chengkp75

The cruise line will be fined for your leaving, and the ticket contract allows them to pass this fine on to the passenger, which is about $760/person. The ship should likely clear immigrations in Maine, so there won't likely be a problem with "improper entry" for leaving the ship without clearing immigration (which could result in 6 months in jail for a first offense).

Almost every ship out there today has satellite internet, though crew use may be limited, but officers generally have good access. If the ship is carrying passengers, they will have access similar to the officers, though it may be wired and not wi-fi. Speeds are good, but not great, not really designed for streaming, main use is for ship's business.

This is correct, the PVSA precludes you boarding a foreign flag cruise ship in one US port, and disembarking in another US port, unless the cruise visits a "distant" foreign port. CBP defines a "distant" foreign port as one that is not in North or Central America, the Caribbean, the Bahamas or Bermuda. So, your stops in Canadian ports do not qualify as "distant" foreign ports.

Back in 1977, my wife and I relocated from the UK back to the US on the QE2. While the company paid for a shipping container to follow via cargo ship for most of our belongings, that would be about 2-3 months before we got the stuff. So, Cunard allowed two suitcases per person in the cabin, two steamer trunks per person in the "baggage room" (not accessible during the voyage), and 200 cubic feet per person of freight in the cargo hold. As others have noted, arriving in your new country via airplane or ship is just the same, but you will have to have a different interview with customs and immigration than the rest of the passengers getting off the ship.

Welcome to a real emergency.

The only thing that a passenger should "get" from the muster drill, is to experience how to get to their muster station, from wherever they are onboard, while at the same time, everyone else onboard is trying to do the same. This is a far different scenario than having a few people at a time, by themselves, or escorted by crew, reporting directly from the gangway. It takes away any feeling of the "drill" being a simulation of a real muster, which is the objective of the drill. The safety video has long been an acceptable substitution for a live presentation during the in-person musters, so that can remain, and has no bearing on the "training" aspect of the drill for the passengers.

There was an actual muster on an RCI ship a few months back, man overboard if I remember right, and a poster who was there said it was chaos, with many passengers not remembering what deck their station was on. The excuse given was that "it was 7 days ago that we checked in at our station, so it's understandable that they would forget".

Yeah, the small ships don't have the luxury of the multiple engine redundancy that the large ships have. Ship built prior to Safe Return to Port rules, so almost invariably a single engine room. Thanks for the inside info from the Coasties.

I agree with Andy that this might not have resulted in a muster, let alone an evacuation on a newer ship. Until the advent of the e-muster, I would have had few concerns about this happening on a larger ship, but I have well documented my concerns for the training of both crew and passengers for an actual emergency muster.

Each cabin in every ship built for the last couple of decades have "it's own AC unit". I would be willing to bet that even the Royal class ships have a door switch that shuts off the cabin's "own AC unit" off when open. However, as I stated in my previous post, there is a second AC system in every cabin in every ship, new or old, that supplies fresh air to banks of 30 or more cabins, and this system is not shut off when the balcony door is open, and this unbalances the system for the entire bank of cabins, causing every other cabin than the one with the door open, to get warm.

The only possible correlation would be that there is no convective cooling from the air passing by the ship while moving.

Regardless of whether the cabin recirculation AC shuts off when the balcony door is open, having the balcony door open upsets the balance of the fresh air AC system to whole blocks of cabins, causing them to get warm.

Bananas get special treatment. Some are ordered, and delivered at the start of the cruise as ripe/nearly ripe, and these are used first. Some cases are ordered and delivered as very green. Then by controlling the ethylene production (gas generated by ripening fruit) using ozone generators in the walk-in boxes, and even by proper placement in the box (some corners ripen faster than the open center of the box), they can control the ripening of the bananas to keep them green for days. First hand experience from both cruise ships, and shipping bananas on cargo ships.

Ships will typically load stores at turn-around for the next cruise, with an additional 7 day surplus. Most species of fish sold for sushi in the US, retail, or commercial has been frozen to kill parasites, even if it is labeled "fresh". And, there will be about 16 of these rooms, total (chill or freeze). One each is dedicated to each type of protein (beef/pork, poultry, seafood).

