Norwegian Dream - Buenos Aires to Valpariaso - maybe!

[billie5]

Shwa65, I agree your comments are too extreme, and some of them are just plain wrong. I am a mathematician, not a statistician, but it is not a difficult calculation to see that your 100 deaths in the next year estimate is way off-base. The average life expectancy of a 65 y.o. in the United States is more than 18 years, more than 12 years for a 75 y.o., still about 9 years for an 80 y.o. These figures are even higher for demographics which favor women. Unless you are cruising with a ship full of nonagenarians, you had better redo your mathematics.

 

On the other hand, IMO Mc_Cruiser is also off-base. The fact that you are a new CCer does not mean you can not have your own opinion, "regardless of the comments ... from others," to quote him. And if your statistics had been correct, I do not see that factual statements can be considered offensive.

 

I would encourage you, however, to practice your communication skills, with a goal of more civility.

 

Bill, a 66 year old male with a 16 year life expectancy!

[Supercilious]

Folks on this thread need to lighten up.

 

Shwa65 is entitled to his opinions and he is providing an eyewitness commentary to a laughable comedy of errors. He is not "attacking" the former captain, he is merely being critical. Our representatives in Congress say far worse things about each other. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

 

Keep up the good work, Shwa65.

 

Mike, a 60 year old male with a 30 year life expectancy.

[billie5]

Right attitude, Supercilious. Wish you could have a drink on me in 2037.

 

Bill

[TCF]

I have no idea what or how or who is responsible for the NCL Dream accident...but....what has happened since seems to me to be a typical problem of the cruise industry as a whole...not just an NCL problem or shortcoming!

Communication with passengers, the media and the public by all cruise lines is consistently poor, frustrating, and inevitably causes more trouble than it solves. This is especially true when it comes to problems with cruises where the issues are...ships propulsion systems, collisions, criminal attacks on passengers both on excursions and on ships, missing ports, etc.

When left in a communications vacum people will fill it with conjecture, opinion, rumor...anything but silence. All too often the cruise lines generate that vacum when they could very simply fill it with information....and come out looking a hell of a lot better!

This is how simply the Dream problem cruise could have been handled by NCL:

1. We don't know what happened other than a barge slipped its tow line and Dream collided with it. A thorough investigation will take place by the company and the authorities.

2. The ship is damaged, but until we get back to the pier we will not know how bad it is...how long it will take to repair...and how the damage will affect the ongoing portion of the cruise. BUT we will keep the passengers informed immediately information is known. We cannot return to the pier until the harbour authorities give their approval.

3. Head office in Maimi is currently assessing how the accident will impact upon our passengers and when that is known the company will offer a compensation package.

4. For those who want to leave the ship immediately and return home the company is working on assisting passengers in making arrangements.

These four simple steps would not have done anything to alleviate the disaapointment of the passengers...but it would have kept the the communications vacum from forming...and we would not be going through post after post of conjecture, opinion and rumor...or the constant personal attacks on the Captain of the of the ship...whose only failing that I can tell so far is his lack of fluency in the English language!

Just some thoughts.

[shwa65]

First, a personal note: I haven't been and am not now angry at anybody about the accident. LOTS of passengers have been angry and unpleasant with the staff, and the staff deserves a lot of credit. My criticism of Captain Mogic, based on what I've heard with my own ears, has to do with his crisis management and communication skills - and being straight with the passengers.

 

I don't have the resources here to do a calculation of expected number of deaths - there are lots of people on board between 65 and 85 years old. Those of us who are younger (including me) have - we hope - lots of time left for lots of cruises; a significant number of people on board don't, and in my opinion should receive special treatment.

 

December 17, 8 a.m. (5 a.m. EST), an early-morning update. MANY people up at 5 a.m. or earlier for the Cape Horn experience. Captain Hoddevik took us back and forth for a couple of looks at the flag/monument. The fog lifted enough for good views. Lots of happy campers up and about.

BTW: When yesterday I said it was a SLOWWWW day at sea, I meant a LONGGGG day. There are certainly plenty of activities.

My ramblings for the morning will mainly be about the small, positive parts of the cruise (not so much about the major positives). I’ll leave the negatives until I’m in a bad mood, which now seems unlikely to happen.

