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CNN reporting another Carnival Ship having trouble (The Dream)

vinsheer

By vinsheer,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Aplmac

Aplmac

Posted
Posted
As far as sending other ships to pick folks up, its spring break

and I bet most ships are booked to or close to capacity.

You mean cruise lines don't keep a spare ship hanging around IN CASE?

..Fully staffed? twiddling their thumbs? Waiting on the next once-a-month emergency call?

Fully stocked? with all that food?

No?

 

Geez, Louise, I'm surprised they don't! :eek:

.

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topguy

topguy

Posted
Posted
Sailing on the Dream 4/20. Can't wait!

 

Question....as one who believes Carnival was very fair with the passengers on the Triumph. My question is this...we love getting on the ship early (11:00-11:30). It gives us almost a full day. This is the biggest reason we went for platium. :D If the Dream is indeed late and the next passengers cannot board until...lets say 9:00 PM. Should the passengers be giving credit for the day they lost? :rolleyes:

I was on the Imagination last year and could not get back into the Port of Miami until around 9:00 pm that night because of the hurricane. The port of Miami was closed until then. This happened to be a B2B cruise on the Imagination for me, so we did not embark until around midnight. All passengers received a 1 day cruise refund plus a $25 OBC.

BTW: Muster drill was at 1:30 am. People came to it in their pajamas.

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bguppies

bguppies

Posted
Posted
Wow, the buzzards are circling again. Hard to get a post in here before there are two more pages!

 

Let me repeat my credentials as a former cruise ship Chief Engineer with nearly 40 years of total seagoing time.

 

1. USCG would not normally be notified unless the problem related to propulsion or safe navigation; see my previous post. They would get notified if the arrival time was delayed, as all ship arrivals in US waters are required to be tracked, and notification made 48 hours in advance.

 

2. Vacuum toilets will only overflow if people who have used them continue to press the flush button after the first attempt to flush fails. To all cruisers out there: one push only, please. Further pushes on the button will only add water to the toilet, but the discharge valve (what makes the dirty go away) will not open. This causes the toilet to overflow, and deposit your deposit on the deck.

 

3. Do not compare this with the Triumph or Splendor. There was never any fire or loss of power.

 

4. Everyone is guessing right about letting the guests ashore. Carnival is trying to only tick off the current cruisers, and not the next cruise, by keeping the guests where they can sail immediately when the Chief says the problem is fixed. Is this right? Is this good PR? That's a decision that will need to pass the test of time.

 

5. To my thinking, they are right to delay at port until all problems are corrected, to prevent a POSSIBLE Triumph-like loss of power.

 

6. Is this indicative of poor maintenance? Maybe. The real driving force will be Carnival's insurance rates. The more they have to pay out, the more pressure from the other shipping companies in their P&I club to fix things and force the underwriters to more thoroughly inspect the vessels. I know the pressure of the cruise industry to have a "zero down time" product, meaning that everything must work 100% of the time. This results in massive redundancies of equipment and spare parts, and sometimes near super-human effort by those behind the scenes of your cruise to keep things working, even when the problem is not caused by poor maintenance, but by passengers flushing hand towels down the toilets.

 

7. Am I cheerleading for Carnival? No. Personally, I would not cruise a Carnival ship, I only started posting on CC after the Triumph, to try to shed some light on the technical aspects of the industry. I do enjoy cruising (probably one of the very few who have worked the ships that like coming back on their time off). Does Carnival have a problem? You bet. The negative PR is going to cost them plenty. Does this happen to other ships? You bet. Mostly it is not reported on, as the crew will work to keep it from impacting the guests.

 

8. Does this impact the movement for US flag, US crew cruise ships? I hope so, but I doubt it. Too many people are not willing to vote with their feet, and don't consider expanding their "support local" lifestyle to shipping.

 

Enough rant. Fire away.

 

Thank you for actual,factual information and not just conjecture, like 98% of the rest of this thread.

 

Especially thanks for the info on the toilets and repeated flushings.

 

Bill

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jlk806

jlk806

Posted
Posted

They should just fly everyone back to Orlando from St Maarten and fix the ship. Why risk stranding everyone at sea like the Triumph? Get them off and get them home. If there was no working toilets Id want to just end cruise early and go home. At least give people the OPTION to get off the ship.

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sailor_jimc

sailor_jimc

Posted
Posted

Having come of the Triumph incident, I would make the comment on the reports of Overflowing toilets. The passenger quote said that the toilets were not working and their was human waste on the floors in the public toilets. On the Triumph, when the power went to the flushing system and there was no vacuum pressure, the urinals in the mens public bathrooms "drained" onto the floor. Something to do with the vacuum check valve on the urinal opens when there is no vacuum and it leaks waste water and urine onto the floor. I am sure this is what was seen. I doubt the toilets actually overflowed because as others pointed out, without the flushing working no water enters or leaves the bowl....

 

If what John Heald reports is true, if they have had power to the toilet system since 12:30am I am sure all the bathrooms have been cleaned up by now.

 

I volunteer to use my Triumph experience and fly out to meet the ship. I can be of use in instructing the passengers on how to deal with no power.. :-)

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pmoniz

pmoniz

Posted
Posted
FLAME SUIT ON

Not a Carnival cheerleader, only sailed one Carnival Cruise; but I just love how every time something happens on any cruise ship a ton of posters on CC begin to speak in "fact" as if they are on the board of directors or in some other way are privy to the financial books, operational plans, business plans etc, of that cruise line and immediately talk about the cuts in cost of maintenance etc. Please to all those posters, if you are a member of the board, maintenance supervisor or in any other way a person with direct knowledge, please identify your self so that we as readers can make a better decision on whether or not your post are correct. Until then just remember: SHIP HAPPENS!! Happy Cruising :D

 

 

Amen!!

