Carnival Glory Fire

[chengkp75]

I agree with this post.

Since you are most likely a fire fighter, firfightergreg, I’m sure this is why you didn’t panic. I would have been freaking out! The last thing I would have thought about was to use the bathroom, but what a practical necessary thing to do.

I wonder where that smoke smell was coming from?

 

But, if there was no power, the vacuum system would not have been working (there may have been some residual vacuum for a few flushes around the ship), and you would have left a stinker in the bowl. If you had pushed the button and nothing happened, once the power came back on and vacuum was restored, the toilet would have "ghost" flushed.

 

The smoke smell could have come from the ship stopping, with a following wind, and the exhaust fumes coming down and getting into the AC intakes.

Edited June 4, 2018 by chengkp75

[Ziggy7]

Wow! I was on her in Jan and all was well :)

[spleenstomper]

Is there a bathroom on the lifeboats? I assumed the bathroom use was in anticipation of muster.

[chengkp75]

Is there a bathroom on the lifeboats? I assumed the bathroom use was in anticipation of muster.

 

Yes, there is. It's that big blue expanse of water outside the boat. The large, 364 person lifeboats on the Oasis class ships (and perhaps any others of similar size) have a toilet, but no bathroom.

[firfightergreg]

Was there a fire that you know of or just speculation?

 

 

Captain confirmed fire. However I do not know the size of it. After that, he said we are all safe. No further updates have been made. I've asked around a few people and no one knows

[chengkp75]

Captain confirmed fire. However I do not know the size of it. After that, he said we are all safe. No further updates have been made. I've asked around a few people and no one knows

 

I think in the aftermath of the Splendor and Triumph fires, that Carnival is a bit too quick to pull the CO2 fire extinguishing system (which was reported to have issues in operating on both fires), which will cause all of the diesel engines to stop. I know the ships have a water mist suppression system, which works incredibly well, and does not affect running equipment, even electric motors, and which allows the fire teams to enter the space earlier to determine the seat of the fire. I think Carnival has gone gun shy on engine room fires, leading to more blackouts than required. The power going on and off, to me, is an indicator of them trying to restart power without properly ventilating the engine room to remove the CO2 first.

[BlerkOne]

Carnival added auxiliary generators to their ships that are supposed to be sufficient to run essential hotel services including toilets, but I don't think they are set up to automatically start.

[Cushing985]

OK you mention smoke and fire, but no follow up? What was the problem, you must have heard more about it by now.

 

Yeah...I dare he enjoy the rest of the cruise and not keep you informed of a fire emergency that is over and done with.

[chengkp75]

Carnival added auxiliary generators to their ships that are supposed to be sufficient to run essential hotel services including toilets, but I don't think they are set up to automatically start.

 

Do they still have the "CAT in a box" generator in a shipping container up on deck? I haven't followed closely, but that was supposed to be a stop-gap measure until a permanent generator was installed, but I was always curious where they were going to carve out enough space for a new generator and switchboard for these "essential hotel services". Then they went and relocated the main generator cabling outside the engine rooms to prevent a fire in one engine room taking out all power from both engine rooms (as happened in the Splendor and Triumph fires), and I'm sort of believing they decided this was good enough to create redundancy, and they've quietly forgotten about the "additional generators".

[BlerkOne]

Do they still have the "CAT in a box" generator in a shipping container up on deck?

 

Yes. I believe it is a temporary permanent solution and new builds were to incorporate a different solution.

[Micahs Grandad]

Captain confirmed fire. However I do not know the size of it. After that, he said we are all safe. No further updates have been made. I've asked around a few people and no one knows

 

I would hope that he would he would have some sort of Q and A to explain what happened.

[chengkp75]

Yes. I believe it is a temporary permanent solution and new builds were to incorporate a different solution.

 

As it is a "temporary installation", I'm not sure how long class will allow those things to still be used. They may get away with it, but the lease on the generators is a killer, for essentially a lump of iron that doesn't do anything 99.9% of the time.

[Organized Chaos]

We'll be boarding Glory on Saturday. Here's to hoping they'll get the problem straightened out. I've read several accounts in the past few months of the cabins being on the warm side on Glory. It'd suck to lose A/C completely. Oh and yeah, the possibility of our toilet not flushing...that's pretty bad too. ;p

[tidecat]

Carnival added auxiliary generators to their ships that are supposed to be sufficient to run essential hotel services including toilets, but I don't think they are set up to automatically start.

 

 

I would suspect it would take around a minute or two for those to kick on - if a typical household or office generator takes that long, it would be reasonable to expect a generator that has to deliver several megawatts of power to need a moment to get running.

 

It could have also been that one of the other engines had to start to get the hotel running again. Ultimately the engines only produce power, and it doesn’t matter if it’s used for navigation or hotel services.

 

 

Sent from my eye phone using a three legged yak FFS

[chengkp75]

I would suspect it would take around a minute or two for those to kick on - if a typical household or office generator takes that long, it would be reasonable to expect a generator that has to deliver several megawatts of power to need a moment to get running.

