Getaway Transatlantic, Most Mishandled Cruise Ever

[hawkeyetlse]

I was on this cruise and for those NCL defenders that think everything was handled properly, I would like to disagree.

Since NCL was planning on 2 whole days of on-board UK passport checks with agents picked up in the Azores, couldn't they be brought on board by the pilot boat, and proceed as planned?

That would be a question for the captain and the port authority in the Azores and UK Border Force. It's not all up to NCL. When they cancel a port due to seas/weather, that often means that the ship cannot get anywhere near the port and/or that conditions are too dangerous for the pilot to embark.

 

Your experience does sound frustrating and I can understand wanting to place blame. Some things were within NCL's control and they could have done better. I don't see many people on this thread denying that (there are always one or two…) For example, going ahead with a 9-hour excursion when people can't get to the bus until 3pm seems to me like a very bad decision.

 

 

But some people in this thread seem to believe that there was some simple and obvious way for NCL to avoid the delays in Southampton altogether, and I just don't see it (other than cancelling the port completely).

[queenjan]

Sorry - but unless you were physically there - please don't even attempt to defend NCL on this one - they were bang bang bang our of order on this cruise - and that immigration process was mishandled beyond levels of acceptance on ALL counts!

 

Totally agree.....Brest was not capable of receiving such a large ship....question? Did anyone see any toilets?

[karoo]

As stated, the pilot is an "advisor on local conditions" to the Captain. The Captain is always in command. He may allow the pilot to "conn" (give orders to the bridge crew for steering and speed), but it is always the Captain's responsibility and authority to countermand or relieve the pilot if the Captain feels there is any danger to passengers, crew, ship, or the environment. Pilots are not allowed to touch or operate any equipment on the bridge, not even to change a setting on a radar screen, since they are not company employees. They must request any changes be done by the bridge crew.

 

As for liability, unless the pilot is found to have been grossly negligent (he knew something was there, and purposely steered towards it), the shipowner is responsible for damages. Pilot liability is also a matter of local law, so their responsibility can change by country.

 

 

If the ship had struck something that caused a reduction of speed, this would have meant a bent propeller blade, and would not have been fixed in the short port stay in Southampton. I believe the electrical/electronic problem explanation.

 

Love the quote-unless you were onboard it is hard to comment. As some of the incidents quoted are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this cruise.

 

 

However Cheng I would love your input on some of the things I noted re Azipod. I have done 4 cruises on the Star this year-two with major Azipod problems and would welcome your technical input.

 

The day after we left Miami-I observed when looking at the wake that the Azipod (unsure how many Azipods on the Getaway some people were saying 4, some 2) Starboard side appeared to not be working as it should. The port one was working much harder. The Captain confirmed once we left the Azores that we were travelling slowly as they were fixing one of the Azipods. Also people with cabins Aft Starboard were complaining about the loud vibrations in their cabins which were clearly felt when sitting Aft Starboard in the Market Cafe. Port side did not have this problem. After leaving Brest many people heard an explosion type noise. Captain announced due to Azipod troubles (the electricals) we would be porting late in Southampton and missing Zeebruge. The Southhampton evening Captain announced the problem had been fixed and as we didn't have far to go we would port overnight in Rotterdam. However I noticed we were back to the Port Azipod working hard, not as much output coming from the Starboard and the vibrations once again. If there are are 4 -that would make sense as I think Getaway were on 3, then after Brest 2 as the wake looked more symmetrical when we were travelling at around 11-13knots. It looked like the outside Azipod Starboard wasn't working the whole cruise.

Would love your technical take on this.

[chengkp75]

For the poster who asked whether the customs/immigration officials couldn't have come out on the pilot boat, I know of no country (there may be some) where their officials will make the boat to ship transfer while the ship is underway like a harbor pilot. Life and health insurance for pilots is extraordinarily expensive due to the extreme danger of this transfer, and harbor pilots are considered to have one of the most dangerous jobs in the US.

 

Now, to azipods. Not sure how technical you want me to get, but here goes.

 

The Getaway has two azipods. Typically, the electric motors in the pods have two sets of windings (essentially two motors on the one shaft), and each set of windings is fed from a different source, each winding providing half of the power of the motor. The ship will have its electrical bus ("grid" in shore parlance) split into two sections that can be separated if there is a problem with one half or the other (say a fire in one engine room that knocks out the wiring from two of the four generators). So, each half of the main bus supplies power to one set of windings in each azipod (so, essentially you have 4 motors driving two propellers). This redundancy is so that with half of the diesel generators out of action, you can still power both azipods at half of their rated power.

