Carnival Cruise: Carpets soaked in urine, sewage running down walls and onion sandwiches

[snagglepuss]

Yikes pity those 4200 stranded passengers who have to wait to Thursday to reach land. What a nightmare. Bags being used as toilets. Hopefully those bags are plastic and not paper. "On USA Today, Gary Keyes of Baton Rouge, La, wrote: 'My wife (is) on this cruise and has said the conditions were horrible. No power, no water, having to use the bathroom in bags'."



snip

'People are fighting over food and stuff - that's a bunch of savages. It's ridiculous. Carnival has nothing at all in plan in case something like this happens.'

Asked if his wife had been given any help, Mr Nutt said: 'The only help they've got is that they told them they needed to stay on the decks or in common areas.'

Writing on Cruise Critic, a blogger named Clinty76 whose wife and mother-in-law are on the ship, painted a similar picture.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2277323/Carnival-Triumph-Disabled-vessel-wont-reach-land-Thursday.html#ixzz2Kj5Tw5vG

[woo me with science]

1. Didn't something like this happen not too long ago

on another cruise ship?

Or am I thinking of something else?

[Posteritatis]

2. Carnival in particular has bad luck with this sort of thing.

The last few I heard of were also their ships.

[woo me with science]

7. I thought it sounded familiar.

Thanks.

[joeunderdog]

8. Bad luck?

Quality companies understand that they need to prepare for and respond to adversity. Every company has problems, and to not allocate resources to provide food and essentials for these passengers is unforgivable. Whatever it takes.

Did they think this could never happen? What was their plan? Or, better yet, why didn't they have one?

[Posteritatis]

10. Okay, consistently self-imposed luck. Either way. (nt)

[snagglepuss]

15. It is absolutely shocking they don't have back up plans.

I wouild have thought that they would at least have back up latrines and water supplies should plumbing fail. Nowr do I understand why helicopters or tugs couldn\t deliver supplies to the ship.

[joeunderdog]

18. They could do it. It's just too expensive.

They could also stock non-perishable emergency food for several days for the ship, but they don't want to spare the space on the ship that they could bill out for. They could send a ship with food and essentials, but they won't.

And mark my words, they will offer these seriously traumatized passengers NOTHING for the problems they are causing by their voluntary ineptitude.

A free cruise will be the most they will offer and you'll probably need a lawyer to get it.

[mythology]

30. Plus who would want another cruise after this experience?

I've never understood the courts supporting class action suits that give a payout that's only payable back to the company at fault.

[Katashi_itto]

36. I LOVE ONION SANDWICHES!!!! NOTHING CAN BE WRONG IF YOU HAVE A GOOD ONION SANDWICH!

Ship in flames? Crew gone Cannibal? Ship's Captain can be seen in a dingy on the horizon?

Just gimme an ONION SANDWICH!


Yum....!

[woo me with science]

37. When i was a kid, I read a book called (I think...)

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.

The main character in the book ate butter and onion sandwiches, and they actually did not sound bad at all...

[unapatriciated]

38. add a little avocado to make yummy.

[Katashi_itto]

41. A little candlelight, raging cannibals pounding at your cabin door...makes for a perfect

Onion sandwich eating experience.

[Moonwalk]

3. These floating cities are death traps! They keep building bigger and bigger ships without...

...any thought to what might happen in instances like this--i.e thousands of people trapped with limited resources. Crazy!

[JI7]

9. is the experience much different if they just were at a beach

and expensive hotel which offered similar experience as far as food, entertainment etc goes ?

because if the point is to enjoy the ocean i would think a smaller boat where you spend more time just standing out would be preferable .

i always found these things wayyy too expensive and pointless. only way i might like it is if it was going to take long stops at different places and you can go on land to visit .

[Moonwalk]

16. The difference is a hotel can't make stops at different places--

--that is, presumably, the appeal of a cruise line. Each day or few days it takes you to different place where you get off, explore, get back on. So you get to see different Caribbean Islands, or different parts of Alaska, without having to book transportation or hotel--you have both in one.

However, it is true that modern cruise ships are ginormous, Disneyland-style cities, with so many entertainment elements that the whole point of the cruise--getting off an exploring--isn't quite the point any more. Those that go on the ship for the entertainment it offers rather than to see places and explore them make your point quite apply: they might as well be staying at an equally entertaining hotel.

[Posteritatis]

21. Generally, the larger the ship, the more the cruise is about the ship itself

The "smaller" ones get around more, both because they actually can - good luck getting the Freedom of the Seas to enter more than a handful of ports without grounding itself - and because they're cheaper to operate, so you don't have to cram all sorts of spend-all-the-dollars amenities onto the ship itself before a cruise begins paying for itself. Some of the biggest ones just go out to sea, hang around for awhile, and go back home.

Carnival Triumph is one of those post-Panamax monstrosities - she's larger than US Navy carriers - so a trip there would be quite hide-on-the-ship oriented. A friend of mine just finished a cruise on the Carnival Triumph last month; she's 30,000 tonnes smaller and there was a lot more bouncing from port to port there.

