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Pride Of America Buoy Disaster


brian t. allen

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I Can't Believe We Are Not Seeing Hundreds Of Postings From People On The Pride Of America Cruise Of 10/14-10/21. Here Is Briefly What I Understand Happened. We Struck At Least One Buoy Leaving Honolulu Harbor, Dragged It To Maui Where They Discovered It Was Still Wrapped Around Our Starboard Propeller Or Azipod. I Guess They Were Hoping It Would Fall Off Enroute. I Find It Hard To Believe One Of The Hundreds Of Instruments On The Bridge Did Not Detect 4000lbs. Being Dragged Underwater By The Ship. Anyhow We Got To Maui In Time For The Earthquake And Then A Day Of Torrential Rain. And Just Before We Were To Sail To Kona They Told Us There Was A Problem. After A Day Of False Starts And False Hopes We Remained Overnight And Were Told We Would Have A Fun Day At Sea The Next Day And Hit Our Third Port Of Kauai'a On Time. Sailing With One Engine Made That Difficult, But Kauai'a Was The Bright Spot Of Our Cruise. We Then Got To Honolulu Late Enough To Cancel Or Shorten All The Post Cruise Excursions. Luckily I Did Get To Pearl Harbor If Not Honolulu. After All Was Said And Done And Two Meeting Were Held By The Passengers, It Was Decided To Decline The $100 Rebate Offered By The Ship(from The Money They Made Selling Booze The Two Extra Days We Were Forced To Stay Aboard, And The Port Charges They Did Not Have To Pay For Two Days In Kona). Now It Is Up To Us To Send Ncl Registered Letters Individually Explaining To Them Why We Were Unhappy With The Cruise. All I Can Say Is Never Sail On A Ship Whose Captains Name Is Buzz. And Ncl To Me Is Never Again Cruise Line!!!!!!!!!!!

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And Ncl To Me Is Never Again Cruise Line!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to be redundant, but since this is a new thread, I feel compelled to repeat: the Pride ships in Hawaii are not NCL ships. They are run by NCLA. Two different companies under the same parent company, not unlike Princess, HAL, Cunard, etc., all owned by Carnival. Sorry you had a bad experience on your NCLA cruise, but you shouldn't generalize your feelings to encompass all of NCL. It would be analogous to someone who disliked their Princess cruise swearing off HAL.

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I Can't Believe We Are Not Seeing Hundreds Of Postings From People On The Pride Of America Cruise Of 10/14-10/21. Here Is Briefly What I Understand Happened. We Struck At Least One Buoy Leaving Honolulu Harbor, Dragged It To Maui Where They Discovered It Was Still Wrapped Around Our Starboard Propeller Or Azipod. I Guess They Were Hoping It Would Fall Off Enroute. I Find It Hard To Believe One Of The Hundreds Of Instruments On The Bridge Did Not Detect 4000lbs. Being Dragged Underwater By The Ship. Anyhow We Got To Maui In Time For The Earthquake And Then A Day Of Torrential Rain. And Just Before We Were To Sail To Kona They Told Us There Was A Problem. After A Day Of False Starts And False Hopes We Remained Overnight And Were Told We Would Have A Fun Day At Sea The Next Day And Hit Our Third Port Of Kauai'a On Time. Sailing With One Engine Made That Difficult, But Kauai'a Was The Bright Spot Of Our Cruise. We Then Got To Honolulu Late Enough To Cancel Or Shorten All The Post Cruise Excursions. Luckily I Did Get To Pearl Harbor If Not Honolulu. After All Was Said And Done And Two Meeting Were Held By The Passengers, It Was Decided To Decline The $100 Rebate Offered By The Ship(from The Money They Made Selling Booze The Two Extra Days We Were Forced To Stay Aboard, And The Port Charges They Did Not Have To Pay For Two Days In Kona). Now It Is Up To Us To Send Ncl Registered Letters Individually Explaining To Them Why We Were Unhappy With The Cruise. All I Can Say Is Never Sail On A Ship Whose Captains Name Is Buzz. And Ncl To Me Is Never Again Cruise Line!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Sorry, but I stopped reading after about the third line. Not because of what you said but how it is typed. IMO, posts that have every word capitilized are very hard to read. Also, breaking a long paragraph into multiple ones is helpful.

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I think the reason you're not seeing 100's of post from disgruntled passengers is because the majority of passengers onboard the ship had a great time and it seems the majority of people who find this site are the ones who had a bad time. As I said before on another post, everyone is fortunate that the earthquake wasn't worse. The government could have ordered all NCLA ships to the west coast to drop off everyone and return to Hawaii to act as emergency shelters. It clearly states on all cruise contracts and you agree to it when you accept the tickets that the cruise line may alter the trip if need be and no ports of call are guaranteed. Also, people who posess Master License's in U.S. Merchant Marine are some of the most highly trained seafarers in the world.

 

Take care,

Michael

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Your's is the second. Not bad for a ship with over 2,000 passengers aboard. 2 out of 2,000 = 1 out of 1,000 = 0.1%; or 99.9% of the passengers were happy....or haven't made it here to complain......yet.

$100 per cabin is the standard compenstion NCL gives for missing ports.

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Your's is the second. Not bad for a ship with over 2,000 passengers aboard. 2 out of 2,000 = 1 out of 1,000 = 0.1%; or 99.9% of the passengers were happy....or haven't made it here to complain......yet.

.

 

I think the other thread might've had a couple of people on the cruise complain ;)

 

BTW-I love the way you seem to always work up the numbers :)

 

Michael(s)-yes, that's what I mean "unfortunate incident"

 

-Monte

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An "unfortunate incident"? Perhaps.