 

Now, an AC motor, like the azipod's motors, runs at a constant speed, based on the frequency of the AC power generated, in the case of ships and the US, 60Hz (cycles per second). This means a typical AC motor runs at 1800rpm, which is too fast for a propeller, and is as stated, a constant speed. How to slow the motor down and vary the speed? You use a power converter, which uses semi-conductors to convert the AC power to DC power, and then the DC power back to AC. By use of electronic controls, you can control the semi-conductors to create a nearly sinusoidal wave form AC with any frequency you desire, hence any motor speed you desire. Each set of windings in each azipod motor has a separate power converter system to provide the variable frequency power to half of the motor.

 

It sounds like one of the power converters for the Stbd azipod was under repair, and the pod was only running at half power. Azipod equipped ships suffer from the "azipod shimmy" where the aft end of the ship moves back and forth sideways very quickly, almost like a vibration. This is due to using the propeller to steer with, as you are sweeping the water flow past the azipod and under the hull back and forth, port to starboard, a few degrees constantly as the ship maintains heading (if you've steered a boat, you know that you can't keep the wheel in one position like a car and hope to steer a straight line). When the azipods are unbalanced (one on full power, one on half), this shimmy increases greatly.

 

As for the "explosion" sound, and subsequent slowing to get to the UK, this was most likely one of the power semi-conductors shorting and since it is carrying thousands of amps of current at 10,000 volts, they literally explode. This can happen to any semi-conductor at any time, and is sort of the nature of the beast, since what goes on in a semi-conductor SCR is not really a natural phenomenon, and any little defect in the crystal structure of the SCR can cause a failure at some future time.

[karoo]

For the poster who asked whether the customs/immigration officials couldn't have come out on the pilot boat, I know of no country (there may be some) where their officials will make the boat to ship transfer while the ship is underway like a harbor pilot. Life and health insurance for pilots is extraordinarily expensive due to the extreme danger of this transfer, and harbor pilots are considered to have one of the most dangerous jobs in the US.

 

 

 

Now, to azipods. Not sure how technical you want me to get, but here goes.

 

 

 

The Getaway has two azipods. Typically, the electric motors in the pods have two sets of windings (essentially two motors on the one shaft), and each set of windings is fed from a different source, each winding providing half of the power of the motor. The ship will have its electrical bus ("grid" in shore parlance) split into two sections that can be separated if there is a problem with one half or the other (say a fire in one engine room that knocks out the wiring from two of the four generators). So, each half of the main bus supplies power to one set of windings in each azipod (so, essentially you have 4 motors driving two propellers). This redundancy is so that with half of the diesel generators out of action, you can still power both azipods at half of their rated power.

 

 

 

Now, an AC motor, like the azipod's motors, runs at a constant speed, based on the frequency of the AC power generated, in the case of ships and the US, 60Hz (cycles per second). This means a typical AC motor runs at 1800rpm, which is too fast for a propeller, and is as stated, a constant speed. How to slow the motor down and vary the speed? You use a power converter, which uses semi-conductors to convert the AC power to DC power, and then the DC power back to AC. By use of electronic controls, you can control the semi-conductors to create a nearly sinusoidal wave form AC with any frequency you desire, hence any motor speed you desire. Each set of windings in each azipod motor has a separate power converter system to provide the variable frequency power to half of the motor.

 

 

 

It sounds like one of the power converters for the Stbd azipod was under repair, and the pod was only running at half power. Azipod equipped ships suffer from the "azipod shimmy" where the aft end of the ship moves back and forth sideways very quickly, almost like a vibration. This is due to using the propeller to steer with, as you are sweeping the water flow past the azipod and under the hull back and forth, port to starboard, a few degrees constantly as the ship maintains heading (if you've steered a boat, you know that you can't keep the wheel in one position like a car and hope to steer a straight line). When the azipods are unbalanced (one on full power, one on half), this shimmy increases greatly.

 

 

 

As for the "explosion" sound, and subsequent slowing to get to the UK, this was most likely one of the power semi-conductors shorting and since it is carrying thousands of amps of current at 10,000 volts, they literally explode. This can happen to any semi-conductor at any time, and is sort of the nature of the beast, since what goes on in a semi-conductor SCR is not really a natural phenomenon, and any little defect in the crystal structure of the SCR can cause a failure at some future time.

 

 

Thanks Cheng-that clarifies it for me. So from my observations I would say one of the power converters wasn't working all trip, then we were down to two. They obviously fixed one so we then went back to three. Does that make sense? Totally not mechanical at all, but I became an expert at observing the wake with 71 days onboard the Star this year.