1. A big positive: We really, really like the Freestyle Cruising, being able to eat in any of the restaurants almost anytime we like. With conventional cruise dining, you can be stuck for two weeks sitting next to a retired professor whose idea of light dinner conversation is the electromagnetics/optics equations that explain why glaciers appear blue, or about linear regressions showing that global warming will leave the mean US temperature essentially the same for the next 40-60 years - about 0.5 degrees F warming for the US. Boring, boring, boring. OOPS - the boring retired professor is me.

2. The staff continue to be super - courteous, accommodating, and professional.

3. The food is quite good. An example: the fried calamari is the best of the small, circular cut we’ve ever had: tender and flavorful. For the very best calamari, get the chunk form at Jordan’s in Sydney, a restaurant in Johannesburg whose name I don’t remember (ask if they get their calamari from the Falklands), or - our favorite solution - go to San Quintin in Baja California, catch your own, and clean, soak in milk, and deep-fat fry.

4. The shower head is better than in any US hotel we’ve stayed in for a long time - good flow and pressure. We like our shower head at home better, but it’s an old 8 gpm model that you can’t buy any more.

5. The standard rooms are quite spacious, with a nice sitting area.

6. 24-hour room service is good to have, even though we haven’t had an urge for pizza at 3 a.m.

7. They make really cool towel animals for the bed.

8. We’ve discovered egg-white omelets, which are quite good for those of us watching their cholesterol, and tasty with mushrooms and herbs.

9. I got on the treadmill, put it to my usual speed of 4.0, and said to myself, “This is really easy; my conditioning must really be improving.” Then I decided the treadmill was calibrated in kilometers per hour, not miles per hour, so I had to ramp it up to 6 for my usual workout at 4 mph. Darn!

10. Now if they would calibrate the scale in kg instead of pounds… (dividing my weight by 2.2 would be great - and maybe necessary before long).

11. Translating announcements into 4 or so languages is nice.

12. The automatic hand sanitizers outside all the restaurants and public bathrooms are a very good idea (assuming they work) to minimize the possibility of outbreaks of nasty viruses. Something like these should be in the dining areas of all retirement homes. We’ve sent the information about the company web site (http://www.soaptronic.com) to the home where an aunt lives - they tend to have about one outbreak per year of Norwalk-type virus.

13. They wash the cabin windows every few days.

14. The hot water becomes hot very fast, and there’s lots of it.

Enough for today. Off to the going-around-the-cape baptizing and a pre-Ushuaia nap.

[letsgomets]

While I too could use less bashing, please do keep up the discussion on the details of the cruise. My parents are on board and it's nice to get your updates much more often than they are able to call. Glad to hear about the added port today.

[RSWBADGER]

As posted earlier, pictures of the incident.

 

http://www.montevideo.com.uy/galerianot_54118_1.html

[shwa65]

A great day in Ushuaia and the national park yesterday. Such a beautiful setting.

I had planned to make this my last post on this thread (to which some people are saying, “Finally!!!”). To see why this may not be the last post, skip to the bottom. Why it would be my last post is roughly the following:

-I’m almost out of internet minutes.

-The cruise has settled down and things are back to normal - no more three days in a row at sea.

-Some posters apparently think I had nothing worth their time to read about the Norwegian Dream, since I’m new to CruiseCritic and this is only my 5th cruise (I‘m sure the purists wouldn‘t count the Alaska Marine Highway as a 6th cruise!). What I was trying to do was to give the perspective of a non-activist but concerned (again, mainly about the older people on board - I‘m far from being one of the older ones) person on the scene of an incident that made at least a minor splash in the news from New York to New Zealand, with precious little information coming from NCL.

Would I cruise with Norwegian again - in a minute. We’re starting to think about the repositioning cruise that takes the Dream from the US to South America, or vice versa.

A quick statistical comment (that I’ll try to relate to cruising) for the people who in effect wrote that since they’re, say, 66 years old and have a life expectancy of 16 years they will go ahead and buy 82 candles for their 82nd birthday party, but won‘t plan on reaching 83. I’m sure they know better. If they don’t, they can look up annual death rates by age to see how many people out of 1000 in their age cohort will die in the next year, and do these projections for the age groupings on this cruise. Some people who are 66 die in the next year, and some live to be 100.