 

It could have also been that one of the other engines had to start to get the hotel running again. Ultimately the engines only produce power, and it doesn’t matter if it’s used for navigation or hotel services.

 

 

Sent from my eye phone using a three legged yak FFS

 

A ship's emergency generator, even a 2Mw one like on a cruise ship, is designed to start, come up to speed, and close the breaker within 45 seconds. The "CAT in the box" is a 3-4Mw generator, but the problem is that the switchboards are not set up to auto transfer power to these newly designated "essential" loads, from their normal power feed. I believe those "external" generators are set up with manual transfer switches, and then the crew selects the loads to energize.

 

But yes, in order to get the entire hotel services operating, you would need one of the main generator.

[flyingandcruising]

Good idea saying use bathroom and get dressed. Would have been HOT losing AC!!

 

Must have been interesting since you are apparently a firefighter...

 

My SIL is on this cruise, and they don't have AC since the fire (perhaps coincidence), supposedly other cabins don't have AC either.

[bury me at sea]

My SIL is on this cruise, and they don't have AC since the fire (perhaps coincidence), supposedly other cabins don't have AC either.

 

Ouch! That could be very uncomfortable. Let us know if she has anything else to report.

[richfret]

So I browse most sub forums on cruise critic, at least the mainstream ones. Why does it seem like fires, powerloss ave propulsion issues seem to happen to Carnival more often? Because it’s reported more here or because it does happen to them more often?

 

I was in the Navy for a couple of years on a Cruiser. It was not unusual for the alarm to go off every once in awhile for fires and other circumstances. It's because you are living in a giant steel box and you take action accordingly. Given the miles cruised and the number of passengers transported, Carnival ships do well. It's no different than standing on your main street. By the end of the day, you will have heard sirens and seen a fire truck heading to a fire. It's the same at sea although it gets more attention on a cruise. There's limited space to go to so you want to act quickly.

[Micahs Grandad]

Wondering if they plan to tell passengers what happened and when things will be back to normal

[BoDidly]

Wondering if they plan to tell passengers what happened and when things will be back to normal

Most of that is Carnivals privileged information. The less the passengers know becomes a plus for Carnival.

[cruziJenn]

I was in the Navy for a couple of years on a Cruiser. It was not unusual for the alarm to go off every once in awhile for fires and other circumstances. It's because you are living in a giant steel box and you take action accordingly. Given the miles cruised and the number of passengers transported, Carnival ships do well. It's no different than standing on your main street. By the end of the day, you will have heard sirens and seen a fire truck heading to a fire. It's the same at sea although it gets more attention on a cruise. There's limited space to go to so you want to act quickly.

 

Thank you for that, it's very true. Reminds me of how many times in a month that we may see or hear fire vehicles in the close area around us. It is not really the same as having it happen on a ship that you can't escape from except under extraordinary measures but it does happen a lot and any fire can spread and get out of control and endanger lives.

 

As for Carnival compared to other cruise lines I do remember that a few years ago there was a fire on one of the newer Royal ships and someone posted pics of that, 2 or 3 different places online. But it seems that it was quickly forgotten about and I don't even remember which ship it was now. I do remember the Triumph fire really well and then another one, Splendor like someone here said? But yes it happens and hopefully no one is hurt or endangered and then we sail on :)

[Micahs Grandad]

Most of that is Carnivals privileged information. The less the passengers know becomes a plus for Carnival.

 

I would be rather annoyed if we were without A/C and capt didnt want to be bothered giving us info.

 

Some years ago we were on an RCCL cruise and ship was struck by lightning and all kinds of bells and alarms went off.

 

Next day capt came to main lounge to explain exactly what happened.

[Gamecock_Cruiser]

We'll be boarding Glory on Saturday. Here's to hoping they'll get the problem straightened out. I've read several accounts in the past few months of the cabins being on the warm side on Glory. It'd suck to lose A/C completely. Oh and yeah, the possibility of our toilet not flushing...that's pretty bad too. ;p

 

Just an FYI, we cruise on the glory last May, and our cabin stayed nice and toasty the entire time.

[BlerkOne]

A ship's emergency generator, even a 2Mw one like on a cruise ship, is designed to start, come up to speed, and close the breaker within 45 seconds. The "CAT in the box" is a 3-4Mw generator, but the problem is that the switchboards are not set up to auto transfer power to these newly designated "essential" loads, from their normal power feed. I believe those "external" generators are set up with manual transfer switches, and then the crew selects the loads to energize.

 

But yes, in order to get the entire hotel services operating, you would need one of the main generator.

 

I don't think there is anything automatic about them and manual intervention is required.

[Organized Chaos]

My SIL is on this cruise, and they don't have AC since the fire (perhaps coincidence), supposedly other cabins don't have AC either.

Sure hope they get this fixed by the time we leave Saturday. I can't sleep when it's hot. I'm not the type of person who looks to get something free when there's an issue, but frankly, we didn't pay good money to stay in a sweat box. As I said before, I've heard plenty of complaints that Glory's cabins have been warm lately, but without A/C at all, it'll be miserable. I'll have a fan, but they don't do much good when pushing warm air around.