chengkp75

While I am not sure of the exact legalities of it, Japan has cabotage laws regarding passenger transportation, similar to the US PVSA. While the incident reported by a previous poster of getting off in Taiwan and rejoining in Hong Kong, that is between two different countries. Again, without knowing the specifics of the itinerary, nor the specifics of the way that Japanese Immigration handles back to back cruises, this may run afoul of their cabotage laws, and requires some serious review by the HAL compliance department.

And the reason the crew's radios work, is that they are typically 5 watts, about twice the power of a consumer radio, are using higher frequencies than consumer radios, and are tied into a net of repeater antenna throughout the ship. Radios of 5 watts and higher are supposed to be listed on the ship's radiotelephone certificate, so even if you bring a high powered one onboard, it shouldn't be used. While some have had "good results" with consumer radios on ships, that is going to be a situation by situation, day by day, or hour by hour case. I would not expect any usable signal from a consumer radio more than half a ship length apart, more than 2 decks apart, and definitely poor when trying inside to inside. Looking at Germany, you are limited to PMR446 radios, which are limited to 1/2 watt maximum power.

Engine noise is going to make trivia a little difficult to accomplish, but you do know that the prize is an extra hour pumping the bilges?

There is no active lava flowing outside the crater, let alone reaching the sea.

The last ones in the boat will be luckier than those first in, as the later ones will be able to vomit down on those sitting below them. The bilge pump (hand operated) is for waste and vomit. Those who called for putting the Carnival Triumph passengers into boats have no idea how worse it would have been than staying on the ship.

That is part of the check in procedure, your name/cabin is on their list with the boat station. There are special instructions for getting mobility challenged not only into the boats, but from their cabins to the muster station and then to the boats. One of the most common comments that I got when we did passenger drills, was the amazement at how close the "butt dots" were in the boats. LIfeboat capacity is based on an average weight of 215 lbs, up from 167 lbs a few years ago (so older boats are based on that smaller size). There are no bathrooms, or places to vomit, and no AC in the boats.

It would be real nice if some who trot out the Concordia have actually read the official report of the incident, and found what the root causes were, and whether or not any lives would have been lost if the muster was signaled in a timely fashion. I hope you'll be okay with the crew also "multi-tasking" by not being able to train in actual situations, and likely having to assist guests during the crew drills, since we wouldn't want to interrupt the vacations. And, if you know any first responders or military, they will tell you that the more realistic the training (i.e. chaos at the drill), the better it is retained. Train as you would fight. Hopefully, you will be able to head to your station at a leisurely pace in an actual emergency. I fear that this new muster will continue in use until a true emergency happens, and then the lack of training of both passengers and crew will lead to a disaster. Unfortunately, this is the history of maritime safety. I can only hope that some small incidents that show the shortcomings of the new drill to the maritime safety professionals who investigate these things, and who are responsible for promulgating the rules can lead to a return to the old drill before a major incident happens.

Actually, they are right. The cruise line can detain them until the proper Immigration officials arrive to clear them, and they can place an "innkeeper's lien" to prevent them taking their baggage ashore, but they cannot stop a passenger who wishes to disembark, from disembarking.

Where did the cruise start? Obviously at another US port, or there wouldn't be a PVSA fine. But, CBP clears the "ship" and passengers for a partial "day" clearance, with the assumption that the same passengers would be on the arrival and departure manifests. Therefore, they don't need to go to through customs and immigration. However, passengers, once they set foot on a foreign flag cruise ship, and the ship leaves the 12 mile limit, have "left the US" and if leaving the vessel, will need to clear Customs and Immigration when leaving the vessel. First off, your comparison to flying between Bayonne and Boston, you would have flown on a US carrier (as required by law), and if you had booked a cruise between Bayonne and Boston, that would have been on a US flag vessel (as also required by law), so no requirement for Customs or Immigration. What most folks don't understand is the international nature when sailing on a foreign flag cruise ship, and that the ship is not part of the US. Because the cruise included a foreign port, a foreign flag ship could do it, but you still leave the US when you board.

