Storm handling in Caranival Pride vs Anthem?

[WestfieldTraveler]

One thing I have not really seen reported, but may be relevant, is how the Carnival Pride handled the trip down to Port Canaveral, as they were due there on the 10th in the am (vs Anthem's scheduled arrival the 8th in the PM). The ships actually passed each other (miles away) off the coast of South Carolina in the early morning hours of Feb. 9th (according to the marinetraffic website). On that website, you can see that the Anthem basically hung out for about a day off the coast before heading north, passing the Pride on the way down. It would be interesting to see how much weather they encountered.

 

Another area of limited discussion is what options would have been available to Anthem - could they have delayed for a day and avoided the storm, or headed for Bermuda?

 

One of the things I heard is that the captain did not want to subject Anthem's passengers to another possible storm, but I rather suspect they wanted to give themselves a few days to inspect and repair just in case something was very broken.

 

One interesting thing in my limited research is that if you google Carnival Pride and storm you get videos from back in 2011 - seems captains do take on some calculated risks (and not all calculations come out for the best).

[FloridaGram]

One thing I have not really seen reported, but may be relevant, is how the Carnival Pride handled the trip down to Port Canaveral, as they were due there on the 10th in the am (vs Anthem's scheduled arrival the 8th in the PM). The ships actually passed each other (miles away) off the coast of South Carolina in the early morning hours of Feb. 9th (according to the marinetraffic website). On that website, you can see that the Anthem basically hung out for about a day off the coast before heading north, passing the Pride on the way down. It would be interesting to see how much weather they encountered.

 

Another area of limited discussion is what options would have been available to Anthem - could they have delayed for a day and avoided the storm, or headed for Bermuda?

 

One of the things I heard is that the captain did not want to subject Anthem's passengers to another possible storm, but I rather suspect they wanted to give themselves a few days to inspect and repair just in case something was very broken.

 

One interesting thing in my limited research is that if you google Carnival Pride and storm you get videos from back in 2011 - seems captains do take on some calculated risks (and not all calculations come out for the best).

 

The Pride's track looks a lot closer to the shore. I checked the Carnival thread and there are no complaints there. So either they will come when the shop gets back or maybe not at all.

 

This was a sad situation and I hope all cruise lines will consider their actions in the future to avoid anything like this in the future. That said, I also hope what happened at Carnival after their debacle at sea a few years ago happens to RCCL. Cheaper cruises because bookings slow down!

Edited February 11, 2016 by FloridaGram

[Big_G]

If Pride passed Anthem on the 9th, wouldn't the storm have already been behind them and missed them altogether?

[Firefighterhoop]

Usually I am awake overnight, and I happened to check one of the marine traffic sites looking for Anthem very late the night Pride left Baltimore, and saw the Pride coming out of the Chesapeake much later (4-6hours) than usual. Perhaps hearing the reports from the Anthem and delaying getting into the Atlantic by several hours.

 

Unsure of the exact reason why it was delayed getting out of the bay or any exact itinerary changes due to the delay.

[CarpeCerevisi]

Delaying a day would have meant hitting the storm when it was farther north. Whether the conditions would have been better then, I don't know. Delaying two days on a seven day cruise would have made their legal options either Canada in the wintertime (I don't think so), which would have still put them in the storm as it passed New York, or Bermuda. As far as Bermuda goes, I doubt Bermuda would be ready to accept a ship at this time of year except in case of an emergency. Also, considering the size of the storm Bermuda might have been also affected (note I said might).

 

Once they hit the storm, Bermuda was out of the question as it was almost due east of them and they would have had to sail right through the heart of the storm.

[Saab4444]

Pride left Baltimore on schedule and headed south after the storm has past to the north. It was a different situation and she had no issues to arrive in Port Canaveral on time.

[WestfieldTraveler]

True, but I'm sure many are wondering if the Anthem had decided to basically wait a day in the Chesapeake Bay (if that was possible) in more "protected" waters and then follow the Pride down. They may have missed a port, or even two, but at least they would have been better off...except for all those people complaining about the ports they missed! The Captain obviously felt he could outrun whatever storm was there.

 

For alternate port options, one interesting item is that Halifax is scheduled for a hour stop at midnight on the March 4th 3-day cruise to (almost) nowhere next month. I wonder how much bad weather comes near there at that time.

 

I guess we will never know the what-if's in this case, and hindsight is always 20/20!

[TVMet]

Carnival Pride is also a smaller ship and was designed for rough weather (Hawaii/Alaska). I wonder if that helped too?

[princessa]

We were on the Pride during the storm. From what the captain said, I understood that the captain kept rerouting us and we were closer to shore.

 

Having said that, we did experience crazy waves and a lot of rocking. But nothing too serious.

 

A few plates and cups rolled off tables a couple of times but that's about it.

 

We were lucky.

 

Glad every one was ok. We were watching on TV and felt terrible for those people. It really was a scary storm.

 

On our way back home Pride also stayed closer to shore and we arrived a bit late.

[FROGGY23]

I do remember reading somewhere the Anthem class was built with gas conservation in mind. To me that says smaller and lighter. If this is true I wonder what Prides weight/width vs Anthems? Could that mean Anthem is just going to be a rocker ship?

[loubetti]

Carnival Pride is roughly 1/2 the size of Anthem. 88,500 GT vs 167,800 for Anthem. Anthem is also longer and wider than Pride.

 

However, sea keeping abilities in rough seas does not always favor the larger ship. There's much more to it than that.

Edited February 16, 2016 by loubetti

[ken_nyc]

We were on the Pride out of Port Canaveral in 2002 when she was around a month or so old, getting older so I don't exactly remember but we hit some bad weather because of a hurricane near us and felt the motion but she handled it pretty well.

[mom2tcdx2]

I know when we were traveling back to Baltimore on the Pride around the 4th we hit a pretty bad storm in the Atlantic. Ship was a rocking all night, waves were super high, very windy. I wonder if it was the same storm that the Anthem then got caught up in later on?

[vaguy22]

Loubetti: if that was S.S.U.S instead of Anthem she would have just got up to 36 knots and blasted her way right through it. BTW been on Regal Empress 5 times on all full ship charters.Very wild cruises.

[bob brown]

Currently, there are five cruise ships doing winter cruising from New York or Baltimore....from New York, the Anthem of the Seas (actually Bayonne), the NCL Breakaway, and the NCL Gem. From Baltimore, the Carnival Pride, and the RCI Grandeur of the Seas.

 

None of these ships are really designed to handle the winter storms of the North Atlantic, as compared to ocean liners of old, that were of a sleeker, lower profile, with a deeper draft, and much higher speed. The closest to those is the Queen Mary 2, a sort of hybrid ocean liner/cruise ship.