chengkp75

Well, there would need to be several boats/rafts damaged, since the ship is required to carry capacity 125% for all crew and max capacity passengers. So, a ship like Oasis has about 2200 extra spaces in boats and rafts (more if less passengers are booked). But, if it did happen, they would either need to disembark passengers or crew to get to the required number.

30 gallons of diesel at around 7 lbs/gallon is 210 pounds. 150 people x 82.5 kg/person x 2.2 lbs per kg is 27,000 lbs. 1 lb per person for 150 persons is 150 lbs. One point five liters of water is 1.5kg x 2.2 lbs per kg x 150 is 500 lbs, so yes, my total for supplies is off a little, but compared to the weight of the passengers, it is minimal. Batteries would add about another 100-150 lbs. Lifeboat engines, while in the 40-150 hp range (depending on size of boat), are not designed for speed, and are only required to have enough fuel for 24 hours. Lifeboats are not designed to undertake Captain Cook's voyage, but to stay in the location of the ship, which is where the search will start. Cruise ship lifeboats are not "self-righting", meaning they will not roll back upright. They are also "semi-enclosed", meaning that if the boat is landed in an attitude that the gunwale is underwater on one side, it will fill with water, and the boat covering will also act to scoop water into the boat, and continue the roll of the boat to inverted.

Yes, it didn't land upright, it was tilted in one direction or the other. It didn't really "turn over", it was going over as it fell. Lifeboats are designed for one thing, to take a quantity of people away from the ship, once. And, yes, the ballast of the people provides the center of gravity to be low enough that it won't tip over when loaded. A lifeboat floating with no one onboard is one of the most poorly handling of boats, and not real stable. As for other supplies, there is about 1 lb of food for each person, and 1.5 liters of water per person (this is designed as 3 days rations). Many boats do not have batteries, relying on hydraulic starting for the engine. Fuel is about 30 gallons. So, all those supplies are around 400-500 lbs, while the full load of passengers (at the design weight of 82.5kg) is around 27,000 lbs.

It's actually quite easy for a lifeboat to overturn, especially if there are not 150 passengers acting as ballast to weight the bottom. Retrieval of a lifeboat is one of the most inherently dangerous activities that mariners have to deal with. When reconnecting the boat to the wire "falls", both heavy pulley/hooks have to be engaged in the release device in the boat and then the securing lever is thrown. If one or the other hook is not securely fastened to the release mechanism, the boat can be lifted out of the water until that hook slips out of the release gear and one end of the boat falls free, followed soon by the other end as the release device lets go. This is why even when the boats are lowered for drills with 2-3 crewmen onboard, while hoisting back onboard, they will normally take all the crew out of the boat during lifting. This will likely be found to be a crew training accident, where the crew don't have enough experience with the release gear to recognize whether it is fully engaged or not.

From what you describe as the itinerary, there is no legal reason for not allowing you to disembark early. However, Cunard may reserve the right to charge you fees for the changing/resubmitting of the passenger manifest for the remainder of the cruise, or until the end of the next segment, and for having a CBP agent available to clear you off the ship, rather than the rather automatic clearing of the ship for "day pass" port calls. I would hope that you feel the same way about the cabotage laws of the EU, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and China, along with the others of the 80+ nations that have maritime cabotage laws. And, besides, the PVSA applies to much more than cruise ships.

As l said before, the EU has the ShipSan program, which is very similar to the USPH VSP.

It's simply because of the USPH requirements that food borne illness is so rare on cruise ships.

If the "reinspection" was done by ship's supervisors, I'm sure it would be. I can guarantee that given the initial inspection report, that a USPH inspection the next day would likely be passing, but nowhere near 100.

No, the USPH uses temperature control when food is held/prepared in something where the temperature can be monitored/guaranteed, like a "hot box" warming cabinet, or a reach in refrigerator. Once it goes out of temperature control, even if a hazardous food goes into the "hazard temperature zones", by discarding at the 4 hour mark, the potential for toxin growth is not great enough to present a hazard. And, once a food has gone into "time control", even if the food is not placed on the buffet line until just before closing (say 5-10 minutes), it can never go back under temperature control (meaning it has to be discarded, and not put back into a refrigerator or warming box).

The EU has their ShipSan sanitation program, but it relies on each member nation enforcing it in their port cities, and there is no central reporting agency.

This is the disturbing portion of your post. Yes, a new pan should have come from a temperature controlled warming cabinet. Once any item is placed on the buffet line, it is no longer under temperature control, but under time control, where everything is discarded after 4 hours outside of temperature control. Steam or ice tables do not provide temperature control.

Just curious. How much was the extra tour to see the back of house areas to determine that all problems were resolved promptly. Even in the case of the food found out of temperature range, while that food was removed, what was the root cause for the food being out of range? Improper storage and handling (this requires training over time), or faulty refrigeration (no mention that this was repaired). Record keeping violations are not "resolved promptly" but require training and monitoring over time. Complete misunderstanding of the AGE reporting process, which means it is not a "one time" problem, and again needs time and training. In all, there are about 5-6 of the noted violations that could be seen by a passenger. And, even when a problem is resolved at the time of the inspection, without the proper training and supervision, there is no guarantee that the issue will not happen again, perhaps as soon as the next day.

Typically, both, as evaporator requires a lot of waste heat from the generators, meaning higher speeds, while RO can be made at lower speeds, or to supplement the evaporators.

Yes, it doesn't look like a corporate problem like Silversea had a few years ago. This is a ship that has gotten lazy

This is not correct. Evaporated water (a common method for making fresh water) runs at around 0-1ppm sodium, and RO water is around 20ppm sodium, which is less than most municipal water. Either system will divert the water produced back to sea if the alarm levels are exceeded, so the process is not "imperfect".

