chengkp75

The Delaware requires near constant dredging. The Trainer and Marcus Hook refineries that I mentioned, just below Philadelphia, were dredging nearly every year, to keep the depth from filling up with silt from upriver. The "controlling depth" or minimum depth the channel is maintained to, has been 40 feet (12.2 meters) for years, and is now about about 80% dredged to 45 feet (13.7 meters). So, the dredging has nothing to do with getting cruise ships to Philadelphia, it has to do with bridges, length of the river transit, and demographics, when you already have existing cruise ports in NYC and Baltimore.

I don't remember the Delaware being one way, even back when I was bringing large container and RO/RO ships in there (80's). The pilots do, however, limit some transits for deep vessels to riding the peak of the flood tide, more to get speed than to clear the bottom.

I never understand why folks think that cruise ships have this large draft. Even Oasis of the Seas has a draft of 9.3 meters, while the small tanker I built in Philly, and which called at the Trainer and Marcus Hook refineries many times has a loaded draft of over 11.5 meters. Small to medium cruise ships could easily sail up to Philadelphia were it not for the bridges.

Back in the '70's, I pushed barges up the Miss from NOLA to Cairo, Ill. As you say, shifting sand bars moved all the time, and fall was always low water times.

The distance between Nassau and Cococay is 64 miles, which is 3.5 hours steaming at full speed. But, coming from the Atlantic to either Nassau or Cococay, you would use the channel south of Great Abaco island, and you would steam right by Nassau on your way to Cococay, so you would arrive 3.5 hours later at Cococay, and have to leave at dinner time to make arrival in PC.

While they may not announce these things, a look at the ticket contract for the Mississippi cruises (haven't compared to European contract) shows that they warn about just about everything that could happen before, during, and after the cruise. They even include a clause that waives "in rem" torts against the ship (used to "arrest" the ship). It's quite a document, and far wordier than the mainstream cruise lines' contracts. https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/3-210419_PassengerTicketContractMSP-US.pdf

In your first quote, you appear to acknowledge that Baltimore could not handle the Anthem, then you ask why only small ships sail there. There is a small thing called "bridges". Perhaps you've heard of them, there are two quite famous ones in London. Philadelphia has the same problem, and it costs a lot of time (speeds are restricted in rivers), money (longer times in ECA's where the fuel required to be burned is more expensive), and time (longer to get to the next port), when you have to sail down the Delaware River for 8 hours. But, bridges are the top issue, these limit the height of ships able to sail past them. Grandeur of the Seas sailed out of Baltimore for years (since 2013), and Enchantment did before her. At present, Vision and Enchantment are sailing out of Baltimore, both are in the same class as Grandeur.

While Boston would be closer to the route, it would require a more northerly route, and that would, a: take you further from the Azores, so probably canceling that port, and b: weather would be colder and possibly rougher in May. By "DC" I assume you mean Baltimore, since DC is not a port city, but again, this is south of NYC, so that adds distance to the cruise. Yes, that is the "southern route" from NYC to Europe. Huh? Yes, it would go the same route both ways, why would you expect a different route? Sorry, that poster forgot the tongue in cheek emoji, they were showing the ridiculousness of the OP's question.

Well, let's see. Cococay is over a thousand miles out of the way for NYC to Le Havre. Both Anthem and QM2 take a rhumb line course from NYC, and that only requires a diversion of a couple hundred miles, along the route. Look at a map sometime, Ace.

Not really. More passengers means a bigger ship, which means more power to push it along, which means more fuel. The economies of scale found in the larger ships are mainly in capital costs at construction and things like fewer higher paid crew (one Captain instead of two).

Carnival Corp brands do not use fuel futures contracts, and haven't for years. However, there is no direct correlation between crude oil price and bunker fuel price, unlike gasoline. Since bunker fuel is a byproduct of the refining process, price increases in bunkers tend to lag behind crude.

No, but it plays a big part in getting the funding to design and build those ships. If a Senator says, "we can build 2 or 3 conventional cruisers for the cost of the one nuclear one, convince me to buy the nuclear one". Also, the decommissioning cost is something the Navy looks at, as this can cost them another ship.

The auto-off feature is required for those items that are otherwise allowed, like heating pads and such. Typically, it is the auto-off feature that fails causing the appliance to catch fire.

This is the primary purpose of the passenger muster: accountability. It has everything to do with getting the passengers into known, controllable locations where they can all be accounted for, it really has little to do with getting into lifeboats, other than the number of people assigned to each muster station.

And, this is why I laugh when someone says, "they told me this on the ship". Virtually no crew outside the deck and engine departments on a cruise ship actually know how the ship works. Unlike your house, the ship does not have a "hot water tank" that stores hot water for 2000+ people. The hot water circulates around the ship constantly, going from a pump to move it, to a heater, to the miles of water pipes around the ship, and returns to the pump. Just as at home, where when you open the hot water tap it takes a minute or so to get fully hot water, to do this with miles of pipes, and to get it where those miles of pipe can maintain that temperature will take time, but there are no "reserve tanks".

