Carnival Cruise Lines announced today that smoking will be prohibited on stateroom balconies effective October 9, 2014.
Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson Vance Gulliksen said that the new policy is in response to comments by the majority of its customers.
It’s about time.
In 2007, our client Lynnette Hudson, testified before Congress after her father died
Shortly after the Holland America Line (HAL)’s Westerdam caught on fire this weekend, HAL issued a press release characterizing the fire as "small" and "quickly" extinguished. It also said that it returned to port in Seattle "out of an abundance of caution."
Cruise line press statements like this rarely tell the whole story. We know
King 5 News in Seattle reports that the Holland America Line (HAL) Westerdam caught fire this evening as it was sailing to Alaska and was forced to turn around and return to Seattle. The news station is saying that the fire broke out in the engine room.
HAL released the following statement:
"There has been
This morning we received an email from a reader of our blog:
"Saga Sapphire. Did you know it has broken down again today off the west coast of Scotland on its six day cruise around the uk. Been there since 1030hrs this morning 16 May."
Saga released the following statement via Twitter:
"There was a
We have been notified that there was a fire which affected a "few cabins" this afternoon on the Carnival Valor, which is currently docked at port in St. Thomas U.S.V.I.
A person on the cruise ship informed us that the cruise ship was supposed to depart St. Thomas at 5:00 P.M. but the captain
Carnival told a television station last evening that after an "electrical breaker failed," the Triumph cruise ship lost power. This "affected ventilation in the ship’s incinerator, sending smoke into limited areas of three decks."
Well, that’s not what the Cruise Director told the passengers last evening on the ship.
According to a passenger, the Cruise
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KATC reports that the infamous "poop" cruise ship, the Triumph, lost power today as the Carnival cruise ship was sailing from Cozumel, Mexico back to Galveston, Texas.
According to KATC, Carnival says that the Triumph lost power "for eight minutes" after an electrical breaker failed. Carnival says the loss of power "affected ventilation in
Two and a half days ago, a cruise passenger on the Carnival Magic emailed us and told us that: (1) the ship was delayed returning to Galveston by fog (2) a fire had apparently broken out on deck 11 causing smoke and ending up with the hallways drenched with water, and (3) a Coast Guard
On Twitter today, a travel agent bemoaned that a video entitled "Cruise Ship Nightmares" was airing. What particularly perturbed the travel agent was the fact that the CNN video first aired last summer and was recirculating as fresh news.
This particular video was well produced and quite provocative. Images of burned cruise ships
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This morning at 7:39 AM, I received the following information from a passenger on the Carnival Magic returning to port in Galveston:
"We sit outside the harbor in the fog this morning. Last night the coast guard had to airlift a passenger for medical reasons and yesterday morning we had a fire. Deck 11 forward.
A Facebook page focusing on the rights of Brazilians working on cruise ships reports today of a serious accident aboard a MSC cruise ship resulting in serious injuries to three crew members.
The page is entitled Direito Do Trabalhador Brasileiro Em Navios Cruzeiros (Law Of Brazilian Workers On Cruise Ships).
It states that an accident
The Daily Mail reports this evening that a fire broke out aboard a ferry operated by DFDS Seaways in the North Sea.
The ferry is the King Seaways, carrying 1,000 passengers, which was sailing from North Shields (in the U.K.) and heading to Amsterdam. DFDS is a Danish owned ferry operation.
The fire reportedly
Reeling from a CNN special report indicating that it delayed maintaining the diesel engines and fuel lines in the Triumph and other cruise ships, Carnival was hit last night with an article published by the Associated Press stating that the cruise line knew that the Triumph was a fire trap but it took chances with
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Anderson Cooper aired a short special last night on his program AC360.
Over and over again, Carnival engineers indicated on their Triumph inspection reports and maintenance records that one of the ship’s diesel generators was way past due for maintenance. The cruise ship was out of compliance with the IMO’s Safety of Life at Sea
A Greece newspaper reports that the Ocean Countess cruise ship is on fire.
My favorite website, Maritime Matters, reports this evening:
“Majestic International’s MV OCEAN COUNTESS, completed in 1976 as CUNARD COUNTESS, is currently ablaze at Chalkis, where she has been laid up since her most recent charter to U.K.-based Cruise and Maritime Voyages.
There has been remarkably little media coverage of the fire on the Dawn Princess cruise ship last weekend.
We were the first to report on the fire which broke out sometime after 8:00 PM Friday night as the Dawn Princess sailed between Wellington and Napier in New Zealand.
Princess Cruises was tight lipped about what
Friday evening, a fire broke out on the Dawn Princess. 30 minutes after the first public announcement, the cruise ship’s captain ordered the passengers to their muster stations where they remained for over another hour until the fire was extinguished.
We first learned of the fire when a reader of this blog contacted us
Last night a cruise passenger,