Power strips

[ninjatoes]

On 1/5/2019 at 3:15 PM, chengkp75 said:

If you are looking for USB ports only, then a "pure" multi-USB hub is your best bet.  Nearly all of these have a two prong plug, which precludes them being surge protected, and most cruise lines, even RCI which bans all extension cords, will allow these "pure" USB hubs.

 

I brought this one with me and nobody questioned it. Worked perfectly for my purposes. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M0NURK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, ninjatoes said:

 

I brought this one with me and nobody questioned it. Worked perfectly for my purposes. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M0NURK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Well, yeah, that is already a 5 volt power source, but it assumes you have a USB power source like a laptop.  Being low voltage, there are really no worries about safety for this device.

[azdrydock]

Hate to burst some bubbles but most cruise lines including HAL prohibit any power strip being brought aboard. 

from HAL docs "only Holland America Line provided power bars are to be used. Please contact Guest Services for
more information"

The discussion about acceptable types of power strips derive from general maritime practices and is based on them being professionally maintained and inspected.  This is a liability issue and technically no one from HAL is capable of determining if your specific power strip is safe at time of boarding so the no power strip rule makes sense.

You will not win any arguments if your power strip is confiscated.

That being said, last year on the Princendam I passed the guest services and a passenger was irate bout his brand new confiscated power strip and about 50 feet away the photographers were setting up for formal pictures with daisy chained power strips and extension cords that looked like the ones I threw out.

Not saying I bring a short power strip onboard, but if I did I disconnect it when not in the cabin. Probably 10 different cruise lines and lots of trips and never an issue

 

[chengkp75]

10 hours ago, azdrydock said:

Hate to burst some bubbles but most cruise lines including HAL prohibit any power strip being brought aboard. 

from HAL docs "only Holland America Line provided power bars are to be used. Please contact Guest Services for
more information"

The discussion about acceptable types of power strips derive from general maritime practices and is based on them being professionally maintained and inspected.  This is a liability issue and technically no one from HAL is capable of determining if your specific power strip is safe at time of boarding so the no power strip rule makes sense.

You will not win any arguments if your power strip is confiscated.

That being said, last year on the Princendam I passed the guest services and a passenger was irate bout his brand new confiscated power strip and about 50 feet away the photographers were setting up for formal pictures with daisy chained power strips and extension cords that looked like the ones I threw out.

Not saying I bring a short power strip onboard, but if I did I disconnect it when not in the cabin. Probably 10 different cruise lines and lots of trips and never an issue

 

The only two lines that I know of that prohibit any power strip are HAL and RCI.  Several others are quite fine with allowing power strips onboard.  As for "no one from HAL is capable of determining if your power strip is safe at time of boarding" is quite incorrect.  Any marine engineer, or electrician, of which there are several onboard any HAL ship, can determine if a power strip is surge protected pretty much just by looking at it.  As for disconnecting your power strip when not in the cabin, while that makes detection more difficult, it does not make the use of a surge protected power strip any safer.  No consumer power strip with surge protection, no matter whether professionally maintained or inspected, is safe to use onboard a ship.  This is because a perfectly fine surge protector, right out of the packaging, can fail at any time, not due to any fault in the surge protector, but due to a ground fault from another piece of equipment anywhere on the ship, no matter how far from your cabin and the power strip.

 

There really is no issue with power strips, per se.  The issue is with surge protection, and the cruise line doesn't want to rely on non-technical security to determine whether a power strip is surge protected or not, or have to station an engineer there to make those determinations, so some will just ban all power strips.