Ashes at Sea Experiences

[Kudos2Fly]

I have read on Carnival how they handle doing a Burial at Sea. This would be for my parents. We may do a "burial at sea" with their ashes once they pass away. My dad was a Merchant Marine Captain. Worked on tug boats for close to 45 years. My question is for any that has been involved in doing this, how did Carnival handle it? I know what they say on the website. I'm wondering about real experiences.

[maintain242001]

Did it this past week on a carnival cruise. First off make sure you have every documentation that is required with you.....death certificates cremation records, etc, etc.  Have the ashes in the appropriate vessel. When you board go to guest services with your documents and they will set you up. It's only done on sea days anymore as I understood it. You'll agree on a time and we got a letter in our cabin the next day confirming the details so check them over and call/stop in and let them know it all looks good. Day of we met at guest services and security and a gentleman in a white shirt took our group down into parts of the ship the mooring lines are kept/go in and out of. They were doing some maintenance down there but they stopped and left. Another individual met us there and took us to the side of the boat, opened up what I'll call an opening with grates over it up on a ledge that could hold four people or so and it was done. Nice, respectful, well done event. The next day we got a nice signed letter from the captain in a book that had all the important information like date/time/latitude/longitude.  Pretty easy to setup and nice follow through by Carnival.

Edited December 15, 2023 by maintain242001

[Haljo1935]

When we did it, we contacted Carnival first with the dates of the cruise and the ship. They had someone contact us to go over the process and tell us the requirements. They also sent us an email outlining the process and requirements (basically a checklist of what was covered in the call) as well as the ship contact person.

Once onboard, we contacted that person and they took it from there.

Very tastefully done.

[Kudos2Fly]

Thank you for the responses. I'll talk to my sister about this. My parents are pretty much leaving it up to my sister and I to do decide what to do.  This one seems appropriate for my parents.