CBP cares nothing about who the passenger was that caused the violation, the fine is levied against the cruise line. It is only the ticket contract that allows the cruise line to pass the fine to you. So, this will have nothing to do with the PVSA. However, when your son left the cruise, did he clear Customs and Immigration at that time? This could be a fine for illegally entering the country, if he did not. You need to call CBP to find out what the fine is in regards to, and whether they were notified by RCI that a passenger was leaving the ship at that port.

About $15 million.

Neither of which was caused by azipod issues.

Bingo

What was meant was that a "heavy lift ship" was used as there was no floating dry dock of suitable size. Vista was lifted while outside the port of Freeport, as the heavy lift needs more depth to submerge than a drydock.

Where was this said?

Except that based on a class action suit against NCL a couple decades ago, what is allowed to be included in "port taxes and fees" is strictly controlled, and is limited to direct pass through charges by governmental or quasi governmental agencies that are strictly related to the requirements for the ship entering the ports. And, has booking been stopped on this cruise one year in advance? Nope. Not sure how you can figure how many are actually going to sail on the cruise, even if nearly fully booked. Port fee refunds generally don't go out until the ship has sailed. The other fact is that the Panama Canal has just passed a new toll structure, to take effect on Jan 2023. I would expect that your port fees were calculated on the toll structure in place when you booked, and could be considerably higher next year.

Please elaborate. Nearly all port charges and fees are based on either vessel size, or capacity, which has nothing to do with occupancy. So, they are fixed costs. As stated above, fees are divided by the "expected" occupancy or double occupancy. When occupancy drops below what was "expected", then the per pax fee goes up, and they will use the unused fees from cancelled ports to cover this, rather than refund that charge and then charge you more to make up the shortage. Have you never seen the many threads about Panama Canal cruises where the fees go up or down wildly during the booking process?

The Bahamas is considered part of the Caribbean Area, and is a Caribbean nation. Not sure where you thought Freeport was not a Caribbean port.

I'll answer a few questions about this: 1. The lawsuit was about the representation of the reliability of the azipods. ABB relied on safety and reliability data from smaller installations to project reliability figures for the much larger cruise ship models they produced. 2. ABB has an almost complete monopoly on "podded propulsion systems" for cruise ships. The only other manufacturer of note is Rolls Royce/Kongsberg, but they have had their own reliability issues from day one, and have a miniscule market share. 3. The main issue comes from the "thrust bearing" in the azipod. This bearing takes all of the thrust that the propeller makes in the water, and transfers it to the ship's hull to propel the hull through the water. Due to the design of the azipod, the size of these bearings is limited, and so the loading (force per square inch) goes up, and apparently the bearing design and metallurgy did not upsize as easily as the rest of the pod when sizing up to cruise ship sized pods. This lead to "premature" bearing failure. This means that ABB claimed that in normal use, the bearing would last a minimum of 5 years of service (requiring renewal every dry docking), or longer. This did not prove to be true. 4. As noted, the problems primarily exist with the older VO model pods, where the thrust bearing cannot be changed out without a dry docking, so a premature failure requires an emergency dry docking, and associated increase on operating cost. In the newer XO model pods, the bearing can be changed out without dry docking. 5. While many think that azipods are "tried and true" technology, but in the maritime field, they are actually still (after 20 years or so of use) considered "cutting edge". There are about 700 azipod units (of all sizes) out there, with less than a 20 year average "historical lifespan" to provide data. Shafted propeller drives (where the thrust bearing is inside the hull of the ship, and therefore has no real size limitations), have been around for 160 years, and there are over 50,000 ships out there currently using this technology. So, you can see that azipods have a very small data base for service life of components. But, the bearing failures of the past with azipods are leading to not only the XO models, but continually testing new designs and metallurgy for the bearings to increase reliability. 6. Whether or not NCL will upgrade all the older VO model pods to the XO pods will remain to be seen, this cash will be used to weather the current financial crisis, with no thought to upgrades. ABB has produced "historical service life" curves, and the cruise lines are now using these to plan maintenance intervals that fall within the 90% reliability range, to preclude (though nothing can prevent) premature failure. As the VO pods are older, the ships with them are older, and will require shorter dry dock intervals (2.5 years instead of 5, regardless of whether they have pods or not), so it may simply be a case of increased maintenance cost to overhaul the pods at 2.5 years instead of 5.