The annual death rates by age data reinforce the old saying: Live every day both as though you’ll live forever* and as though that day will be your last. And, within financial constraints, that saying is as good a reason as any that I know to sign up for another cruise to places as beautiful, spectacular, and interesting as we’re seeing on the Dream.

* For the technically minded: replace “forever” by “20 years beyond their life expectancy based on age, marital status, BMI, cholesterol level, blood pressure, sex, family history of cancer and heart disease, smoking status, etc.”

-----------

Now back to a less important subject: money. The natives are still restless. A sheet was put under our door saying that there’s a steering committee representing, so far, 800 passengers. They’ve requested a meeting with the Captain to discuss the final compensation arrangements. And they’re collecting names and e-mail addresses in case negotiations don’t work out.

I’ll give my personal opinion here. NCL has offered a 50% refund on the original cruise cost + US$150 shipboard credit + refund of some port fees. It’s clear that Captain Hoddevik and the crew/staff are doing the very, very best they can for the passengers under the circumstances. I’m a happy camper - except when I weigh myself. My only additional non-negotiable demand would be that NCL give a big bonus to Captain Hoddevik and a substantial bonus to the entire crew (they could call it hazardous-duty pay, for maintaining courtesy and professionalism when confronted with angry passengers.)

If NCL did something like my suggestion for additional passenger compensation, which wouldn’t cost them any more money and would be a home run in terms of public relations, I’d be in hog heaven. [The suggestion was an added 50% credit of the original cruise cost to be applied toward a future cruise in the next 5 years on NCL or any line owned by its parent company - I don’t know the corporate structure of NCL, but I assume there’s lots of cross-ownership(??). And there could be exceptions based on health status.]

I won’t write again unless there’s more that’s out of the usual about this cruise on the Dream. Happy holidays!

[zqvol]

A great day in Ushuaia and the national park yesterday. Such a beautiful setting.

I had planned to make this my last post on this thread (to which some people are saying, “Finally!!!”). To see why this may not be the last post, skip to the bottom. Why it would be my last post is roughly the following:

-I’m almost out of internet minutes.

-The cruise has settled down and things are back to normal - no more three days in a row at sea.

-Some posters apparently think I had nothing worth their time to read about the Norwegian Dream, since I’m new to CruiseCritic and this is only my 5th cruise (I‘m sure the purists wouldn‘t count the Alaska Marine Highway as a 6th cruise!). What I was trying to do was to give the perspective of a non-activist but concerned (again, mainly about the older people on board - I‘m far from being one of the older ones) person on the scene of an incident that made at least a minor splash in the news from New York to New Zealand, with precious little information coming from NCL.

Would I cruise with Norwegian again - in a minute. We’re starting to think about the repositioning cruise that takes the Dream from the US to South America, or vice versa.

A quick statistical comment (that I’ll try to relate to cruising) for the people who in effect wrote that since they’re, say, 66 years old and have a life expectancy of 16 years they will go ahead and buy 82 candles for their 82nd birthday party, but won‘t plan on reaching 83. I’m sure they know better. If they don’t, they can look up annual death rates by age to see how many people out of 1000 in their age cohort will die in the next year, and do these projections for the age groupings on this cruise. Some people who are 66 die in the next year, and some live to be 100.

The annual death rates by age data reinforce the old saying: Live every day both as though you’ll live forever* and as though that day will be your last. And, within financial constraints, that saying is as good a reason as any that I know to sign up for another cruise to places as beautiful, spectacular, and interesting as we’re seeing on the Dream.

* For the technically minded: replace “forever” by “20 years beyond their life expectancy based on age, marital status, BMI, cholesterol level, blood pressure, sex, family history of cancer and heart disease, smoking status, etc.”

-----------

Now back to a less important subject: money. The natives are still restless. A sheet was put under our door saying that there’s a steering committee representing, so far, 800 passengers. They’ve requested a meeting with the Captain to discuss the final compensation arrangements. And they’re collecting names and e-mail addresses in case negotiations don’t work out.