 

 

 

 

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[chengkp75]

Thanks Chang- that clarifies it for me. So from my observations I would say one of the power converters wasn't working all trip, then we were down to two. They obviously fixed one so we then went back to three. Does that make sense? Totally not mechanical at all, but I became an expert at observing the wake with 71 days onboard the Star this year.

 

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That's probably the likely case.

[ja2nowak]

I was also on this ship. I know the weather causes issues and that NCL has no control over it. No problem. I know the crew was as disappointed as us to miss the Azores. But, for Brest and Southampton the lack of organization and officer presence was my biggest issue.

 

In Brest we were in line for almost two hours before giving up. The line was on both deck 6 and 7. There were no officers in sight leaving just crew members who had no answers to deal with annoyed and angry passengers who had been waiting for a long time. By the time we would have made it down the treacherous, overloaded gangway and onto the bus it would have given us an hour in town. It simply wasn't worth the trouble only to come back and wait another hour and a half in the rain to board. And the 20 person max was indeed being ignored as another poster states. It was scary and many were on deck 8 watching people attempt to get back on having issues. The line wrapped around the front of the ship. It was terrible.

 

So yeah, I'm glad that we didn't get off. Our friends that did had horrible excursions and came back to the above mess.

 

And yes, NCL is not at fault for the UK immigration mess but they are at fault for the lack of presence of officers and line organization a second time. My friends who had excursions had 45 minutes in London before being forced to head back. They were issued refunds but would much rather have skipped the trip and gone pub hopping with our group.

 

Rotterdam overnight was a good consolation prize. I enjoyed it. I can't complain much other than being disappointed about missing Zeebrugge.

 

Disembarkation was smooth. Not much to say there other than hearing some were being given a hard time days later about not having a passport stamp for entering the country when flying out of Copenhagen. But I enjoyed myself because of my friends, the udp, and the ubp. But little things like the awful DJ who didn't know how to play any different music, my mediocre steward, and the jutter throughout the trip from one of the engines was annoying.

[nairnblue]

We too were on the Getaway transatlantic.

There is more to the crazy events than has been mentioned so far.

We could not get in to Ponta because of strong winds and there is no blame attached to NCL for that.

Instead of sailing to Brest in three days we chugged along much slower to arrive on the Thursday.

I had mentioned to friends that I had never seen a cruise itinerary that included Brest and indeed I was told that we were the first cruise ship to call there.

 

This begs the question as to why this commercial port was selected.

 

Did the NCL ops people do there homework properly given that it was a tidal port and that on that day the second ramp could not be used for most of the day as deck 4 was BELOW the level of the jetty.

 

The one remaining ramp was very steep, it was raining and getting off the ship was therefore very slow.

 

There were many elderly people that unfortunately were slow and needed assistance from the 10 or more crew members who were doing a great job helping people to get down the ramp.

 

This sowed down the whole process and as others have said the queue to get off stretched all along deck 7 and down to deck 6.

 

For those returning to the ship it was even worse. Many people needed assistance to get up the steep ramp, some needing three crew members to help.. People in wheel chairs had to be lifted up the ramp and their wheelchairs carried separately.

 

The ramp had a sign saying max 20 persons and this was completely dis-regarded. The port director spent most of his time sitting in a small portacabin oblivious the what was going on.

 

We were due to depart after 3.30pm. The second ramp was brought into use at 2.50 but even then the loval handyman had to go and get woon to make a ramp for wheelchairs.

 

All in all most people had to queue for 1hour 40 minutes to return to the ship.

 

It is possible that NCL were mis-led by the port authority but they certainly did not appear to have carried out their own checks.

 

I don't know how the azipod was damaged but were were told that arrival at Southampton would be delayed until mid day (from 8am).

 

Given that NCL had FOUR days to organise immigration at Southampton what ensued showed that they were totally out of their depth.

 

The immigration process did not commence till around 2pm and details of the queues and the time taken have been accurately described in earlier posts .

 

I joined the queue at about 3pm. I was asking a female crew member how long it would take and she could only shrug her shoulders. There was an officer nearby and I said "you have 3 stripes on your shoulder how do you explain this fiasco" to which his reply was " three and a half actually" At that point the completely stressed hotel director appeared. I then asked him why this was happening to which he replied that he was too busy to discuss the matter and promptly fled. He was responsible for the lack of organisation and for not arranging things better with the immigration people.

 

After a 2 hour wait I finally got to the front, there were only 3 immigration officers actually there at that point but there had been a fourth.

 

The officer that checked my passport was the senior one and I said to him that NCL were blaming Immigration and asked for his view. He told me that he had 12 officers ready to meet the ship at 8am but after he was informed that the arrival was delayed he had to re-deploy his limited resources elsewhere as there were other ships in port.