Love the "know it alls" on here! They all have the answers, they all know the problems, they all know whats happening onboard, they all know how to fix it!! They know it all!!

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chengkp75

chengkp75

Posted
Posted
They are making the right call. Question...What power does the backup generator provide in an emergency on a ship?

 

Per SOLAS requirements, the "emergency generator" which everyone is calling the backup, is required to provide power to systems required to evacuate all people from the ship. This means, emergency lighting (usually marked with a small red "E" sticker) which is about 10% of normal lighting, bilge pumps, fire pumps, navigation instrumentation, communications equipment (probably not the cell antenna!), steering, and a few other systems.

 

Cruise ships will generally have a bit more power on their emergency gens, and will add some ability to back-feed to the main power switchboards, but the amount is severely limited. A typical diesel generator onboard would generate 2.5Mw (that's mega-watts), and you need at least one of these online to power just the hotel load. A cruise ship emergency generator would be in the range of 0.8-1.0Mw.

 

The USCG was notified that the emergency generator was causing problems because that affects the "safe navigation" of the vessel when entering US waters.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, it may be merely a problem with the emergency generator and switchboard. The things that the emergency generator powers are normally powered from the main switchboard, and intermittant loss of some elevators and toilets may be from the emergency bus tripping off line. Speculation, will be interested to find out the problem.

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Spudder

Spudder

Posted
Posted
Would you feel the same way if Carnival ran an airline? :)

 

Airlines have engine issues, the difference is that they will switch out an airplane for another and only 100 to 300 people on that flight are affected (sometimes the next stop as well). Many flights are delayed or cancelled due to mechanical issues but these issues are remedied quickly because of the nature of the industry having planes in circulation. Little different case when you have 3000 people on board a ship with no "spares" in the system. There are so many flight delays now that it is no longer news...

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tiffygirl

tiffygirl

Posted
Posted

I caught the report from HLN...they said passengers on the Dream contacted CNN to report ..

 

Why would passengers call the news media??...I know I dont keep CNN phone number on speed dial....if i were a passenger my last thought would be to call the media...maybe the coast guard,or carnival...

 

Of course CNN jumped right on it because its news to them.

 

Now the Dream is fairly new so my theory had been to only sail newer ships as they have the Technology to prevent the Triumph situation..but now my theory is being tested...:eek:

 

I havent been on a carnival cruise since 2003 (triumph), it was a great first cruise. I have no issues with carinval and would book them again...however I did discover NCL... wow...so I tend to lean in that direction.

 

I hope everyone gets back to the port safely and on time. Hopefully Carnival can do some serious damage control after this one.

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djwood24

djwood24

Posted
Posted
Amen!!

Love the "know it alls" on here! They all have the answers, they all know the problems, they all know whats happening onboard, they all know how to fix it!! They know it all!!

 

 

nice...so freaking true:eek:

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MrTexasAggie

MrTexasAggie

Posted
Posted
Per SOLAS requirements, the "emergency generator" which everyone is calling the backup, is required to provide power to systems required to evacuate all people from the ship. This means, emergency lighting (usually marked with a small red "E" sticker) which is about 10% of normal lighting, bilge pumps, fire pumps, navigation instrumentation, communications equipment (probably not the cell antenna!), steering, and a few other systems.

 

Cruise ships will generally have a bit more power on their emergency gens, and will add some ability to back-feed to the main power switchboards, but the amount is severely limited. A typical diesel generator onboard would generate 2.5Mw (that's mega-watts), and you need at least one of these online to power just the hotel load. A cruise ship emergency generator would be in the range of 0.8-1.0Mw.

 

The USCG was notified that the emergency generator was causing problems because that affects the "safe navigation" of the vessel when entering US waters.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, it may be merely a problem with the emergency generator and switchboard. The things that the emergency generator powers are normally powered from the main switchboard, and intermittant loss of some elevators and toilets may be from the emergency bus tripping off line. Speculation, will be interested to find out the problem.

 

Thank you for the answer...

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skyeman27

skyeman27

Posted
Posted

Would a passenger(s) have the option of debarking the ship if they so choose and not risk sailing back with the ship when it is finally fixed. I think some passengers (with passports) would take that option and it should be offered...

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MrPete

MrPete

Posted
Posted
While I would certainly be glad this happened while "docked", I would be extremely nervous about that long ride back to PC.

 

Wow......what a mess!!!!

 

Which begs the question. Is anyone in board right now getting spooked about the ride home. I'd stock up on the red bags first though.

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waldocruiser1

waldocruiser1

Posted
Posted
They should just fly everyone back to Orlando from St Maarten and fix the ship. Why risk stranding everyone at sea like the Triumph? Get them off and get them home. If there was no working toilets Id want to just end cruise early and go home. At least give people the OPTION to get off the ship.

 

No the naysayers are going to say it is safer to stay on the ship then try to get off the ship to land on a ship with no power. and then to travel the streets of St maarten would be really dangerous they could DIE. They are better off to stay on the ship with no toilets or power.

 

Ok got that out,

 

I have not read all the posts on this thread, are the passengers alowed or able to get off the ship, with out the "ding" thing to let them off or on,

 

 

Or are just the passengers with passports alowd to get off? because they can verify it by hand if needed?

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