I’ll give my personal opinion here. NCL has offered a 50% refund on the original cruise cost + US$150 shipboard credit + refund of some port fees. It’s clear that Captain Hoddevik and the crew/staff are doing the very, very best they can for the passengers under the circumstances. I’m a happy camper - except when I weigh myself. My only additional non-negotiable demand would be that NCL give a big bonus to Captain Hoddevik and a substantial bonus to the entire crew (they could call it hazardous-duty pay, for maintaining courtesy and professionalism when confronted with angry passengers.)

If NCL did something like my suggestion for additional passenger compensation, which wouldn’t cost them any more money and would be a home run in terms of public relations, I’d be in hog heaven. [The suggestion was an added 50% credit of the original cruise cost to be applied toward a future cruise in the next 5 years on NCL or any line owned by its parent company - I don’t know the corporate structure of NCL, but I assume there’s lots of cross-ownership(??). And there could be exceptions based on health status.]

I won’t write again unless there’s more that’s out of the usual about this cruise on the Dream. Happy holidays!

 

The offer by NCL is more than generous. They really owe nothing to the passengers. For the passengers who think not, I suggest refusing it, you have two chances of getting that much in court in Miami, slim and none.

[electricron]

-----------Now back to a less important subject: money. The natives are still restless. A sheet was put under our door saying that there’s a steering committee representing, so far, 800 passengers. They’ve requested a meeting with the Captain to discuss the final compensation arrangements. And they’re collecting names and e-mail addresses in case negotiations don’t work out.

I’ll give my personal opinion here. NCL has offered a 50% refund on the original cruise cost + US$150 shipboard credit + refund of some port fees. It’s clear that Captain Hoddevik and the crew/staff are doing the very, very best they can for the passengers under the circumstances. I’m a happy camper - except when I weigh myself. My only additional non-negotiable demand would be that NCL give a big bonus to Captain Hoddevik and a substantial bonus to the entire crew (they could call it hazardous-duty pay, for maintaining courtesy and professionalism when confronted with angry passengers.)

If NCL did something like my suggestion for additional passenger compensation, which wouldn’t cost them any more money and would be a home run in terms of public relations, I’d be in hog heaven. [The suggestion was an added 50% credit of the original cruise cost to be applied toward a future cruise in the next 5 years on NCL or any line owned by its parent company - I don’t know the corporate structure of NCL, but I assume there’s lots of cross-ownership(??). And there could be exceptions based on health status.]

I won’t write again unless there’s more that’s out of the usual about this cruise on the Dream. Happy holidays!

 

So basically, after spending two weeks on the ship, eating and occupying the crews' time for the entire two weeks, they want a FREE cruise. NCL has already offered 50% off this cruise, and they want an additional 50% off a future cruise as well.

 

That's not going to happen, no court in Miami will go for that lacking willful misconduct by members of the crew. From the remarks made by other passengers on this cruise, willful, intentional misconduct didn't occur.

 

Since when does a 50% off offer become chump change, peanuts, or whatever idiom you wish to use? 50% off your fare has been and will always be a generous offer.

[Don Haynes]

It seems the ungrateful passengers want a freebie. I say leave the lot on an island and leave them behind.

[zqvol]

It seems the ungrateful passengers want a freebie. I say leave the lot on an island and leave them behind.

 

Looks like three of us agree!

[taxmantoo]

Looks like three of us agree!

 

Yeah! The three of you deserve your own private island for unsympathetic people....

[franu]

If you were in an accident and were responsible for the well being of everyone in your vehicle, would you not be upset? I know that I would be very upset and I certainly wouldn't want anyone who didn't know me to judge me at that time.

 

Any employee of a large company is responsible to that company and in a situation of this sort would have to say only those things which they are told to say. It may or may not be what that person would do or say on their own. If you fault anyone for the earlier communication it should be NCL as they are trying to apease the passengers and are playing "Good Captain, Bad Captain" with all of you.

 

I for one would sail anywhere in the world with Captain Mojic and have sailed in some of the world's most difficult waters; Antarctica and 1000 miles up the Amazon. I always have been able to easily understand his English.