While I can't speak to Celebrity personally, I will give my thoughts on the great "frozen/fresh" debate. Regarding the "vast walk in freezers" onboard, probably half of them are "chill boxes" and not freezers. About the only food that comes aboard frozen is proteins. I have personally seen fresh produce last on a ship for over 14 days, many times, in fact, in most cases it will if not used. Produce is graded when it comes aboard by the Provisions Master, as to what is ripe and needs to be used "first" and what can be used later. In fact, they will often specifically order cases of ripe and unripe produce of the same type. The "use now" cases are placed at the front of the walk in boxes, and the rest are moved around the boxes to areas known to have better or less air circulation to help or retard ripening. The boxes have CO2 monitors in them, used to control the amount of ventilation, as CO2 levels above 3% can cause browning. The boxes will have ozone generators in them to create ozone to react with ethylene. Ethylene is given off by ripe fruits and vegetables, and will increase the premature rotting of the produce if levels are high in storage. Ozone reacts with ethylene to produce CO2 and water, and extends the life of even ripe produce. Further, the provisions team goes through many boxes of produce daily, looking for produce that is either turning or about to turn, and will remove it from the box to prevent the spread to other produce in the box. This "hand picking" takes hours each day, and contributes greatly to the longevity of the produce. I have to agree that if your childhood vegetables were mushy and bad tasting, they were likely canned and not frozen. But, I digress. The fresh produce, lets say green beans, are placed in an appliance known as a "tilting box", which is a rectangular pressure cooker about 3' x 2' x 1' (so, about 6 cubic feet, or 4.5 bushels of beans). This cooks these beans in a very few minutes (heated by the ship's steam system) 2-3 minutes for this entire quantity of green beans. Now, whether the galley staff training has fallen, and the pressure cooker is not watched closely, overcooking can happen.

IIRC, the major port authorities in Florida (Miami, FLL, PC, Tampa and Jacksonville) were exempted from this statute. Wonder why?

Ozone can be used to disinfect fruits and vegetables by killing bacteria on the surface of the fruit, but the main use in food storage is to react with ethylene. Ethylene is the VOC that plants give off that causes ripening. By having ozone react with ethylene (to produce CO2 and water), you delay the ripening. This is similar to what is done for some expensive fruits (mainly "stone" fruits like peaches and mangoes) when shipped in a refrigerated container. Instead of introducing ozone to prevent ripening, the entire atmosphere inside the container is removed, and replaced with 100% nitrogen. Without oxygen, the fruit cannot produce ethylene, and so will virtually never ripen. The food covers are plastic, and are washed before each use. They are not disposable.

In fact, the water makers would have an easier time making potable water from fresh than from salt. No, the reason is that the ship is not allowed to make water when within 12 miles of shore, as there is greater risk of contamination or infectious disease close to shore, where municipal or industrial outfalls are.

They use the Craft Brewer's Association definition of a craft brewery, production must be less than 6 million barrels/year. Nothing "happens" if they exceed this level, they just cannot call themselves a "craft" brewery.

Sorry, John, those are not watertight bulkheads, any more than the doors to the outside from the promenade deck up, nor the balcony doors. Watertight subdivision ends at what is known as the "bulkhead" deck, and this is typically one deck above the waterline (like the I-95 deck), in crew spaces, and there are no watertight doors or bulkheads above this. These are, as you correctly point out, fire zone division bulkheads. These are classed as "A-60" bulkheads, meaning that the fittings, doorways, and structural fire insulation is such that regardless of how intense a fire is burning against one side of the A-60 bulkhead, it will take 60 minutes before anything on the other side will catch fire.