 

The hotel director in my opinion completely bottled it. The liaison with immigration was VERY poor. Crew members all seem to have been told to blame immigration which as already mentioned was not true.

 

So there you have it.

A poor choice of port at Brest, a complete lack of proper research. At least NCL recognised this and gave each guest $100 OBC.

 

A complete farce regarding immigration. Do the maths. Four officers to check almost 4000 passengers was going to take several hours.

 

Many of the earlier posts may not have explained all the facts as well as others, but some of the replies seem oblivious as to where the blame lay.

 

Make no mistake the blame for Brest and immigration rest with NCL.

The weather and missed ports, well weather is weather.

[mugtech]

Note to self, avoid Brest. Does not sound right.

[Minoushka]

Please note Zeebrugges is notorious for very rough waves and weather ..It is in the North Sea which on a sunny day is rocking and rolling so probably on a gloomy day horrendous with huge swells and waves ...not a place I recommend to go to ...not surprising you had crappy weather ...here it is the rule not exception

[Blondie008]

We too were on the Getaway transatlantic.

There is more to the crazy events than has been mentioned so far.

We could not get in to Ponta because of strong winds and there is no blame attached to NCL for that.

Instead of sailing to Brest in three days we chugged along much slower to arrive on the Thursday.

I had mentioned to friends that I had never seen a cruise itinerary that included Brest and indeed I was told that we were the first cruise ship to call there.

 

This begs the question as to why this commercial port was selected.

 

Did the NCL ops people do there homework properly given that it was a tidal port and that on that day the second ramp could not be used for most of the day as deck 4 was BELOW the level of the jetty.

 

The one remaining ramp was very steep, it was raining and getting off the ship was therefore very slow.

 

There were many elderly people that unfortunately were slow and needed assistance from the 10 or more crew members who were doing a great job helping people to get down the ramp.

 

This sowed down the whole process and as others have said the queue to get off stretched all along deck 7 and down to deck 6.

 

For those returning to the ship it was even worse. Many people needed assistance to get up the steep ramp, some needing three crew members to help.. People in wheel chairs had to be lifted up the ramp and their wheelchairs carried separately.

 

The ramp had a sign saying max 20 persons and this was completely dis-regarded. The port director spent most of his time sitting in a small portacabin oblivious the what was going on.

 

We were due to depart after 3.30pm. The second ramp was brought into use at 2.50 but even then the loval handyman had to go and get woon to make a ramp for wheelchairs.

 

All in all most people had to queue for 1hour 40 minutes to return to the ship.

 

It is possible that NCL were mis-led by the port authority but they certainly did not appear to have carried out their own checks.

 

I don't know how the azipod was damaged but were were told that arrival at Southampton would be delayed until mid day (from 8am).

 

Given that NCL had FOUR days to organise immigration at Southampton what ensued showed that they were totally out of their depth.

 

The immigration process did not commence till around 2pm and details of the queues and the time taken have been accurately described in earlier posts .

 

I joined the queue at about 3pm. I was asking a female crew member how long it would take and she could only shrug her shoulders. There was an officer nearby and I said "you have 3 stripes on your shoulder how do you explain this fiasco" to which his reply was " three and a half actually" At that point the completely stressed hotel director appeared. I then asked him why this was happening to which he replied that he was too busy to discuss the matter and promptly fled. He was responsible for the lack of organisation and for not arranging things better with the immigration people.

 

After a 2 hour wait I finally got to the front, there were only 3 immigration officers actually there at that point but there had been a fourth.

 

The officer that checked my passport was the senior one and I said to him that NCL were blaming Immigration and asked for his view. He told me that he had 12 officers ready to meet the ship at 8am but after he was informed that the arrival was delayed he had to re-deploy his limited resources elsewhere as there were other ships in port.

 

The hotel director in my opinion completely bottled it. The liaison with immigration was VERY poor. Crew members all seem to have been told to blame immigration which as already mentioned was not true.

 

So there you have it.

A poor choice of port at Brest, a complete lack of proper research. At least NCL recognised this and gave each guest $100 OBC.

 

A complete farce regarding immigration. Do the maths. Four officers to check almost 4000 passengers was going to take several hours.

 

Many of the earlier posts may not have explained all the facts as well as others, but some of the replies seem oblivious as to where the blame lay.

 

Make no mistake the blame for Brest and immigration rest with NCL.

The weather and missed ports, well weather is weather.

 

 

HALLELUJAH!!!!!

 

I can understand why NCL cheerleaders are giving us a hard time - but its difficult for those who were there, to actually get across, without sounding whiney, just how ridiculous it all was.