 

A "disaster". Absolutely not.

 

I agree with you 100% Here's a funny story, several years ago, my parents were on a Celebrity ship, don't remember what one, but one afternoon, my mother was in the casino and a water pipe burst in the ceiling and they had to shut down the casino for a couple hours. The woman next to her started screaming that they were going to sink.

 

Can't wait to see the NTSB report, I personally think they're going to say that the earthquake caused the buoy to move and like you said it was an unfortunate incident. Worse case they make NCLA pay the $6,000 I read the buoy was worth.

 

Take care,

 

Michael

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Can't believe anyone would waste time on a "passenger meeting" for a gripe fest to figure out if they can sue somebody. $100 is wonderfully generous, NCLA didn't have to do anything.

 

Good grief, things happen. Here's an update, PEOPLE ARE HUMAN, sue God!

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Whenever you get a large group of people together, I think it's amazing that all of the whiners get into there own group so they can feed off of each others negativity. I'm sure that if there's a chatroom in heaven you still have people constantly complaining about stuff.

 

Michael

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I have never heard of passenger meetings... Was an announcement made? Was there just a few passengers sitting around the pool that "met" together? Was there a ship rep present? All because one port was missed and there was a mistake with a buoy?

 

$100 seems pretty good...

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Lets see.

 

1. Sit with group of disgruntled passengers looking for a way to get something for free.

 

2. Lay be the pool and see the great scenery of Hawaii with a cool drink.

 

From the dictionary: Disaster

 

–noun 1. a calamitous event, esp. one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.

 

I don't think any of the events in the original post apply.

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Sorry, but I stopped reading after about the third line. Not because of what you said but how it is typed. IMO, posts that have every word capitilized are very hard to read. Also, breaking a long paragraph into multiple ones is helpful.

 

I agree ... nearly impossible to read. Also, how does one even type that way? It's got to be annoying to write as well as to read. Sorry about your problems though.

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I was also on board. I think some of you are missing the point that the earthquake and bouy had nothing to do with each other. The bouy was picked up leaving Honolulu and was drug to Maui. The earthquake happened coming into Maui. Captain error caused the delay in Maui.

 

The earthquake was a seperate non issue.

 

Let's face it everyone knows hawaii is not the cheapest getaway there is and people spent alot of money not only for the cruise but getting there too. (Easily a 5000.00 + vacation) For most passengers this was a once in a lifetime vacation and it is frustrating that a Key piece of the cruise was the port missed by an error that could have and should have been avoided.

 

I think the frustration was the lack of communication from the captain and staff to the passengers. I heard rumors that 300 passengers left the boat in maui. When I asked our waiter about it he said "no, more like 400 left."

 

Never were we told that there was a problem and we would be staying a few extra days. (Hey is't Hawaii... it would have been fine had we been told to make other plans from the beginning). But you could not make plans becasue they kept information from us OR filtered little tiny bits at the last minute.

 

The staff was not prepared for the delays either. and at times seemed frustrated too which in return delivered poor customer care.

 

As far as NCL or NCLA goes....... Until yesterday I had no clue of the difference. You go the www.NCL.com to book your cruise. Guess it's another example of great communication on their part. Who knew.

 

NCL or NCLA (what ever you want to call it) = Never again for me either! I feel the 100.00 was an insult for an error that was obviously preventable.

 

Guess you had to be there to know exactly what we experienced. (thank god you wern't).

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no announcement was made.... that would be silly on their part. But I cannot belive you didn't hear about it. I heard about from another passenger who heard it from someone and so on. There were ~400 in the main atrium on the 5th floor for the 1st meeting. The captain eventually came down and addressed everyone too. 2nd meeting was in the main theater to accomodate all of the attendees.

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I was also on board. I think some of you are missing the point that the earthquake and bouy had nothing to do with each other. The bouy was picked up leaving Honolulu and was drug to Maui. The earthquake happened coming into Maui. Captain error caused the delay in Maui.

 

The earthquake was a seperate non issue.

 

Let's face it everyone knows hawaii is not the cheapest getaway there is and people spent alot of money not only for the cruise but getting there too. (Easily a 5000.00 + vacation) For most passengers this was a once in a lifetime vacation and it is frustrating that a Key piece of the cruise was the port missed by an error that could have and should have been avoided.

 

I think the frustration was the lack of communication from the captain and staff to the passengers. I heard rumors that 300 passengers left the boat in maui. When I asked our waiter about it he said "no, more like 400 left."

 

Never were we told that there was a problem and we would be staying a few extra days. (Hey is't Hawaii... it would have been fine had we been told to make other plans from the beginning). But you could not make plans becasue they kept information from us OR filtered little tiny bits at the last minute.

 

The staff was not prepared for the delays either. and at times seemed frustrated too which in return delivered poor customer care.

 

As far as NCL or NCLA goes....... Until yesterday I had no clue of the difference. You go the www.NCL.com to book your cruise. Guess it's another example of great communication on their part. Who knew.

 

NCL or NCLA (what ever you want to call it) = Never again for me either! I feel the 100.00 was an insult for an error that was obviously preventable.

Guess you had to be there to know exactly what we experienced. (thank god you wern't).

 

Glad to know that you're SO SURE of your facts!

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the earthquake and bouy had nothing to do with each other

 

I bet the earthquake was caused by the buoy coming untethered causing a great release of pressure on the crust of the sea bottom and the result was a catastrophic earth quake. :p

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