Live from the Brilliance - at 3:45 am all H*** broke loose!

[erbunny]

Oh folks, please don't risk them pulling this thread, it has been way too interesting to lose.

[sameness]

@oceanviewcruise

 

You are trying to say that you didnt open your wardrobe and see your lifejackets before the muster drill? Most people I know at least nosey into all the nooks and crannies in their room as soon as they get in there

[oceanviewcruise]

@oceanviewcruise

 

You are trying to say that you didnt open your wardrobe and see your lifejackets before the muster drill? Most people I know at least nosey into all the nooks and crannies in their room as soon as they get in there

 

Yes, of course I did look - they were behind some spare pillows on the top shelf!! Do you imagine that new cruisers would have done the same?

[mjsshipboy]

The Oasis is some 72,000 tonns larger by the tonn than the QM2 which represents a 47% increase. Yet by length and width she is ony 4.4% and 14.9% respectively larger! Yes there are 4 more passenger decks on the Oasis (16) than the QM2 (12) however the latter has more crew and kitchen decks below the sea line and an increased draft.

 

The doors on the Promenade decks of the Voyager class and after are watertight as well as fire doors.

 

You can keep comparing the Queen Mary 2 and the Oasis but you are comparing apples and oranges. One is an ocean liner, one is a cruise ship, totally different types of ships for completely different purposes.

 

As much as I hate to let facts get in the way of a good internet debate....

 

The QM2 has a draft of 32 feet. The Oasis has a draft of 30 feet. Those 2 feet, i doubt, add many more decks of space... also, kitchens (galleys) are not below decks, they are next to the dining venues and well above decks for ventilation reasons.

 

Also, the Royal Promenade doors are FIRE doors. You ask anyone who has ever worked at sea and they will tell you there is a VAST difference. Ask anyone who has ever been trapped in a WATERTIGHT DOOR (If they are still alive) and they definately will know the difference.

http://www.seanetgroup.it/img/watertight_door.jpg

 

Also, regardless of what Cunard may wish for you to believe and what they use in their marketing, they no longer own any ocean liners, they own cruise ships, reminiscent of the liners of old. The overall design (From a marine perspective) is of a modern cruise ship, not of a liner of old. The original Queen Mary (Half the overall size of the QM2) has a draft of almost 40 feet and is a V design hull, designed to slice through the waves, QM2, along with pretty much every other cruise ship built since the 70's, has a flat bottom.

[Ocean Boy]

Ocean Boy and yourself have missed the point. Firstly, I am not afraid of travelling on a traditional cruise ship and love to do so. In my oppinion a ship the size of the Queen Mary 2 (148,000) is the maximum that should have been built. To make a larger tonnage ship at least one huge empty space spanning the length of the ship and many decks high had to be added. Most people do not realise that the tonnage of a ship has nothing to do with the weight of it or the water it displaces.

 

Tonnage on all ships is worked out by the empty space that is in the vessel that is able to take passengers or cargo. This dates back to medieval times when the tonnage (a tonn being a barrel of wine etc.) was worked out by the amount of cargo it carried. Thus the Mayflower was considered to be of 180 tonns and capable of being loaded with 180 barrels of cargo.

 

RCI obviously wanted to have the biggest (by tonn) cruise ship afloat and so the Royal Promenade was the only course they could take. The Oasis and Allure have seven such open spaces I believe? Thus they are considered the largest cruise ships afloat. The Oasis is some 72,000 tonns larger by the tonn than the QM2 which represents a 47% increase. Yet by length and width she is ony 4.4% and 14.9% respectively larger! Yes there are 4 more passenger decks on the Oasis (16) than the QM2 (12) however the latter has more crew and kitchen decks below the sea line and an increased draft.

 

 

First of all, I had already admitted that I was missing your point. Secondly, are you implying that the whole reason for engineering and developing the Royal Promenade concept was just some mechanism in order to be able to produce the biggest cruise ship in the world? If that is the case I don't really doesn't matter to me. My family loves ships with Royal Promenades. Maybe RCI had some dark ulterior motive for coming up with the design but it sure has added enjoyment to our cruise experience.

[xpcdoojk]

This post reminds me of the movie Amadeus where Mozart plays his new fabulous opera for the king. After the production the king tried to appear to be smart told Mozart that it was fabulous but it simply had to many notes. He said that everyone knows this fact. The king was ignorant. It is simply beyond the maximum size of the magical size of 148,000 tons. Really? I mean really? Says who? :D

 

JC

 

Ocean Boy and yourself have missed the point. Firstly, I am not afraid of travelling on a traditional cruise ship and love to do so. In my oppinion a ship the size of the Queen Mary 2 (148,000) is the maximum that should have been built. To make a larger tonnage ship at least one huge empty space spanning the length of the ship and many decks high had to be added. Most people do not realise that the tonnage of a ship has nothing to do with the weight of it or the water it displaces.