Okay, here's the deal. The examples mentioned above about people whose flights missed the ship and were flown to the next port, are examples where the cruise line has taken responsibility to get the passenger to the ship, and the cruise line will either have swallowed the PVSA fine as part of the guarantee to get you to the ship, or the cruise line appealed to CBP to waive the fine since it was an airline problem that caused the violation, and therefore outside the control of the cruise line. In the OP's situation, since the cruise line clearly states that it is the passenger's responsibility to have the proper documentation, they will not allow the OP to board in Ketchikan, as this would be a willful violation of the PVSA on their part. So, unfortunately, the OP either has the passport, or doesn't cruise.

No, by law they are not allowed to operate in certain ice conditions, whether with a pristine hull, or with a few dents. The damage shown has done nothing to the thickness or strength of the hull.

Right with you Andy. I don't see any deformation of framing, and the folds in the shell plating are not abrupt enough to likely warrant repair before next scheduled drydock. I don't see any cracking evident. Many ships, other than cruise ships for esthetic reasons, would likely allow this damage to remain for the life of the vessel. I will disagree with the poster linked above, who claims that there is likely 2" of steel there. The thickest steel I've seen, only at strategic high stress locations, is about 1-1/4", and at the place on the hull where Saturn is damaged, I would expect about 3/4" thickness.

Yes, there is a big blue one that surrounds the boat, called the ocean. In a survival condition, dignity and privacy have no bearing.

The rule on no food or water for the first day is to stretch the rations as long as possible. Unlike the expectations of most cruisers, that they will be only in the boats for a couple of hours, it is very likely that in many circumstances it will be days before folks are rescued from the boats. The "big strong men" provide what we call the "ash breeze" (the oar power to move the boat).

While HAL is a US corporation, the ship itself is the entity that offers the accommodation, and therefore the entity that has to meet the ADA, to a degree. All cruise lines that offer cruises out of the US are required to meet ADA regulations, with regards to accessible cabins, and non-discrimination for them, and to allow service dogs. However, as I've said, and SCOTUS ruled, "internal policies and procedures" for service dogs while onboard are at the cruise line's discretion (i.e., they could deny a service dog in certain areas of the ship (even if that violated the ADA in the US), or other policies like a "service dog code of conduct" that may be different from the DOJ's rules for service dogs). I was an ADA compliance officer on a cruise ship that transitioned from foreign flag (sailing out of US ports) to a US flag (fully compliant) ship.

Close, but CBP's ruling is that the foreign crew need US work visas (with the attendant cost and paperwork) not just crew visas that they now have. They do not need to be citizens or resident aliens. Cruises to nowhere are still allowed under the PVSA, but it is not considered financially practical for the cruise lines to obtain the work visas for all the crew, so they no longer offer them.

This is not correct. If CBSA prohibits a passenger from leaving the ship in Canada, security will be notified, and that passenger's sign and sail card will be flagged, and he/she will not be allowed to disembark.

Just a reminder of what I have posted on this thread, and others, that not all requirements of the ADA apply to foreign flag cruise ships. SCOTUS, in Spector v NCL, ruled that the "internal policies and procedures" of the ship do not fall under the jurisdiction of the ADA, so specific policies regarding service animals, once onboard, are up to the cruise line's decision.

Unless something failed on the lowering equipment, a boat, loaded or unloaded, would not land on its side.

The ship is required to have 75% capacity in boats, the remainder in inflatable rafts. The photo that birdtravels shows is a davit launched raft, that is loaded at the promenade deck and lowered to the water. A typical crew drill with these rafts include putting the raft into the pool, upside down, and training the crew to right the raft. What you describe are MES (Marine Evacuation Systems), that deploy 4-6 rafts in a cluster, and there is a chute down to the rafts. Inside the chutes, there are baffles that slow and twist the person down, so it is not a straight fall. Typically, the injuries with MES happen if too many people are let into the chute too quickly, and the crew at the bottom cannot get those that have landed out of the way in time. The chute leads to one raft, and the early arrivals are directed to the other rafts, only filling the one with the chute last. Yes, they are used for both crew and passengers.