 

Fran

[zqvol]

Yeah! The three of you deserve your own private island for unsympathetic people....

 

It has nothing to do with being unsympathetic. There is no legal standing for the passengers to receive any compensation, so anything they get is from the generosity of NCL. The offer that has been made more than makes up for the delay.

[electricron]

If you were in an accident and were responsible for the well being of everyone in your vehicle, would you not be upset? I know that I would be very upset and I certainly wouldn't want anyone who didn't know me to judge me at that time.

 

Any employee of a large company is responsible to that company and in a situation of this sort would have to say only those things which they are told to say. It may or may not be what that person would do or say on their own. If you fault anyone for the earlier communication it should be NCL as they are trying to apease the passengers and are playing "Good Captain, Bad Captain" with all of you.

 

I for one would sail anywhere in the world with Captain Mojic and have sailed in some of the world's most difficult waters; Antarctica and 1000 miles up the Amazon. I always have been able to easily understand his English.

 

Fran

 

I agree. The company I work for suggests, should I say orders, all employees involved in accidents to say nothing to the others involved in the accident except who I work for and show the insurance papers. But we are allowed to do is to help anyone injured as best as we can.

 

As for being heartless, I didn't state the passengers deserved nothing. I did state 50% off this cruise is a generous offer. 100% off, while generous, means a total loss for this cruise. Over 70% of NCL's income comes from fares, backed up by NCL's SEC filings. If NCL were to up the offer to 100%, they should have ended the cruise, and kicked everyone off the ship. They would have saved more money for their investors by not feeding everyone.

 

And that's exactly what the passenger contract states for a 100% refund expectation. No cruise at all. ;)

 

By the way, here's NCL's third quarter SEC filing link, and the appropriate numbers backing up my 70% statement.

 

http://164.109.173.40/investor/Q32007ER_tables.pdf

 

Passenger ticket revenues $465,881,000

Onboard and other revenues $165,551,000

Total revenues $631,432,000

 

Math: 465,881,000 / 632,432,000 = 73.6%

 

NCL will probably lose on this cruise as is with the 50% refund offer significantly. Shucks, they are losing money as it is with 100% income from fares for several quarters in a row.

50% of 73.6% is 36.8% + 26.4% = 53.2% of what they would have had if there wasn't an accident. And that's not including the cost of any ship repairs that had and are still left to be done.

[FranKes2000]

.

 

http://164.109.173.40/investor/Q32007ER_tables.pdf

 

Passenger ticket revenues $465,881,000

Onboard and other revenues $165,551,000

Total revenues $631,432,000

 

Math: 465,881,000 / 632,432,000 = 73.6%

 

NCL will probably lose on this cruise as is with the 50% refund offer significantly. Shucks, they are losing money as it is with 100% income from fares for several quarters in a row.

50% of 73.6% is 36.8% + 26.4% = 53.2% of what they would have had if there wasn't an accident. And that's not including the cost of any ship repairs that had and are still left to be done.

 

You forgot the port charges for extra days in port. Over-nighting in port is a charge of megabucks.

[shwa65]

I wasn’t planning to write again, but the vituperation of some posters (“I say leave the lot on an island and leave them behind”) is too out of bounds to leave unanswered - these people should lighten up and make “empathy“ their word of the day. Also, it’s better not to put words in passengers’ mouths from thousands of miles away - I haven’t heard anybody on board say “peanuts” or “chump change” about NCL’s compensation offer. So I bought some more internet time.

 

Parenthetical comment: If NCL sticks to its compensation offer, my guess is that no big-time attorney will take the passengers’ case, and NCL will be upheld on arbitration as offering reasonable compensation. The question is whether NCL and its insurance carrier want to stick to their guns or to make a WOW! level compensation as a PR coup that would more than pay for itself in good will.

To respond to people with the “leave them on an island” mindset, let me tell you about a woman we met on the bus trip to the Otway penguin reserve outside Punta Arenas yesterday (parenthetical remark: nice penguins in their habitat, probably 100-200 penguins, and at least twice that many tourists looking at them: The March of the Passengers).