 

Tonnage on all ships is worked out by the empty space that is in the vessel that is able to take passengers or cargo. This dates back to medieval times when the tonnage (a tonn being a barrel of wine etc.) was worked out by the amount of cargo it carried. Thus the Mayflower was considered to be of 180 tonns and capable of being loaded with 180 barrels of cargo.

 

RCI obviously wanted to have the biggest (by tonn) cruise ship afloat and so the Royal Promenade was the only course they could take. The Oasis and Allure have seven such open spaces I believe? Thus they are considered the largest cruise ships afloat. The Oasis is some 72,000 tonns larger by the tonn than the QM2 which represents a 47% increase. Yet by length and width she is ony 4.4% and 14.9% respectively larger! Yes there are 4 more passenger decks on the Oasis (16) than the QM2 (12) however the latter has more crew and kitchen decks below the sea line and an increased draft.

 

Traditional built cruise ships are based on a cell system and fire and water can be contained easily by use of fire and watertight doors, but the latter are never on higher decks. On older cruise ships such as the Marco Polo those decks that are below the waterline and one deck above it have a step-over sill to the watertight doors, which also act as fire doors. Higher passenger decks and entertainment decks have no step-over sills and are thus only fire doors.

 

I have never been below the sealine on modern ships but I would guess that the sills are still there and the configuration is still based on the cell system. The doors on the Promenade decks of the Voyager class and after are watertight as well as fire doors.

 

Yes these ships are of course safe in normal use but for me at least, it is a step too far and like the relaxation of the muster drill a retrograde one in safety terms.

[jcl410]

... The original Queen Mary (Half the overall size of the QM2) has a draft of almost 40 feet and is a V design hull, designed to slice through the waves,

QM2, along with pretty much every other cruise ship built since the 70's, has a flat bottom.

 

First off, thanks for catching the fire screen door(FSD) versus water tight(WT) doors. On RCI ships, I've only seen WT doors on deck 1. (most recently, the staff took the tour groups from the theater to the tender via I-95 on deck 1.)

 

All ships, even the original QM, have a flat bottom for at least a part of their hull. Otherwise dry docking would be difficult.

 

QM2 is designed to handle rough seas on a regular basis. Her hull is stronger than most cruise ships, the "V" of her hull is carried further aft than most (not as far back as QM or QE2 though); the superstructure is set further back, and also there is a structure on the foredeck to direct large seas away from the ship, and off to the side (ala the SS Normandie)

 

I spent a day on the QM2 at 20 knots going through 30 foot seas. While we could feel the motion, it wasn't bad at all. I spent most of the day up on deck nine in the lounge. Not once did the bar tender have to keep any of the glasses or bottles from falling.

 

Take a look at this web site, it has a lot of ship models that show the hull shapes:

 

http://www.modelshipmaster.com/products/ocean_liners/index.htm

 

Aloha,

 

John

[Coralc]

Unsubscribing now. I'm more interested in whether or not Carol (dirtgirl) made it from London, or not. I'm also interested in her review of her ill-fated cruise.:)

 

This is starting to sound like one of those gross tonnage threads. :rolleyes:

[startwin]

Unsubscribing now. I'm more interested in whether or not Carol (dirtgirl) made it from London, or not. I'm also interested in her review of her ill-fated cruise.:)

 

This is starting to sound like one of those gross tonnage threads. :rolleyes:

 

Carol is still in London, and is making the best of it, enjoying some sight-seeing and shopping. At the moment she has no internet but hopes to be flying home on Christmas Eve. She is amazing, the kind of person who makes lemonade out of lemons.:)

[milndan]

There were many threads on this board a while back when RCI decided to change their muster drill policy. No longer bothering to have passengers wear their life vests for the muster on the first day and saying in future vests would be handed out at the muster station in case of an emergency.

 

Some of us posted our worries about these changes at the time but the majority seemed delighted they would not have to practice wearing the life vest any more and had no cares about the vests not being available in their cabins any longer, probably visualising nice tidy lines on deck for the life vests in an emergency. Maybe this event will bring these people back to reality and realise that a ship is a ship and things can go wrong on the sea.

 

Having spent a few minutes in the Muster drill becoming familiar with the wearing of a life vest or insisting on life vests being at hand in cabins (so far they seem to have left them there but with no gurantee that will continue) is little effort but could well mean the difference between life and death if a ship gets into the sort of difficulty Brilliance did but does not right itself.

 

We were also on the Dec 5th Brilliance cruise and it was a really frightening event while it was happening. This is about erbunny's concerns about life vests being available. We did have our muster drill in which we did not have to bring life vests to the exercise. We reported to where we would need to go in case of an emergency. Although we did not bring our life jackets, which I already saw was in the closet in our cabin, we were shown by crew members how to put on and use the vest. The diligent passengers watched and learned. I can't speak for everyone on our ship but I do know that we had life vest available to us right in our cabin and would not have had to wait in any lines to receive one in an emergency.

