chengkp75

Please show me some facts to back this up. I don't willingly accept statements as being correct or accurate, without some facts to back them up, though you seem fully invested in the Points Guy's assertions. Just like I won't jump on the blame wagon and criticize a cruise line that has a fire onboard, until I see the facts, not hearsay. When Carnival Corp corporate executives and legal team said they weren't polluting, I guess you believed that as well.

The "irritant" value of the drill is what is realistic, having thousands of people going to their stations all at once (not just dribbling in as they like), and having to stay at the muster station with those hundred plus people for a while. The e-muster does not provide that training for the passengers, and does not provide the crew with realistic crowd management training. Believe me, if you think the muster drill is an irritant, just wait until you are in an actual emergency. Knowing how to get to your muster station from your cabin is the barest of minimum knowledge a passenger should have. What if you were not in your cabin at the time of the emergency? What if you needed to get forward, and found yourself wading against a tide of passengers that were heading aft? What if the fire was between you and your muster station? And, just so you know, I participated in at least one drill a week, for 26 weeks a year, for 46 years, and found it within myself to participate fully every time.

I wonder how it would go if the crew just decided that drills are "uncomfortable", and decided not to participate, since the passengers don't seem to care.

I find it amazing how spending less than 0.5% of your week's vacation (less if you're on a longer cruise) in perhaps uncomfortable conditions learning how to save your life in an unfamiliar environment (and trust me, a ship in an emergency is unfamiliar territory to 99.5% of the passengers, regardless of how many cruises they may have been on), can affect their decision on whether to cruise or not.

It does not shut down their AC, but it will seriously adversely affect their AC. Here is my standard spiel about balcony doors and AC. Every cabin has two AC systems in it. The first, is the one controlled by the cabin thermostat (and the balcony door switch), which only recirculates air within the cabin over an individual cooling coil by an individual fan in the cabin. The second one is the fresh air supply system that balances out the bathroom exhaust fan, so you get fresh air in, and stale air out. This system takes air from outside the ship, cools it, and supplies it to a number of cabins, and is controlled centrally, outside of passenger control. Typically, all the cabins in one fire zone (between the doors in the passageway), on one deck, are supplied in common (so maybe 30+ cabins). Now, the amount of fresh air supplied is slightly more than the exhaust air from the bathroom, for a very important reason, this slight overpressure in the cabin, keeps smoke from the passageway from entering your cabin. The overpressure goes out through the gap under the door to the cabin, into the passageway. So, in a fire, you won't get smoke into your cabin. Now, if I open the balcony door, this unbalances the fresh air supply to your cabin, since you have changed the overpressure relief from the small gap under the door, to a huge wide open doorway to the balcony. This drops the pressure in your cabin to atmospheric pressure, and can be shown by simply opening the cabin door at the same time the balcony door is open, and the wind tunnel created will blow any light object in the cabin out the balcony door. Now, we get to your neighbors. Since their cabins are maintaining positive overpressure, but yours is not, the fresh air supply will "take the path of least resistance" and increase the airflow to your cabin, meaning less cool fresh air for the other cabins in the block. Therefore, their cabins will start to warm up, and you also remove the important safety factor of overpressure from their cabins. Whenever I got complaints about warm cabins, particularly if there was a cluster of them, I would just walk down the passageway and listen for the wind whistling under a cabin door. That is the cabin where I would find a balcony door open, and when the occupants were told to close it, the complaints from the surrounding cabins stopped.

As noted, likely not enough room for this. This would need to be an inflatable tub, not a pool, just about the size of the child's butt and legs when sitting, and even this can be complicated if the pool deck is really crowded. You would have to fill from one of the showers on the pool deck, and empty in the same place. If you have a balcony cabin, one of these inflatable tubs would be good there.

When you disembark at the first port, you would need to be cleared by that country's immigration for a stay of other than a cruise ship port call. Then the ship needs to submit a new passenger manifest for departing the port to the immigration officials, without you on it, and get that cleared. Then, at the second port, you need to be cleared by immigration out of the country, and then the ship needs to submit another new passenger manifest adding you back onto the ship, and get that cleared. This typically involves expense to the cruise line, so in many cases they are reluctant to grant you the clearance to do this. While they cannot hold you on the ship (if you have the proper documentation to be in the country as someone other than a cruise passenger), they can refuse you re-embarking at the second port. You would have to contact the cruise line's "down lining" or compliance departments, not just the phone service center agents, to get this clearance well in advance of the cruise.