[Separation]

33. Was on the freedom just last July/August.

We hit all the normal ports, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Nassau, Jaimaca. The ports that were to small it just anchored off shore and had ferries going every 15 minutes back and forth.

Won a satellite poker tournament to it ended up placing 35th out of 500. Was a total blast.

[Downwinder]

4. Carnival/Costa same corporation.

[JI7]

5. how much did they pay for this ? will they get a refund ?

[Catherine Vincent]

13. Yes, I think they get a refund

and another cruise free of charge. But I gather some will sue anyway for more money.

[Moonwalk]

22. There are internet deals where one can take a 7 day cruise for $600, but most such cruises...

...run about $2000-$5000 dollars depending on length, amenities, what kind of room (etc) one books and the like. Obviously, those who pay the higher prices get treated like royalty--until something like this happens. When will they ever learn?

[enlightenment]

6. Between fires, vomiting bugs, and

poor seamanship, I don't know why anyone would step foot on one of these things. You'd have a better time as an impressed tar on an 18th century navy ship.

[snagglepuss]

11. lol. My sentiments exactly.

[Posteritatis]

17. Eh, there's hundreds of the things around the world

You only hear about the ones that make the news in dramatic ways. My brother worked with one line for several years, and I currently work in a museum next door to a cruise ship terminal that sees quite a lot of traffic in the warmer months. It'll see sixty to a hundred ships a year and it's maybe every three or four years that there's been something that stands out aside from standard tourist fiascos. (The staff who've been around longer reach about five years back before they can find a cruise ship story that'll properly harrow the new people.)

They're not my cup of tea, but the vast, overwhelming majority of people who travel on them will get safe, comfortably generic, and rather overpriced experiences. Given the choice I'd pay a third as much to go someplace similarly nice and avoid the canned resort experience, even if there'd be a bit more of a dice roll involved then.

That said, Carnival in particular has been making an art form out of ball-droppery in the last several years.

[enlightenment]

19. You're right, of course.

And I completely agree that even without the chance that you'll get the "value added" fun of a shipboard crisis, the experience just seems odd. Like you, cruises aren't my cuppa.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. result of total dependency on technology?

[FarCenter]

14. Carnival, Holland America, P&O, Cunard, Aida, Princes, Seabourn, Ibero are all Carnival Cruise Lines

[Posteritatis]

23. The list kind of makes me sad..

I'm in the midst of working on part of a multi-year research project with the museum I'm at that has a section on the history of various shipping lines. (Lots of neat little details coming out of that, like learning how to ID a ship's owner from the paint job of the funnel alone, something that you'd otherwise just take for granted.) Most of the ones you list have been around for generations, even going back into the 1800s, when their emphasis was more focused on mail and one-way passenger trips between Europe and the Americas.

I get that things change, especially with air travel undercutting the passenger liner industry in the sixties, but it still sucks to see former titans like Cunard or P&O get Wal-Marted together in a limited fashion under an umbrella company that isn't managing most of them terribly well.

[FarCenter]

24. The only cruise I've been on was on the Rhine

That was great! Travel up the river looking at the scenery during the day, some days stop for a tour, tie up late pm and spend the evening in a city, sleep overnight on the ship, start off again at sunup.

[Posteritatis]

28. That probably beats the pants off a standard Caribbean package

I'm at one of the stops on the Atlantic coast cruise itineraries and admit to feeling a dose of "..here? Here? Why?" compared to some possible routes.

This is also my first year working next door to the cruise ship terminal. I'm half excited and half terrified of tourist season...

[renate]

42. was it a Viking cruise?

We went on a Rhine cruise with Viking and it was really wonderful. Plus Viking supports Masterpiece Theatre!

[Adsos Letter]

39. Different levels of quality within the Carnival brand?

We took a 10-day cruise on a Princess ship on her second season out. Absolutely fantastic experience, but the cruise package was expensive compared to the carnival packages. My wife and daughter later took a Carnival cruise to Ensenada, and she said it was a very underwhelming experience.

[Ikonoklast]

20. Thunderdome at sea! What a brilliant idea!

Libertarians will sign up in droves and even pay extra to get the chance to steal bread off of old ladies' plates!

Great marketing concept!

[silverweb]

25. Why aren't supplies being air dropped?

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]This is just stupid and there's no excuse for it. Carnival can't hire planes/helicopters to air drop food and supplies, even evacuate passengers? WTF?!?

[JaneyVee]

26. Sounds lovely, my kind of vacation.

[Bigmack]

27. Sounds like a cruise I was on....

..the USS Henrico.

Little pleasure cruise in the far Pacific.

The urine, the puke, the food....

It was an APA.... a troopship!

[Initech]

29. Hey Republicans! You want to know what happens when we eliminate regulations on business?

[Puzzledtraveller]

32. Does Carnival fall under US regs?

[Posteritatis]

34. Very, very few cruise ships are US-flagged. (nt)

[Puzzledtraveller]

31. That's a recipe for a good time, pee, poop, and onion samiches!!!

[snagglepuss]

35. ROFLMAO

Thanks I needed that.

[LisaL]

40. Sounds like fun.