Anyway, her husband has major health problems, the details of which I won’t describe - if he’s 66 (I have no idea how old he is) he definitely doesn’t have a 16-year life expectancy. They came on this cruise specifically because the husband wanted to see penguin habitats in whatever time remained for him - and Puerto Madryn and the Magdalena reserve at Punta Arenas were almost sure bets, until the collision between the Dream and the barge. Because of time constraints, they had also paid reasonably big bucks for the flights to South America.

The Otway reserve was still a possibility for penguins, but passengers were explicitly told they had to be able to walk at least 2 miles to go on that tour, which the husband could not manage. When she tried to talk to senior staff (not the Captain) about it, they were dismissive and disdainful (her words) about her husband’s problems. So her husband didn’t go - no penguin habitats for him, most likely in the rest of his lifetime. When we got there, we found that the total walking was less than a mile, which she said he probably could have managed. And obviously he could easily have been provided with a wheelchair, if any of the senior staff she talked to had any empathy at all.

She also told us that everybody she talked with wasn’t angry or upset about the collision with the barge. What was troublesome was much of the senior staff’s response (except for Captain Hoddevik) of treating the passengers as irritants rather than as people who were also in the middle of a bad situation. “I can’t talk with you; it’s time for my break” was an actual comment by a supervisory staff member to a passenger. “Crisis management” should be the word of the day for NCL.

So you can say that NCL is making a reasonable offer to the passengers (reasonable people can disagree about the exact dollar figure), but please don’t talk about dismissing or leaving behind on islands passengers with real problems and with real disappointed expectations, which I suspect the wife, especially, will carry with her for a long, long time.

I’ve heard a few similar stories about the supervisory staff being unpleasant and dismissive to real passenger questions and concerns, while the front-line people (wait staff, cabin stewards, desk personnel, etc.) have been unfailingly courteous and professional. Maybe I should revise my recommendation (that all the crew on this cruise be given a substantial bonus) to make the bonus go only to front-line staff, the Captain, and other personnel only upon specific recommendation by the Captain or a passenger.

 

Away from money to much more pleasant subjects: I’m composing this as the Captain has us sitting in front of the Amalia Glacier, certainly one of the most spectacular sights anywhere (yes, I’ve been to Glacier Bay in Alaska). A kilometer across, 40 m or so high, lots of blue ice, green glacier-type water, ice floating past us - sensational!

[electricron]

Away from money to much more pleasant subjects: I’m composing this as the Captain has us sitting in front of the Amalia Glacier, certainly one of the most spectacular sights anywhere (yes, I’ve been to Glacier Bay in Alaska). A kilometer across, 40 m or so high, lots of blue ice, green glacier-type water, ice floating past us - sensational!

 

So, you are having a cruise vacation after a slow unfortunate start. What you have been experiencing this last week after leaving Montevideo, and will the rest of this week ought to be worth something.

Do you really feel your cruise has been worth nothing, worthy of an 100% refund?

 

As for the crew being slightly upset, wouldn't you be if 1000 passengers, the number expressed here, expressed unhappiness with their refund and some had threatened to mutiny? I wonder how many passengers have already asked to have their auto-surcharges removed?

 

The crew also have feelings. If your employer cut your wages 75%, how willing would you be to continue working hard?

[shwa65]

Note: I tried to post this a minte ago, but got an "Internet Explorer cannot openthis page" message, presumably because of the erratic connection. I apologize if the post appears twice.

 

December 20 update from the Norwegian Dream

I keep promising not to post on this thread any more, but give a man a computer, internet time, and a long day at sea - the result is inevitable.

There was an open meeting this morning with the three senior crew members, including Captain Hoddevik. A few comments:

1. There were compliments and applause for his handling of the situation - well-deserved, in my opinion.

2. He said that, in essence, they are running the engines at full speed from port to port in order to maximize the time in ports for passengers, and presumably to allow the ship to take more than the minimum time at places like Cape Horn and the Amalia Glacier. He said this uses more fuel than usual, and that his bonus is being burned up in fuel costs. I continue to say that whatever they’re paying him is not enough.