 

And I want to reiterate what some of my fellow passengers have remarked regarding the crew on our ship. They were wonderful and worked tirelessly to get our ship back in shape for us, in spite of having to be treated badly by some of the passengers, as if they had caused the incident. They were as scared as we were but did their best to make our ship right again.

[dirtgirl]

I know this thread has gone entirely in another direction, but I got home today, 8 days after I should have gotten home. I'm really going to like sleeping in my own bed!

[BrianAlt]

I know this thread has gone entirely in another direction, but I got home today, 8 days after I should have gotten home. I'm really going to like sleeping in my own bed!

 

Welcome home!

[stretchcruz]

I'm glad you finally made it home!

[Coralc]

I know this thread has gone entirely in another direction, but I got home today, 8 days after I should have gotten home. I'm really going to like sleeping in my own bed!

 

Welcome home Carol! What an adventure you've had! :D:):D

[HazeGray]

DW and I were also on the Brilliance and I would like to chime on the performance of the crew. They too were shaken by this event; it was certainly something that they had probably not experienced. But they had a job to do and they did it well. Our cabin steward came and personally checked each cabin. She herself was visibly shaken but was going around in middle of the night making sure the passengers were OK. Unlike us, who could try and sleep-in, the entire crew was out and about continuously cleaning and repairing. We were quite surprised that after hearing of the damage and disruption in the galleys, that they had a hot breakfast in the dining room the next morning, albeit it was on paper plates. We can’t say enough to praise the attitude and performance of all the crew members that touched us. But that is what we have come to expect from RCL. Fortunately we were not injured and our hearts to out to those who were seriously injured, some of whom we met and we can’t help but admire their spirit in maintaining a positive attitude for the rest of the cruise. Thanks to the generosity of a full refund, we look forward to sailing again on RCL, somehow getting to Egypt.

[oceanviewcruise]

This post reminds me of the movie Amadeus where Mozart plays his new fabulous opera for the king. After the production the king tried to appear to be smart told Mozart that it was fabulous but it simply had to many notes. He said that everyone knows this fact. The king was ignorant. It is simply beyond the maximum size of the magical size of 148,000 tons. Really? I mean really? Says who? :D

 

JC

 

The tonnage factor was not the relative criteria it was the fact that RCI have added huge internal plazas or streets to create the higher tonnage and therefore appeal. The maximum distance of 40 metres in any open space has meant that these huge fire doors had to be installed to comply with ITF rules.

 

http://www.itfseafarers.org/files/seealsodocs/448/cruisepolicy.pdf

 

Take a look at paragraphs 8 onwards

[Ocean Boy]

The tonnage factor was not the relative criteria it was the fact that RCI have added huge internal plazas or streets to create the higher tonnage and therefore appeal. The maximum distance of 40 metres in any open space has meant that these huge fire doors had to be installed to comply with ITF rules.

http://www.itfseafarers.org/files/seealsodocs/448/cruisepolicy.pdf

 

Take a look at paragraphs 8 onwards

 

So the ships are build to safety specifications. I am still missing your point.

[mjldvlks]

The tonnage factor was not the relative criteria it was the fact that RCI have added huge internal plazas or streets to create the higher tonnage and therefore appeal. The maximum distance of 40 metres in any open space has meant that these huge fire doors had to be installed to comply with ITF rules.

 

http://www.itfseafarers.org/files/seealsodocs/448/cruisepolicy.pdf

 

Take a look at paragraphs 8 onwards

 

What IS your point?

[xpcdoojk]

What IS your point?

 

Obviously, the poster is a nautical engineer who works for a world famous shipyard, and is way smarter than us regular posters. It is like when you put you finger in the flame of a candle for the poster, you just know, and the rest of us can't figure it out because we are not the poster with the poster's unique insights.

 

Either that, or the poster doesn't really have a clue, but has a huge prejudice against RCI because they built a bigger ship than their precious Cunard ships..... Naaawwwhh...:D

 

jc

[sierracruisers]

Carol, are you getting the feeling that there is just *something* about Carols and ships that list over?!?!?!?!?!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are the 'Cursed Carols'!!! :p;)

 

But we still always have a good time!:)

 

HaHa, I actually thought about MMCarol's listing adventure when I heard what happened to you. You're both still fun to cruise with, even though you have "mishaps" lol.

PS Welcome HOME!!

[sierracruisers]

We are the 'Cursed Carols'!!! :p;)

 

But we still always have a good time!:)

 

I know this thread has gone entirely in another direction, but I got home today, 8 days after I should have gotten home. I'm really going to like sleeping in my own bed!

 

I had to come back and read this thread because Sharon's fb post peaked my interest and all I have to say is... Mean people suck. :D