chengkp75

Having run a few dry docks in my time, I can say that you never know what you are going to find when the dock goes dry and the bottom is visible for the first time in a couple of years, and thousands of miles steaming. As the previous poster stated, "there is always the possibility" that something crops up that requires extra work, and possibly extra time. While shipyards do their best to keep to scheduled times for docking and undocking, overruns can and do happen, with resulting delays to the ship's schedule and delays to the following vessels in the dry dock.

Do you do this for waiters at your favorite restaurant, or the staff at a motel?

I'm so old, I think of the "Cut" as "Gaillard" not "Culebra". First time through in 1977. If it is the heat of the day, just get another Dark and Stormy, roll the glass over your forehead, and enjoy. I would do the Norwegian Jade (formerly the US flag Pride of Hawaii), but may be a little prejudiced.

Technically, it's SB and NB, since the Atlantic to Pacific transit ends up further east than they started.

Puerto Rico is not considered a foreign port at all, neither distant or near, so any round trip from Florida would need a foreign port. The Puerto Rico exemption is just that one way travel to/from Puerto Rico to the mainland US does not require a distant foreign port, it does require a foreign port.

It sounds like Saga does not do an "e-muster" at all. The ability to watch a safety video has been allowed to take the place of any safety talk during muster drills for quite a few years now, even without it being done at one time. They do a modified "in person" drill that does get everyone to their muster stations, one deck at a time, so that gives a more realistic atmosphere of what an actual emergency would look like than the e-muster that other lines use. While I don't feel this is as effective training for both passengers and crew as the "in person" drill with all passengers at once, it is far better than the e-muster.

The notification should be made at Guest Services, immediately upon boarding, so that the information makes it directly to those who prepare the muster lists, Guest Services.

I had the feeling that you had not experienced an "old style" muster drill. Yet another indication that the e-muster format is not providing sufficient experience/training to the passengers. While I know it is inevitable, I pray that the e-muster is never put to actual use.

Just so you realize, that if a crew member was found with edibles, there would not be any discussion, they would be fired immediately, and have to pay their own way home. All ships operate under different laws than places on land, regardless of what country you are in, or what country the ship is flagged in. For instance, in Holland, edibles are legal (or at least decriminalized), but on HAL ships, that fly the Dutch flag, the edibles are illegal on the ships. This is due to international shipping conventions from the IMO, that all "flag states" have become signatory to, that restrict drug and alcohol use on ships. So, even if the US federal government made edibles legal, they still would not be allowed on any ship, anywhere in the world.

The elevators are not "shut down" in an emergency (except those in the fire zone), they are actually placed into "fireman mode" as they are in high-rise buildings. This means that the call buttons at each deck will no longer call the elevator, but that operation from within the elevator can direct the elevator wherever needed. If there are passengers who need mobility assistance, there will be crew directed to locate them (if you have notified the ship of your disability upon boarding), and assist them down stairs, either with a stair chair, or with a "four hand carry", or they can have the crew that are at the elevators during muster call the elevator (via radio) to the necessary deck to get you to the muster station deck. In many cases, when you inform the ship of a mobility issue, they will assign you to the "special needs" muster station as well, where additional crew will be assigned to assist you getting to the boats, if needed, or wherever you need to go. Has this never been discussed with you at your previous musters? That is a total lack of protocol and training on the part of the crew. Especially in the older format "in person" muster, this should have been explained to you.

The rule of thumb on ships is 1 person for every inch or part of an inch of hose diameter, so 2 on an 1 1/2" hose, 3 on a 2 1/2" hose. Think about working a 2 1/2" fully charged hose around the machinery in an engine room. The firemain is dry pipe, since it is sea water, and you don't want this corrosive element in the pipes at all times.

To add to Andy's post, the fire main system must be able to produce 100psi at the hose nozzle on the highest deck. We routinely had the Honolulu fire department visit the ship whenever in port, to learn to liaise and cooperate with us in case of a fire, and they were routinely amazed at the amount of equipment the ship had, and the capabilities of the ship's equipment. They always stated that the ship generated more pressure on the firemain than they could, so connecting their trucks to our system was not really feasible, unless the ship loses all power, but they would be used for boundary cooling on the outside of the ship. The firemain system on cruise ships is different than commercial ships, in that each deck will not only have hydrants and hoses on each deck, but each deck will have a "ring main" that circles the deck to feed the hydrants from various sources. This allows for isolating sections of the firemain that may be damaged by a fire, and keep pressure on the rest of the system. There are isolating valves for these ring mains at each fire zone boundary.

