Italian Cruise Ship Disaster

Thnx for that transcript, firefly.

I have been on three cruises. The husband loves them, I hated them. Too much food, too many people, not enough time on land...
I've done quite a lot of research on the type of sailing you mentioned and I would love to do this type of trip.
I believe they are now tearing apart the hull looking for the last of the missing. This tug will never sail again. Thankfully, a Dutch company is coming in to drain all the fuel, so hopefully there will be no environmental issues... hopefully.

I've been on a couple. One, a friend talked me into saying how great they were. I thought it was tacky - not to say all cruises are - we went on a Carnival - supposed to party like so for young singles. The food was medicore (lots of crap and very little quality), same for entertainment - I didn't mind going ashore and the best part was when we went to St. Martian and just walked around on our own.

I felt like cattle - go to the happy hour, go to the low budget show, go to dinnerr - moooooo.


Second one was with a boyfriend - it was a freebie - if you do so much in sales at end of year you get a free trip - it was Royal Caribbean - much better quality food and I thought overall better - but then again we were on a ship with all people from this company so not sure how it would be otherwise.

I'd just be much more selective on which cruise line I'd go on first -

I'm a land person, and would go stark raving nuts on a cruise of any kind past, say, an hour on some yacht. More interested in real cities than ship-cities. But.. that said, lots of friends like them. I'm also not big on resorts in general (what a brat).

Did miss a chance to go to Hawaii on a Matson Lines freighter my uncle was captain of back when I was sixteen or seventeen - might have been able to enjoy that. (Mother said no.)

WOW! Hadn't heard that name, Matson, in a long time, but they're still shipping between the west coast and Hawaii. I think one of my uncles worked for them in the earth 20th century.

I am reminded of Doctor Johnson's remark that "being on a ship is like being in prison, with the chance of drowning."

Maybe our uncles knew each other..

mine was captain of the Hawaiian Farmer. He went to sea after he gave up his law license in some sort of folderal I'm unaware of the details of, back in the thirties. I think he was part of the Hollywood so called irish mafia.

He was not in the upper echelon of jobs; I'm almost positive without even knowing what he did.

Matson is still the biggest shipping line to Hawaii as far as I know. There are Matson ships coming into Hilo harbor on an almost daily basis and you see containers with the Matson name on them rolling on semis everywhere on the main highways.

Well, I don't know that my uncle was any kind of toughie, aka Queeg. He was basically a fisherman, which is why he picked the sea after the legal debacle, whatever it was. (I've checked the Hollywood Reporter and the Variety archives and they don't go back that far last I looked. Wrote to the CA bar association, which just has a one-liner with something about him not renewing his license.)

I've a photo I'll post if I manage to nab it onto photobucket. Tangent of course, re cruise ships, but not too long of one.

Ok, here - uncle and father on, I think, the Russian River, uncle three years older, circa 1919.



end/tangent

On the cruise ship, here's what I posted on Sunday on the What made you grimace thread

http://able2know.org/topic/18871-216#post-4862623

- and I still feel essentially the same, except that I now have a few people to appreciate, Commander de Falco of the Coast Guard, and the fellow who was on the staff who stayed behind to help people and got caught himself, eventually being rescued (don't have his name this minute). Also a policeman in one of the Guardian's photos holding a rescued child - that one made me tear.

By the way, I have found the Guardian generally useful on all this.

On the cruise ship, here's what I posted on Sunday on the What Made You Grimace thread

http://able2know.org/topic/18871-216#post-4862623

- and I still feel essentially the same, except that I now have a few people to appreciate, Commander de Falco of the Coast Guard, and the fellow who was on the staff who stayed behind to help people and got caught himself, eventually being rescued (don't have his name this minute). Also a policeman in one of the Guardian's photos holding a rescued child - that one made me tear.

By the way, I have found the Guardian generally useful on all this.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

NEW YORK — The capsizing of the Costa Concordia could not have come at a worse time for the cruise industry — right at the start of the peak booking season.

Even if passengers aren't scared away, the accident will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's too early to tell exactly how much insurance firms will have to pay out to cover the damage to the ship and loss of life, but analysts have estimated that claims could total at least $500 million. One went as far as to say the total bill for insurers could reach $1 billion

"We would be surprised if any single player had more than 5%-10% of the risk," Numis analyst Nicholas Johnson wrote in a note. He said the risk is similar to that of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, where no one company had more than 2 percent of the total insurance liability.

Costa's parent company, Miami-based Carnival Corp., which operates 101 ships under several brands including Carnival, Cunard, Holland America, Princess and Seabourn, did not respond to requests for an interview about its insurance coverage. But the company is responsible for at least $40 million in insurance deductibles.

At least 11 people died in the accident with nearly two dozen others still missing. .

The capsizing of the Concordia in the waters off Italy comes at the start of a three-month period that is the busiest time of year for bookings, known in the industry as wave season. Sales now set the tone for the rest of the year, which could be affected if passengers are frightened off by the chilling images of the stricken vessel

Although the industry has been slowly recovering from the Great Recession, this incident could further damage bookings.

"The publicity is just going to kill them," said Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel. "They'll stay quiet for a week or two. Then Carnival will have a blitz of sales. So for the consumer, it's going to be a great time to buy a cruise."

Other cruise lines will follow, slashing prices, Fleetwood said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/APfcd05ffef77841b58e8edc038421921e.html

That's the interesting conflict between this recession and people who still have money to cruise, eat at nice restaurants, and frequent the pubs and cafes.

Even when I traveled to Poland, Czech Republic, and Germany last November, the restaurants and tourist sites looked busy. Even the moderately priced hotel we stayed in at Hamburg seemed to have a pretty high occupancy, and many ate in their restaurant for breakfast ($21+) and dinner.

The MS Marina carries 1,200 passengers, and it seemed many were regular cruisers on Oceania Cruiseline. My roommate got his bronze pin for his 5th cruise, and a guy in our wine group got a silver for his 10th cruise. It was my 7th.

Ports like at St Barts (one of those places where the rich and famous use as their playground with matching yachts) was busy at their cafes, restaurants, and bars. A Russian oil magnate had his $60 million dollar yacht with a helicopter on it was anchored not far from our ship.

It's an interesting dichotomy of our times.

Incredible exchange between the captain of the Italian cruise ship & furious Italian coast guards. The tape of this exchange was broadcast on Italian television yesterday.
(The audio tape & video reports are included in the ABC News link below)



Coast guards ordered captain back to sinking ship:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-18/tape-appears-to-undermine-captains-claims/3779514

When they found more bodies today, they had life jackets on.

In an emergency, the passengers should have been able to count on getting help and clear communication from the crew. The captain leaving his crew, and the passengers blows my mind.

A
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T

Ditto. Also, it was him and the guy next in command (forget the title).
Alternately, I'm happy with Cmdr de Falco.

I’ve only been on two cruises. I don’t care for them at all. It’s like vacationing in a floating hotel.

Last year I won a five-day cruise for two to the Bahamas at a silent auction, I only bid on it because the monies were going to breast cancer. I don’t plan on using it, just waiting to re-gift it when the next silent auction comes to town.