I personally have a further three cruises booked - I loved Getaway - but NCL are going to have to hold their hands up to we 3800+ for this -

The Hotel Director bottled it ;p - sums it up hahaha!!

And the "Three stripes" comment - Honestly - if the officers had been even half as good as the actual staff on board it would have been sorted to perfection! The staff on board (ie waiting staff, bars, housekeeping etc etc) are all tip top!

 

Three and a half stripes - Bwhahahahahahahahahahaa

 

I have yet to comprise my letter of complaint - I need a whole day in order to put together all my facts and figures. I wrote down every time I called guest services, and to whom I spoke. I wrote down their comments - and their lack of response.

 

 

Thanks for your invaluable input.

 

I was amongst that crazy line returning in Brest when people were coming and going on the wet ramp at the same time - it was during this they erected the gazebos at the port side. Before that everyone was just getting soaked to the skin -

 

My heart honest to God, was in my mouth trying to keep safe, keep others safe - and for those who had mobility issues - oh my goodness - As I said before - the issues at Brest must have broken every health and saftey regulation ever made!

Oh and BTW - Brest was a waste of time - peein doon rain and not much to see or do - Certainly wasnt worth risking life or limb for :')

[Blondie008]

I was also on this ship. I know the weather causes issues and that NCL has no control over it. No problem. I know the crew was as disappointed as us to miss the Azores. But, for Brest and Southampton the lack of organization and officer presence was my biggest issue.

 

In Brest we were in line for almost two hours before giving up. The line was on both deck 6 and 7. There were no officers in sight leaving just crew members who had no answers to deal with annoyed and angry passengers who had been waiting for a long time. By the time we would have made it down the treacherous, overloaded gangway and onto the bus it would have given us an hour in town. It simply wasn't worth the trouble only to come back and wait another hour and a half in the rain to board. And the 20 person max was indeed being ignored as another poster states. It was scary and many were on deck 8 watching people attempt to get back on having issues. The line wrapped around the front of the ship. It was terrible.

 

So yeah, I'm glad that we didn't get off. Our friends that did had horrible excursions and came back to the above mess.

 

And yes, NCL is not at fault for the UK immigration mess but they are at fault for the lack of presence of officers and line organization a second time. My friends who had excursions had 45 minutes in London before being forced to head back. They were issued refunds but would much rather have skipped the trip and gone pub hopping with our group.

 

Rotterdam overnight was a good consolation prize. I enjoyed it. I can't complain much other than being disappointed about missing Zeebrugge.

 

Disembarkation was smooth. Not much to say there other than hearing some were being given a hard time days later about not having a passport stamp for entering the country when flying out of Copenhagen. But I enjoyed myself because of my friends, the udp, and the ubp. But little things like the awful DJ who didn't know how to play any different music, my mediocre steward, and the jutter throughout the trip from one of the engines was annoying.

 

First pic must have been taken really early on huh? The latter pic must have been after we got back on, the gazebos were only being erected after we returned - and it looks like someone at some point must have got a grip on the two way traffic on the gangway. What the pics dont really portray is when there were 50+ people on at the same time - the wind howling, the ramp bouncing, the rain bucketing down - and just mass madness -

My husband jokingly calls Brest "The Left T*T of France" - (get it - breast?) - He's not far wrong :')

[Proopkitty]

Sure, why not, for me personally - but I am not that selfish that I would wish the +3000 people who wanted to visit London denial of that opportunity - although I doubt any of them actually made their tours anyway....

 

Rotterdam had a 24 hour stop - perhaps could have organised immigration there.

Is the UK the only European country to offer customs services???

But hey - I was told the next day at guest services we are no longer in the EU

what absolute nonsense...

 

Isn't that what Brexit was all about? The UK voted to leave the EU. I guess this is one of the effects of that.

[karoo]

Isn't that what Brexit was all about? The UK voted to leave the EU. I guess this is one of the effects of that.

 

 

I'm not from the U.K., but I do know they haven't exited yet!

Didn't realize there are people out there who don't know this!

 

 

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[hawkeyetlse]

Note to self, avoid Brest. Does not sound right.

Doesn't look right, either (thank you for the photos, ja2nowak). I have no idea what NCL and the port of Brest were thinking. OK, the port of Brest was thinking $$$, fair enough I guess, but come on, NCL! I do recall some ports with a single gangway (but not that long and steep and exposed), but only on the smaller ships, not for 4000 passengers!

 

Given that NCL had FOUR days to organise immigration at Southampton what ensued showed that they were totally out of their depth. […] The hotel director in my opinion completely bottled it. The liaison with immigration was VERY poor.