A USPH is merely a snapshot of the ship at the time of the inspection, but if you've trained under USPH you recognize when a problem is shipwide. Most of the violations are not in the passenger areas,so likely not visible to you on a cruise. It is the responsibility of far more than the "executive chef" to deal with these violations.

Most USPH inspectors are former local health inspectors and will tell you that VSP regulations are far stricter than local health regulations.

Actually, they don't. They sign a contract that stipulates that they will receive compensation that is a combination of fixed salary (very low) and DSC contributions. They acknowledge that the DSC portion of their compensation is variable, based on performance. The fixed salary is typically around $10-20/day, the vast bulk of their compensation coming from DSC. The typical compensation for a cabin steward is in the $1400/month range, and the only thing guaranteed is that they will make the minimum wage allowed for all seafarers, $658/month. If all DSC was removed by the passengers, and the fixed salary did not meet the $658 figure, that is the only time the cruise line has to step in and make up the balance to $658/month. That's my one and done for this tip thread.

Really surprised about the sink, since the Jade was built as US flag (Pride of Hawaii), and therefore had to be fully ADA compliant.

Yes, your "regular" drivers license will be accepted. Real ID compliance has been pushed back until 2025, I believe. Just know that even with a Real ID license, you will still need your birth certificate. Only Enhanced licenses from 5 northern border states remove the need for a birth certificate.

The USPH VSP is not all that different from the EU's ShipSan program, though enforcement is unified in the US, whereas the EU requires each member state to enforce it within their borders, and no central record keeping. This is just a culture of disregard for public health on MSC's part.

Yep, as the OP is from South Carolina, they don't have an enhanced license (which has a US flag somewhere on it), but a real id license (that has a star). Only Vermont, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington issue enhanced drivers license.

Normally, a corrective action report is not filed for several weeks afterwards, after all department heads have responded, and corporate compliance and corporate legal have vetted it. This is not the case, and the reason that the same violation is reported multiple times is that they fall under several "item numbers", which relate to various sections of the VSP, so one finding can violate several regulations, and needs to be reported in each, so that as you say later, the number of violations for each section can be determined, and the severity of the "cultural" infraction can be weighed. I have been through many USPH inspections, and unlike you, I don't see any pettiness or vindictive reports of violations anywhere in the report. If the ship is intended to be used in the US market at any time in its life, it must meet the USPH construction regulations (a whole separate manual from the VSP operations manual), and the depth marker is part of that. If the ship has not had a USPH construction survey at new build, it will have one before it is allowed to sail to US ports, so again, the marker would have been there. Since it is not there now, it means that it was painted over. While minor, it is a violation, but it does not get the same weight of score as the food found out of temperature. Typically, when the corrective action report is posted, it contains all the same verbiage as the inspection report, but with the actual points taken for each violation noted, so you may get to see what I mean. There are many cases where a violation like this pool marking is noted as a violation, and yet zero points are taken away on the inspection score. Frankly, what I see is a lack of "USPH culture" onboard, where the crew are trained so that whatever they need to do to meet the regulations becomes second nature to them, part of their everyday work routine, and does not require conscious thought. This is a failure of all departments, and many supervisors. One poster said they thought the head chef was responsible for the entire galley, but in an operation the size of a cruise ship, this is not possible. The way that NCL assigns responsibility is that the Staff Captain is in overall charge of meeting USPH regulations. Then, the Hotel Manager, Chief Engineer, and Staff Chief Engineer supervise their various departments and supervisors to ensure the regulations are met. This includes the engineering department for potable water management, lighting, and ventilation throughout the ship, the Staff Chief's hotel maintenance department for maintaining all the galley and laundry equipment (dishwashers, leaks, etc), the Head Housekeeper for the cabins and pantries, the Executive chef for food safety procedures, the Sanitation Supervisor for operation and cleaning of dishes and cleaning the galley areas, the Medical staff for the Medical Center, the Youth staff for the kid's center, the Environmental Officer for the garbage and recycling areas, and so on. We would have weekly inspections by 30 or so supervisors, of the entire ship, to look for USPH violations. We would be in teams of one supervisor from the area being inspected (like a chef in a galley), and one supervisor from another department (like the laundry supervisor with that chef) to provide "outside eyes" to see things that the everyday user goes "blind" to. Only when the supervisors and crew are all following the regulations every single minute of every single day, will a ship score highly on a repeated basis.

I and my engineers have fished underwear, swimwear, hand towels, dinner napkins (cloth), feminine hygiene products and their applicators, wipes of all kinds, food, toothbrushes, crack pipes, coke spoons, and even 9mm ammunition out of the lines. Unlike a land sanitary system where the lines get bigger the more drains are connected, the vacuum lines are the same size from the top of the ship to the bottom, regardless of how many toilets are connected. Also, in some cases, on some ships, the sanitary lines actually go up from the toilets. On older ships, the pipes can become constricted from scale formed by urine, but most ships treat this by dropping dissolvable bags of citric acid in the toilets weekly. But, even with semi-constricted pipes, normal "product" and toilet tissue will flush without clogging. Think of your vacuum cleaner, it has a hard time picking up a large quantity of small items unless you force the end down flat to seal the end and maximize the vacuum. Just like that, in order to move "product" along the vacuum pipes, the "product" needs to "hold together" and form a "plug" to maximize the vacuum to move it along. If things broke down too readily (the toilet paper dissolving), it would lose it's cohesiveness and not move properly down the pipes. Apologize for the graphics.

However, it is a fairly common happening (the brown water), and I know this from personal experience.