And, listening to those passengers who wish for a more comfortable experience, but not necessarily listening to maritime safety experts at the IMO. The USCG does not have the final say in this, the IMO does. And, the USCG is fine with this as long as there is a covid health emergency. When that expires in a couple of months, we'll see whether the e-muster retains its conditional approval from the IMO.

It's not some ships it will work on, and some it won't. On any given ship, if there is a ground fault in any electrical equipment anywhere on the ship, it can cause the hair dryer to not work. These ground faults come and go, as they show up, and are repaired.

From HAL's "exemptions" to the prohibited item list: Personal grooming devices such as hair dryers, flat irons, curling irons, shavers, and other electrical devices, such as fans (no larger than 12" in diameter), power strips, multi plug box outlets/adaptors, and extension cords (without surge protectors) are allowed when used with proper caution. However, if such devices are determined to pose a hazard, they will be removed and returned on debarkation morning

No, they won't, necessarily. The dual voltage capability only allows you to choose which outlet (US or European) that you plug into. Please link me to one that specifies it will work on cruise ships, I'd like to research.

There have been reports on various forums here, that Dyson products (digital motors) and ceramic heating element hair straighteners will sometimes work and sometimes not, on ships. While I have not been able to get answers from the manufacturers, this is likely due to the electronics in the appliance requiring the neutral and ground to be at the same voltage, which is not the case with shipboard wiring systems. I looked up the Revlon brush the OP mentioned, and found out that it has an "ALCI" test function. This is an "appliance leakage current interrupter", which is like a ground fault circuit breaker that detects an imbalance of current, and do not work on the shipboard wiring systems that have separate grounds from the power conductors. For the OP, generally, any device with an ALCI "block" (with a "test" and "reset" button) will possibly work sometimes, and possibly not work sometimes.

There have been reports of Dyson products, in general, having spotty performance (not working) on ships. I believe this is due to the electronics of the "digital motor" in Dyson products not being configured to accept the "floating ground" of shipboard electrical systems that may at times present voltage in the ground wires. Similarly, I have seen reports of newer "ceramic" hair straighteners not working, and these use electronics as well. As for the two ships in the OP's question, they are no different than other ships as far as their electrical systems are concerned, and I think that the only difference as to when some Dyson products work and some don't is that there are changing conditions of whether or not a piece of equipment on the ship has a ground fault or not, and what voltage.

I will heartily disagree with you that the cruise industry is "one of the most polluting industries". After 46 years at sea, on all types of vessels, including cruise ships, I will say that the cruise lines, for all their faults (mainly Carnival Corp), are head and shoulders above the general maritime industry in terms of environmental compliance. Many more cargo ships and lines have been fined in the US for pollution than cruise ships, they just don't get the attention. Further, the ships don't use either crude oil or kerosene (you do realize that jet fuel is kerosene) as fuel. They use diesel fuel (even in gas turbines) or residual fuel oil, which has seen a mandated 86% reduction in sulfur emissions over the last 3 years. And, cruise ships amount to about 3% of the total commercial vessels at sea, and no one complains about the pollution from the cargo ships that bring your cars, TV's and Iphones, along with 85% of the world's commerce to you. As to the OP's question about detergents, they use commercial/industrial products like EcoLab. As far as I know, none of these are "cruelty free". Vegetarian/vegan food is generally available on all cruise lines, though the selections are limited. You need to address this with the cruise line's "special needs" department ahead of time, and with the maitre 'd and executive chef when onboard. Typically, you will be asked to make your menu choices the day ahead of time.

