Serenade of the Seas rerouted to Marseille today

[aviator1945]

Just noticed at MarineTraffic.com that Serenade of the Seas, while on a Western Mediterranean cruise, enroute from Livorno (Italy) to Barcelona (Spain), at 4:15 PM local time today suddenly changed her course more than 90 degrees towards starboard and headed straight for Marseille (France), while also increasing her speed from around 11-12 knots to almost 24 knots (=near full speed). At present I can see that she has briefly docked in Marseille, but now appears to be enroute to Barcelona again. The change of course puzzles me, since at the point of course deviation she was roughly equidistant from Barcelona and Marseille. Anyone know any more details? Possibly a medical issue?

[Vegan Bogey]

Yes serenade of the seas was rerouted last night,medical emergency. Delayed us just over 2 hours this morning getting into Barcelona. Royal Caribbean handled the disembarkation very well and we still made our 12:20 flight in good time. She is a beautiful ship!

[rebeccalouiseagain]

So glad to hear about the Serenade being a beautiful ship. Boarding her on Jan. 4th. Sorry for the medical emergency. That's always sad.

[aviator1945]

Yes, from MarineTraffic.com I can see that it was more or less full speed ahead (23-24 knots) from Marseille to Barcelona, except for a few miles just before entry into the port of Barcelona. Now she has left for Livorno at a more leisurely (and environmentally friendly) speed of 11-12 knots. And she is indeed a beautiful ship; my wife and I sailed on the last cruise prior to her recent maintenance and refurb visit at the drydock in Cadiz (Spain) and she was good-looking even then.

[Miaminice]

We just returned from the cruise following the one mentioned here.

We also had a medical emergency on board, had to turn to Sardegna full speed and were met by a helicopter which evacuated the critically ill patient. Due to the swiftness of the operation and increased speed we did make it to Palma on time. And if we had not - who cares! We all just hoped the person got help in time.

 

It really makes me sick to read some other threads about detours due to medical emergencies were people just care about compensations and how it ruined their cruise... I really hope they will never have to experience a situation like this from the "other side".

 

To all others: Safe travels!

[A&L_Ont]

We just returned from the cruise following the one mentioned here.

We also had a medical emergency on board, had to turn to Sardegna full speed and were met by a helicopter which evacuated the critically ill patient. Due to the swiftness of the operation and increased speed we did make it to Palma on time. And if we had not - who cares! We all just hoped the person got help in time.

 

It really makes me sick to read some other threads about detours due to medical emergencies were people just care about compensations and how it ruined their cruise... I really hope they will never have to experience a situation like this from the "other side".

 

To all others: Safe travels!

 

Great positive attitude. I'd cruise with you any day.

 

Andrew

[aviator1945]

We also had a medical emergency on board, had to turn to Sardegna full speed and were met by a helicopter which evacuated the critically ill patient.

 

It really makes me sick to read some other threads about detours due to medical emergencies were people just care about compensations and how it ruined their cruise... I really hope they will never have to experience a situation like this from the "other side".

 

To all others: Safe travels!

 

Thanks Miaminice,

 

That explains the minor deviation to the course of Serenade that I noticed the other day when she was enroute westbound to Palma. Essentially she made a 180-degree turn to an eastbound course, but after only a few miles she apparently was met by the chopper, because then she turned back towards Palma again.

And I fully agree with your last comment about some folks trying to make the most of their trip compensationwise!

[Miaminice]

Well, the few miles were almost 90 nautical miles - or 4 hours on full speed. The helicopter came when the coast was just in sight.

 

Later that night we had pretty rough seas. Good thing it wasn´t like that when the evacuation took place.