The Hotel Director had four days to think about ways to manage the lines on board, and again, I am interested to people's suggestions about that in hindsight. The major complaint seems to be that the officers were not there so that passengers could express their frustration at them. I don't know how constructive that would have been, in any case it would not have made the line move faster.

 

The line can only move faster if there are more immigration agents processing the passengers. I don't know who is responsible for that, but I doubt that it's the ship's Hotel Director. If there truly were 12 agents waiting for the ship at 8am, then there was a miscommunication at some level, but the ship did not have FOUR days to coordinate this with Southampton. The delayed arrival was apparently caused by the "explosion" which only happened the evening before. I honestly don't know what the procedure is when port times have to be adjusted at the last minute. Does the Captain contact the port, does the port contact UK Border Force, or is the Hotel Director supposed to get on the phone and take care of all of this :rolleyes:?

 

Let me be clear, I am not blaming Border Force. Even if they were informed the night before about the delay, it may have been too late to make more agents available that afternoon. And the delay is ultimately NCL's fault, since it's their stupid azipod. It's just hard for me to identify any specific bad decision on NCL's part here, or what NCL should have done differently to avoid what passengers had to go through in Southampton.

[dd likes to cruise]

I feel everyone's pain, but a pet peave of mine is that you all feel the need to ask every officer, staff, and even imigration officials questions, the same questions everyone else asks. Can't think that help the speed of anything!

 

I can imagine at guest services the same thing. And people wonder why they are not smiling and happy all the time.

[karoo]

In response to the above post:

Maybe because there were a lot of mix ups with communication, security thought one thing, announcements said something else and the Freestyle Daily said another thing. E.g. In Brest an announcement was made just after 8 that the ship was cleared and we could debark. Freestyle Daily said the shuttle to city Centre departed at 9.30, but there would be a courtesy shuttle provided by the port that would take us to the port gate. That was my choice! (Even though they lied and over exaggerated the walking distance). I went to debark only to be told by a security officer - no only ship excursions are allowed off and you won't be allowed off until after 9. He told me I had to wait in the atrium which by this stage was overcrowded with no room to sit, I told him I would go back upstairs which he wasn't happy about. He also commented -'I don't know why you are all here so early'. I'm thinking - had I have known I would have set the alarm an hour later and I wouldn't be here so early.

Another incident - I booked the shuttle to the airport, my letter clearly stated I was to debark at 8am via gangway etc when Grey 1 was called and proceed left to shuttle to airport bus 1. As I went to debark I was told I had to go to Tropicana ( nowhere in my letter was this stated). So I then had to go to Tropicana where once there, straight away I was told to go to the gangway and debark???? Fine for me I can easily walk, but for many of the not very mobile passengers, this caused them stress as they now had to walk further and took them quite sometime to get to the bus. Just two examples. I could write a whole page as to why I think the OP got the title right. And no I didn't go to guest services as to do so meant standing in long lines which is what this cruise seemed to be all about. Standing in long lines and constantly waiting for everything and the ship wasn't even full. People would turn up to trivia 45 minutes beforehand just to get a seat. Other things if you didn't line up early you missed out. I missed out as I couldn't be bothered standing and waiting, not used to it and it makes me feel lightheaded. I have done 4 cruises on the Star this year, 4 on the Sun last year and another 3 on the Jade last year where you could get into everything late, early whatever and nothing seemed crowded. Staff also treated you exceptionally well and made you feel really special, asking questions, engaging you in conversation etc. Whereas I felt on the Getaway they just did their job, didn't go above or beyond as there wasn't enough staff and they were always rushed. My cabin steward was great as were the others in my hallway- always chatting, saying good morning. I also loved Jeff and Jose from the entertainment staff and every class they took that I attended. Many of the staff I felt just didn't give the same level of friendliness and service I have been used to getting. Cagneys staff were great though. I was disappointed with the port misses and changes as I was looking forward to the Azores, Bruge and stepping foot on UK soil for the first time ever ( have travelled extensively through France and the Netherlands), but I accepted the changes very quickly as I realized you can't change weather or mechanical problems. I learnt to go back to my cabin and patiently wait. My problem was more with the overall ship experience. A long list of things that in isolation seem not that major, but put together for me 'made it my worst cruise ever.' I hope I will still be thinking this in the years ahead as I'm hoping to experience cruises in the future just like the 34 with NCL that proceeded this cruise. So I have learnt that I will stick to the smaller ships and probably only cruise on a mega ship that is very port intensive. I've PS - petty I know, but all that dark brown carpet and dark brown wood were depressing. And matched with the magenta carpet on the stairways- Ugh! Light colors definitely make me feel happier.