Of course SOLAS requirements are being followed. Every time a USCG inspector comes on the ship and holds drills, and every time a class society surveyor witnesses drills onboard, they are using SOLAS requirements as the basis of whether the ship is meeting SOLAS or not. If the muster stations were not in accordance with SOLAS, the ship wouldn't sail. Muster stations are determined, by the class society, not the cruise line, at newbuilding, and the locations are based on the primary SOLAS consideration: "the muster location should be as close to the lifeboat embarkation point as practicable", and the locations must meet ingress/egress standards, volume standards, escape route standards, lighting and ventilation standards, and structural fire protection standards that are set by the class societies based on computer crowd and crisis management paradigms. Older ships, that have larger promenade decks, will still have muster stations outdoors, under the boats, and will for the life of the vessel, they won't change. Newer ships have reduced the size of the promenade decks (to maximize internal revenue generating space, i.e. more balcony cabins), and so the muster stations had to be moved indoors. This was not for passenger comfort.

After 46 years in marine engineering, on all types of ships, dealing with all kinds of marine vendors in ports around the world, I know this is not correct. But, JMHO.

Most of the things onboard cannot be found at Home Depot, or even most wholesale hardware suppliers, so "getting a part" in a port call is not likely.

Figured you might be gigging me for correcting you. No worries.

The Diamond Princess was never "cleared" for entry into Japan, so no one was allowed to disembark, as the ship was not legally in port. It was only to manage the quarantine better that they allowed the ship to dock, but it still was not cleared for entry. Of course, if the Captain detains someone for a crime onboard, according to flag state law, then that person has forfeited their right to leave the ship, but the Captain is under no obligation to turn the person over to local (port state) law enforcement if he/she does not wish to. But, at that point, the person is no longer a passenger, but a criminal. Let's not get too literal here. Children under the age of 18 are not considered to be adults, and therefore on common carriers (like cruise ships) can be subject to "unaccompanied minor" procedures, which for a cruise line means restricting the S&S card of the minor to not allow disembarking without an accompanying parent or guardian. Again, let's not get to literal here.

Just because you don't see the logic in the in person muster drill (since you don't see the vast majority of the drill) doesn't mean it isn't there. The basic argument against the in person drill is what you have in parenthesis: my vacation time. Again, sure hope you never have a real emergency on a ship that does the e-muster. Just as you said about your experience with the in person muster, neither the passengers nor the crew knew how to handle the situation. If the e-muster is providing adequate information to the passengers, why was there chaos? If the e-muster is training the crew to handle an actual muster situation adequately, why was there chaos?

This is not the way I read the tax laws. The employee reports and pays taxes on tips actually received. If the reported tips are less than 8% of the employer's gross sales, the employer has to "allocate" (or pay) the employee the amount under 8%. The employee then pays taxes on the "allocated" tips, but they don't pay taxes on an amount they didn't receive. The 8% figure is well below the standard US tipping rate, so if you stiff the waiter, he will receive 8% from the employer, and pay taxes on that, but not for any amount he/she did not receive.

Uh, the housekeeping staff on a cruise ship do work 7 days a week for up to 10 months. They also work a 12-14 hour/day shift. Do the hotel workers you know work these many hours? And, the DSC makes up, by contract, the majority of the salary of these crew members. If you don't tip the land hotel workers, they still make their wage/salary. Crew members don't. The reason there are the same staffing issues on land as on a ship, is because it is a menial task that most US citizens won't do, for pay they can't live on. The difference is that the crew pay, in their home country, is adequate, but that the living and working conditions are more restrictive. How many of your land hotel workers are forced to share a tiny room with a complete stranger, and are subject to random alcohol and drug testing?

If the other parent still has parental rights, then they need to document their approval for the children to travel outside the US. If the other parents are deceased or have had parental rights removed, then this needs to be documented (death certificate or court order).

Where did this number come from? Besides, the only breakdown I've seen for Carnival DSC has been that a certain percentage goes to the "housekeeping team". This team likely is not limited to your cabin steward, or even the assistant. There are "hotel utilities" that do general clean up and errands around the ship, and the laundry crew as well. The DSC pool on virtually every line has expanded beyond the guest facing crew.

While they cannot make you stay, they can place an "innkeeper's lien" on you, which means you cannot take your possessions (baggage) away with you. They will hold the luggage until the bill is paid.