And, the last nuclear cruiser was decommissioned in 1999. They were more expensive to build, more expensive to maintain than conventional power, so even the non-profit US Navy could not afford them.

Let's see. China has small pebble bed reactors, for about $2 million/Mw. So, an Oasis class cruise ship would need 97Mw of power, or $194 million worth of reactor. Her diesel engines cost about a tenth of that, so you would need far more capital investment to start with. Then, you have to have not only the reactors, but the boilers and the steam turbines turning the generators to make the electricity. Space required for engineering goes up, power required to operate the plant goes up, since a steam plant is inherently less efficient than a diesel plant. That either reduces passenger area, or makes the ship bigger, requiring more cost. Then there is the question of regulation. It is up to the flag state to regulate their ships, so do you think that Bahamas, Panama, and Malta want to make nuclear reactor regulations? Do you trust them to actually regulate this industry, including waste storage? Do you see the potential for litigation, for any passenger who sails on a nuclear cruise ship that develops cancer at any time later in life to sue for exposure? And, every one of them is Russian. And the Russian flag is not regulated by the normal classification societies, but by Russia's own society. Conflict of interest?

Sanitation supervisors (who oversee the galley utilities (dishwashers)), are required to record both wash and rinse water temps at every machine at regular intervals throughout the day. They also have a supply of "irreversible temperature recording" strips. These stick on plates, and if the surface temperature of the plate reaches 160*F, it changes color to black, and even when the plate cools, it will remain black. This is considered a sanitized surface. They also check the pails of sanitizing solutions used to wipe down tables and food prep surfaces routinely to ensure that the chlorine content has not diminished, and is still in the required range, with a chemical test strip.

At the risk of being labeled a cheerleader, let me say that each dishwashing machine, glass washing machine, and pot washing sink has their own heating elements. These machines only take in cold water. The heating elements in the washing machines are required to maintain constant temperatures, above what the hot water system supplies (150- 165*F depending on the type of machine for wash temperature, 180*F for rinse water, much higher than the 140*F of the hot water system). Pot wash stations also use chlorine to sanitize washed items. But, then again, they are using that non-safe water.

Your third statement is the correct one, and it trumps both of the other quotes above. As I have said, even if the US were to make marijuana legal at the federal level, unless the US wanted to rescind being signatory to the STCW convention (which governs mariner training and competency, and covers drug and alcohol use), it would still be illegal on ships, until the IMO decides it is not illegal. Attitudes in the US won't matter, what will matter is what the majority of folks in a majority of the 174 member nations of the IMO decide.

Make sure you identify to the room steward that you will be disposing of diapers in these bags. This waste needs to be put in "red bags" (biohazard) and incinerated.

I've only heard anecdotal reports of hair straighteners not working, and they seem to be the newer ceramic type units. Similarly, I've heard reports of Dyson hair products, with digital motors, not working on ships. I believe these are related to how the electronic circuits look at "neutral" and "ground" to modify power for the appliance, which is different on ships to that on land. There is no solution for this that I am aware of, short of getting a different hair straightener for use on ships.

I gather this question is about the heating system on the ship? Most of the air is recirculated through steam heaters, similar to what hot water baseboard heat is like in Mass. The fresh air is slightly cooled by the AC to drop the humidity, and then heated by steam heaters, much like a mini-split heat pump does in Mass. Relative humidity will be in the "normal" range.

As others have said, not sure exactly what you are looking for. For "cruising around America", I assume you mean the US? If so, there are virtually no cruises that go "around the US" and those that do are limited to US flag ships (very limited lines, very small ships). For "cruising around Canada", again these would be limited to Canadian flag ships (again, very limited lines, very small ships). As noted, there are cruises that combine Atlantic Canada with New England, but these are fall cruises, while your Alaska cruise would be a summer cruise. Also, "round trip" or "closed loop" cruises to Alaska are generally from Seattle, while one way Canada to Alaska or vice versa, must start in Canada (Vancouver), or end there, or both. These are legal issues, and beyond the cruise lines' or your control. Not sure what you mean by: Are you talking about flights from UK to Alaska? Then you would be starting with Alaska, not ending. Or are you thinking of starting the Alaska cruise in Vancouver and ending in Alaska, and flying home from Alaska? What may work would be to fly to California, take a California Coastal cruise from LA to Vancouver, then take another ship on a Vancouver to Alaska (either one way or round trip), then fly to NYC or Boston for a New England/Canada cruise (again, either round trip or one way).

Which countries are these? Both Philippines and Indonesia treat gratuities, received from the employer, as opposed to directly from the customer, as normal income. India does as well. The real fact as to why the cruise lines do this is two fold. One it allows them to advertise the absolute minimum fare they can. Two, it gives a "stick and carrot" approach to team building for good customer service. It ties them all into a team that shares the rewards of the DSC if they all perform well, and that suffers the consequences of one or two poor performers resulting in decreased DSC. It is a way to remove management responsibility from the lower level managers, by making the crew "team" police themselves. As for cruise lines avoiding taxes by having a DSC plan, the cruise lines pay almost no corporate tax anyway, so this argument does not pass the sniff test.