http://fxn.ws/VbPa8w

Just spoke briefly to a friend who is on this ship. Roger has taken all his employees and their spouses/etc., on a Cruise to thank them for their work of Holiday. They are only able to get cell service when another ship stops by to offload supplies, so they can use the cell system on the other ship.

So, story so far: The crew/company waited 12 hours to call a tow in hopes they could repair the engines and get them working again instead of calling for the tow quickly and sending them back if they did manage to get moving again. First tow is due in another 4 hours, second tow 6 hours later. Once in port in Progreso, Mexico, reportedly late Wednesday, still going to be hell getting home. Almost 3,200 people to bus to Cancun, then fly to Houston, then bus to Galveston where their cars are, then he and his employees get to drive home to Louisiana. With luck, maybe by Friday.

No power, no A/C, no hot food, no working plumbing. No water first 12 hours. Poop in a plastic bag and set outside the door. Onion sandwiches and overipe fruit. 18 hours they finally got grills set up outside, 3 hour wait in line for a hamburger or hot dog. Promising free beer tonight.

And, folks ask me why I don't have any desire to go on a
cruise.

No good deed goes unpunished. In case you're wondering who Roger is: Knifeworks -- I guess there may be a slight delay with my next knife.

I don't do cruises either, not even if I win it as a prize and it's all free.

Does indeed seem to be the case. I feel so bad for Roger and everyone involved.

So where's the section in ETS dealing with "Cruise Ship Survival"??

I don't recall a Love Boat episode about power failure and nonfunctioning toilets.

Julie McCoy, Cruise Director, would have had a meltdown.



.

Not a good week for cruise ships. There was also that British cruise ship in the Canary Islands where five crew members died and three more injured when their lifeboat fell while being lowered into the water during a safety drill. Although passengers were onboard the cruise ship, none were in the lifeboat.

Well, most credible survival manuals spend the first part of the book on "how to stay the [bleep] out of survival situations." So it would be a pretty short section I guess.

Bloody disgusting situation. I'm guessing the cruise lines have done away with yardarms generally, and take great care to keep hempen ropes out of passengers' hands particularly.

Some quote about "prison, with the chance of drowning" comes to mind.

From this article, sounds like conditions are slowly getting worse. Instead of getting towed to port in Mexico, the plan is to tow the ship to Mobile and it will arrive Thursday! That's a long wait from now.

I hate to make the comparison, but at this point, it sounds more and more like the Superdome during Katrina, minus the rumors about dead bodies piling up in the freezers.

Thank goodness there are no reports of norovirus onboard that I am aware of. With no sanitation, scarce water, and no air conditioning/ventilation, that would be a nightmare scenario.

We have had some extensive threads on the subject. It is an interesting conundrum - evidently passengers are quite limited on luggage capacity.

If I were packing today for a cruise, I'd be making room for:

Flashlight (my Fenix LD41 - takes 4 AA batteries)

Petzl Zipkas (AAA) which can be worn as headlamp or wristlamp.

Four energy bars

Micropur tablets

Antiseptic wipes

plastic bags (to get through the first 48 hours without a toilet)

pocket AM-FM-SW radio (the SW part should work at sea, right?)


A cruise on one of those massive ships is not on my short or long lists of things to do. But a Windjammer could be fun.



.