3. He was asked about the collision with the barge, and gave a surprisingly frank answer (one would expect NCL legal counsel to have instructed him just to say the matter will be decided by the courts, and he couldn’t say anything). What he said is consistent with the reasonably informed speculation, and is roughly the following.

A Parguayan tug/barge combo was in the channel. There may have been miscommunication between the tug and the control tower in port about its position and course. The cable or cables (?) between the tug and the barge snapped, leaving the barge in the channel in the worst place possible. Given where Captain Mogic was and how fast he was going, he was between the proverbial rock and hard place. The channel is narrow; if he had been able to swerve enough, he might have grounded the ship. The decision to hit the barge essentially head-on probably was deliberate. That’s the strongest part of the ship; the barge we hit is very sturdy, and a side-swipe could have collapsed the side of the Dream and sent it to the bottom of the channel. Captain Hoddevik commented that if the Titanic had hit the iceberg head-on, it probably would have survived the collision and - my addition - would have spared us maudlin movies starring Leonardo de Caprio.

How much will the collision cost and who will be found to be at fault? Captain Hoddevik said the repairs to the Dream’s prow alone will be in the hundreds of thousands of US$. Then there’s the cost of all the other ships blocked from entering the Montevideo harbor for about 24 hours, and on and on. The fault-finding and percentage allocation of responsibility/damages will presumably end up in court, or at least in a multi-million US$ lunch at a good restaurant in Miami with lots of maritime attorneys eating expensive food and drinking even more expensive wine.

[smeyer418]

Nice Post. Made me laugh. The insurance companies will work this one out. Probably the one with the least amount of insurance is the tug boat.

 

I knew that about the Titanic. If it hit head on it would have only damaged a limit number of compartments which were in fact fully water tight. It was the long cut along it side that made its sinking inevitable...

 

who is Cpt Mogic?

[Stillfloatin']

Folks on this thread need to lighten up.

 

Shwa65 is entitled to his opinions and he is providing an eyewitness commentary to a laughable comedy of errors. He is not "attacking" the former captain, he is merely being critical. Our representatives in Congress say far worse things about each other. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

 

Keep up the good work, Shwa65.

 

Mike, a 60 year old male with a 30 year life expectancy.

 

I agree. Shwa65 has every right to his opinion and, considering the circumstances, I don't find him particularly harsh. Certainly not as harsh as other comments on this thread. Everyone just needs to chill a little and follow along to see the conclusion of this saga, rather than trying to run Shwa65 out of town on a rail. It's called an opinion folks, and we all have them even if we don't all agree with them.

[wxtrix]

(deleted by me--nevermind)

[ILoveScotland]

A thought. Whatever the business if there is a problem the person in charge gets the blame whether it's truly his/her fault or not. And because that person was in charge at the time of the problem that person is likely to be a bit defensive even it it's not necessary.

 

So, that person leaves the position in order to ...well, whatever. The new person comes in without carrying any of the baggage of the departed one. So, he/she can be outgoing and open and seen as the good guy.

 

It happens all the time, and clearly the situation with the Dream is no exception. This in no way defends or condemns Capt. Mojic. But for me it does help explain why his behavior might have been as it was and how the new captain is as he is.

[electricron]

A thought. Whatever the business if there is a problem the person in charge gets the blame whether it's truly his/her fault or not. And because that person was in charge at the time of the problem that person is likely to be a bit defensive even it it's not necessary.

 

So, that person leaves the position in order to ...well, whatever. The new person comes in without carrying any of the baggage of the departed one. So, he/she can be outgoing and open and seen as the good guy.

 

It happens all the time, and clearly the situation with the Dream is no exception. This in no way defends or condemns Capt. Mojic. But for me it does help explain why his behavior might have been as it was and how the new captain is as he is.

 

I agree. Remember I wrote earlier the crew has feelings too, and that includes the senior staff.

 

The new Captain didn't have to make the decision Captain Mojic had to make. Apparently, from the latest accounts, he made a decision that saved the company the most money, the ship the least amount of damage, and the most lives of the passengers and crew.

 

In some ways, after more facts have come forth, he should be hailed as a hero. But, we have had few passengers from the ship stating that, so far.

 

What we have mostly read is passengers demanding more compensation from NCL. What a shame.