[bmwman]

Visit London from Southampton - forget it its 70 miles away.

 

With the M3 closed and various other matters you would be lucky to see the outskirts.

 

Also let me tell you I drove today a Saturday Southampton to London and I know the cuts 3 hours!!!!

[Blondie008]

Isn't that what Brexit was all about? The UK voted to leave the EU. I guess this is one of the effects of that.

 

 

AND THIS is when CC really needs a facepalm emoji!

 

READ the real news - keep up with global issues - If you are going to voice an opinion please make it an informed one!

[Nelsj099]

I can completely understand that people had planned for a different trip than what happened, but such is life. I talked to one of my friends who happens to work on the Getaway after reading this thread. He said no one's goal is ever to ruin your vacation, and the Captain didn't want to cancel any ports, or for the ship to have any problems. I feel bad for cruise staff, I am sure all of the travelers were a lovely bunch of people, but would you have wanted to be one of the crew members on this ship. I wouldn't not for anything, I can only imagine what people were like on this ship. I am glad that you all made it safely to your final destination, and you all have quite the epic adventure to tell people about. It's kind of like when I broke my ankle in a part of China that doesn't believe in casts and when I finally saw a western doctor he told me if I was three weeks later we would be talking about cutting my foot off. Adventure is the spice of life.

[SteveH2508]

Isn't that what Brexit was all about? The UK voted to leave the EU. I guess this is one of the effects of that.

 

FYI

 

Much of Europe (but not UK) is party to the Schengen agreement. This means that, once you are cleared into the Schengen zone, you can move around it freely. Entry to the UK is a whole separate thing as we (UK) are not part of Schengen.

 

Post Brexit - who knows? (though I suspect not a lot will change in that respect).

[hamrag]

Isn't that what Brexit was all about? The UK voted to leave the EU. I guess this is one of the effects of that.

 

:rolleyes:

[Blondie008]

Visit London from Southampton - forget it its 70 miles away.

 

With the M3 closed and various other matters you would be lucky to see the outskirts.

 

Also let me tell you I drove today a Saturday Southampton to London and I know the cuts 3 hours!!!!

 

 

I agree with you - however NCL continued to sell people numerous excursions - right up until the last - And others - made arrangements by train etc. London was their highlight - and for some a dream.

I met one poor man who hadn't seen his friend in 40 years - they had planned a re-union to detail - it didn't happen -

There were stories after stories after stories of people who had just no chance.

There were those who went ahead on their excursion - and all they saw was the traffic and a drive across London as everything was closed by the time they got there.

THEY didn't get full refunds....

It was hard on the ship that night to get away from any of the nightmare chat.

We personally would have been 100% fine if only someone had given us a reasonable time so that we could leave the queue - and return at an appropriate time. We were told to stay in line - And you know that way where you cannot see the end of the line, and you think "oh maybe they are bringing extra staff on board" - "will we stay, do we go" - Then you reach the point of "no return"....

Waste of a day - (to add to the other wasted days).

 

On a positive note we did meet a lovely bunch of Aussies in the line, whom we joked with along the way. These were the moments which helped us hold on to our sanity.

I know for a fact, they did not make their trip -

Most of the London and surrounding area tours were allowing around 3-4 hours spending time actually AT the tour - and on top of that - around 4-5 hours travel total.

But to put people on a bus, after all that queuing - fully knowing that by the time they got there the attractions would be closed - was beyond ridiculous!

[Blondie008]

Doesn't look right, either (thank you for the photos, ja2nowak). I have no idea what NCL and the port of Brest were thinking. OK, the port of Brest was thinking $$$, fair enough I guess, but come on, NCL! I do recall some ports with a single gangway (but not that long and steep and exposed), but only on the smaller ships, not for 4000 passengers!

 

 

The Hotel Director had four days to think about ways to manage the lines on board, and again, I am interested to people's suggestions about that in hindsight. The major complaint seems to be that the officers were not there so that passengers could express their frustration at them. I don't know how constructive that would have been, in any case it would not have made the line move faster.

 

The line can only move faster if there are more immigration agents processing the passengers. I don't know who is responsible for that, but I doubt that it's the ship's Hotel Director. If there truly were 12 agents waiting for the ship at 8am, then there was a miscommunication at some level, but the ship did not have FOUR days to coordinate this with Southampton. The delayed arrival was apparently caused by the "explosion" which only happened the evening before. I honestly don't know what the procedure is when port times have to be adjusted at the last minute. Does the Captain contact the port, does the port contact UK Border Force, or is the Hotel Director supposed to get on the phone and take care of all of this :rolleyes:?

