keep the ship filled to capacity week after week.

And forget about United States in a static role - the track record of these type of projects is a disaster. It was a great accomplishment for the time, but that time has passed. Better to open a nice museum or something than mess around with a rotting gross hulk, especially in these economic times. Most intelligent folks realize that NCL only purchased United States in order to obtain their Hawaii route and never had the faintest intent of actually restoring her. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, including Colin Vitch. Let NCL sell her for scrap on the condition that they donate funds for a SSUS museum or other attraction and everybody will be unburdened.

SS Norway needed, comparitively, very minimal repairs to bring it back to service but it was not done because the ship was outdated and uncompetitive.

We are also interested in renting bikes independent of the cruise ship excursion. I saw online that Tony's Car Rentals also rents bikes but they're located at the airport. Does anybody know if they have an outpost nearer to where the ships dock? Or is the airport close enough to walk to pick up the bikes there? Thanks!

Admiral, which was a low-end subsidiary of Royal Caribbean (hence using CocoCay).

Doug, no offense, but I think you have it backwards. Emerald Seas was calling at Little Stirrup Cay ("Coco Cay" sounds bloody awful) way before RCCL was ever involved - I believe starting the late 1970's! Now that I think about it, could the rights to the private island have been the catalyst for the whole takeover??