Any renovation work will have the crew doing the grunt labor of removing debris to the dumpsters, and cleaning the jobsites every day so the sub-contractors have a clean worksite every morning. Other crew will be tasked with performing "fire watch" duties both in the hotel and engineering spaces, so that the cruise line does not have to pay for that service from the shipyard. That can take up to a hundred or so crew a day. There will typically be several hundred to a thousand sub-contractors onboard (everything that is not strictly "ship related" (engineering, hull maintenance, navigation equipment) is done by sub-contractors, not the shipyard personnel), and it is cheaper and more efficient for these folks to live on the ship (no commute, no meal travel), so housekeeping and galley/restaurant crew will continue to serve them. Also, everything like putting plastic sheeting or kraft paper over the carpeting throughout the ship (sub-contractors don't remove their shoes) will be done by crew, including the renewal of this when it gets torn. Crew will be allocated to "crane service" duties, where they assist in loading and unloading, the containers of materials deposited on the ship.

Let me add that the possibility of simultaneous bunkering would also depend on the company's Safety Management System policies and procedures, as well as USCG Captain of the Port regulations.

If the ship is taking both MGO/HFO and LNG from barges, then they won't be able to bunker both at the same time. I know that PEV has plans for a storage facility planned, but I don't know whether this has been completed or not. That would perhaps allow simultaneous bunkering, it all depends on the amount of crew available, and the Chief Engineer's comfort with simultaneous operations. LNG bunkering takes a lot of preparation work, especially if the tanks are completely empty (pre-chilling the tank). I believe that the ship's don't have that much LNG tank capacity, so they most likely bunker the LNG weekly. The MGO is only about 5% of the fuel mix, so that would more likely be bunkered monthly or every other month. If they are using barges for LNG, there is always the possibility of delays with the barge getting there.

And, when you booked the cruise, you agreed that you waived any ability to originate a class action suit against Celebrity.

As noted in the two threads linked above, I have commented on the fact that the electronics in these appliances do not like the "floating ground" (where the "ground" and "neutral" are not at the same voltage) that is the way ships are wired. I can guarantee that the Exel class ships are not wired differently than any other cruise ship (or commercial ship for that matter). As I've stated in the linked threads, the ability of these appliances to work or not generally depends on whether there is a ground fault somewhere, anywhere, on the ship, which the appliance's electronics don't like. They may work one day, and not the next on the same ship, they may work fine for an entire cruise on one ship, and then not at all on a sister ship. The appliance needing to be "dual voltage 50/60 Hz" has nothing to do with whether or not it will work. That just allows you to plug it into either a US (110v) or a European (220v) outlet, and the motor will turn whether the frequency is 50Hz or 60Hz.

No, a space with no roof is not considered "enclosed" for purposes of Gross Tonnage calculation. If there was a roof, and the aft end was enclosed up to that roof, then, yes, the GT would be greater.

Fossil ethanol is currently running 40% more than low sulfur bunker oil, and 10% more than very low sulfur MGO. Waste based bio-ethanol is expected to be 2-3 times more expensive.

QM2's gas turbine engines run on Marine Gas Oil (MGO), which is essentially home heating oil for those from the US, or truck diesel fuel. All marine gas turbines run on this fuel. The two gas turbines account for 40% of the installed power on the ship. So, the four diesel engines provide 67 Mw of power, and could likely squeeze out 24 knots. To get the remaining 6 knots of her speed, requires the addition of both gas turbines, or another 48 Mw. Power to speed relationship is exponential, so the last few knots costs a lot of power. And, power equals fuel, so the last few knots of speed costs a lot of dollars.

If you put 3 20' diameter by 40' long cylindrical tanks up there (not sure if they would fit), you could power the gas turbines at full load for maybe a day's steaming. Then you'd have to fight the "ocean liner" purists about the ugly tanks up top. Also, the weight of the tanks and LNG up there would likely not be good for stability.

And, for the most part, Florida laws, or Federal laws, do not apply to foreign flag cruise ships, particularly their "internal policies and procedures", as found by SCOTUS in Spector v NCL. Non-service dogs are allowed in stores, hotels, and other public places in Florida, so Rover would be free to be almost anywhere other than restaurants on the ship.

Virtually no ship afloat today would be converted to using LNG, even for gas turbine engines. This would require either large (for QM2, very large) cylindrical LNG storage tanks on deck, or a complete gutting and rebuilding of the engine spaces and the double bottom area of the ship to accommodate the cryogenic LNG tanks and their associated inerting and re-liquifaction equipment. It just would not be economically feasible.

I believe that is to exit the Canal's traffic separation scheme, go around the Canal anchorages, and then enter the Colon traffic separation scheme.

Actually, since a class action suit against NCL a couple of decades ago, what is contained in the "port fees and taxes" line is closely limited. Secondly, the Canal no longer sets tariffs according to the number of berths on passenger ships. They now use the "Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System" which is close to Net Tonnage for the vessel, for the "capacity" portion of the tariff.