 

Let me be clear, I am not blaming Border Force. Even if they were informed the night before about the delay, it may have been too late to make more agents available that afternoon. And the delay is ultimately NCL's fault, since it's their stupid azipod. It's just hard for me to identify any specific bad decision on NCL's part here, or what NCL should have done differently to avoid what passengers had to go through in Southampton.

 

 

What would have helped - was complete honesty -

And officer presence in riotous situations. Or even security for goodness sake.

IF they had given crystal clear instructions the night before on times for each deck to be at the Tropicana - it would have gone a long way to help.

They didn't.

Many were confused as the note put out was the note which was given out for the supposedly stop in the azores.

They then made announcements the next day saying "ignore the note"

Oh its difficult to explain but the final outcome was - that the night before Southampton there was no revised crystal clear instructions given to guests.

Throw that on top of mass crowd control all on deck 7

And no one there for example to say "okay, you are looking at 3 hours - 2 hours, 40 minutes blah blah - just BE HONEST!

For those not getting off the ship - a simple instruction to say "look - to even clear this line is going to take 4 hours, why don't you take yourself off to the spa and come back at blah blah"

The SPA thermal suites have no announcement tannoy.

We had no clue how long we were going to wait -

The lack of officer presence was abysmal. Control of the decks would have been a help.

If each group came into the line as they were told over the tannoy (but not the night before because they kept moving the goal posts) - then there might have been less frustration and certainly less people being assaulted and trod upon.

The officers totally body swerved the whole situation and in my book - Management who hide away - should be ashamed.

So what if they had to take some flack -

They are trained to handle it - or they should be.

We had a notice put on our beds the night before, the night before or was it the night before that? , Southampton. I actually had an early alarm call set - and had room service breakfast ordered early as I read from this notice that we had to go do immigration the next day.

We got up - and I re read the note - only to discover it was the exact same piece of paper that had been put through our doors the days before the Azores.

I called guest services (having had my early rise) - to check

"oh sorry Mrs X" "there has been some confusion - no, you don't need to do immigration today"...

It was THIS kind of sheer disorganisation that made the whole thing go belly up after belly up

One long pile of falling dominoes...............

They needed to re organise - send out proper instructions - and ensure that these were adhered to.

We have done immigration on board in St Thomas many many times. And often there can be just a few immigration officers - But you are given your allocated time to appear in X place - and you go as instructed. Sure there is a line - but you organise your day around that - and you take your place in your allocated line - as advised.

 

THIS was just a free for all "every man for himself" scenario gone horribly wrong!

You asked what constructive thing could have been done? Another note put in rooms the night before Southampton - giving crystal clear instructions - THAT might just have helped a little! There was NO NOTE - the only note put out was that confusing one on the wrong night repeating the instructions for the Azores....

 

Oh honestly - this is as tiring as the line itself....

[bmwman]

I agree with you - however NCL continued to sell people numerous excursions - right up until the last - And others - made arrangements by train etc. London was their highlight - and for some a dream.

I met one poor man who hadn't seen his friend in 40 years - they had planned a re-union to detail - it didn't happen -

There were stories after stories after stories of people who had just no chance.

There were those who went ahead on their excursion - and all they saw was the traffic and a drive across London as everything was closed by the time they got there.

THEY didn't get full refunds....

It was hard on the ship that night to get away from any of the nightmare chat.

We personally would have been 100% fine if only someone had given us a reasonable time so that we could leave the queue - and return at an appropriate time. We were told to stay in line - And you know that way where you cannot see the end of the line, and you think "oh maybe they are bringing extra staff on board" - "will we stay, do we go" - Then you reach the point of "no return"....

Waste of a day - (to add to the other wasted days).

 

On a positive note we did meet a lovely bunch of Aussies in the line, whom we joked with along the way. These were the moments which helped us hold on to our sanity.

I know for a fact, they did not make their trip -

Most of the London and surrounding area tours were allowing around 3-4 hours spending time actually AT the tour - and on top of that - around 4-5 hours travel total.

But to put people on a bus, after all that queuing - fully knowing that by the time they got there the attractions would be closed - was beyond ridiculous!

 

This is a great post the key point is the coach companies and NCL would have known about the traffic and delays. The train is not ideal it is a slowish route by UK standards about 1.5 hours i think to London and thanks to South west Trains (just lost Franchise!) one of the most expensive.

 

Living and working in London I can not say I understand the dream but do of course appreciate people want to see our city.

 

The upshot and I like NCL, is that they got greedy with Brest, and inexperience of dealing with UK ports and our wonderful customs and border force caught them out.

 

Had the HD ever been to the UK before and who was it. You can guarantee he has taken some serious flack internally.