Mach

Travel Guard is my company of choice. It's not the least expensive but they do provide a quality product. I don't believe it would have helped in this circumstance to try to purchase insurance outside the cruise line as it was a free cruise... no money was exchanged. It really is a shame that cruise lines don't provide a better product for insurance. It really can be a critical piece in assuring that proper care is afforded a passenger in the event of something untoward occurring.

. Just a few quick points... Turkey is, in fact, considered a First World Country, not Third World. The breakup of the nations into First, Second and Third world was an invention of the United Nations in the late 1940s. The first world was generally considered to be the NATO aligned countries, former colonies and Japan. I think the bigger question would be why the staff on the Azamara ship would deposit Mr. and Mrs. Melkonian at ANY FACILITY where communication was for them was impossible. How could Mr. Melkonian even answer the most basic of question like 'Where does it hurt?' I congratulate their travel agent for going above and beyond to help them out but it likely would never have been necessary had they been transported to a more suitable hospital rather than the first available... By the way, I agree with you completely on demanding that they be brought back to the US immediately. There would be little question of the care afforded him here... I hope...

My first cruise was back in the early 90's... 93 or 94... not sure but I am sure it was on the SS Norway and I believe I sailed out of Miami. The ports of call were of no importance as shortly after we sailed we met horribly foul weather and the primary source of entertainment was watching people run into walls and make mad dashes for restrooms. I spent little time on the open decks because of the conditions but I did become friends with several bartenders as I was almost the only customer they had for the 7 days!!! It really was a lovely ship and remarkably big for the time frame... over 1000 feet long and very well appointed. It would be several years before I would return to the sea but the Norway stands as my first...

They were left behind. The med staff on the ship determined that they could not treat him on the ship and put him off the ship in the first port with a hospital. The problem was that no one at that facility spoke English and Melkonian's only speak English. In the situation regarding my friend that I mentioned the cruise line put him off them (the gentleman and his wife...) and left them but handled it much better, in my opinion. If the med staff on the Azamara ship were aware that communication between the hospital staff and the Melkonian's they should have ensured that a translator was afforded them, as a minimum. Mrs. Melkonian eventually contacted the travel agency that she booked the voyage through and they went above and beyond to get them help. You can read more here: http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/elderly-couple-left-turkey-royal-caribbean-cruise-/nZX32/

Stunningly bad treatment... stunningly bad... http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/7196/20130823/royal-caribbean-abandons-man-broken-hip-turkey.htm The industry as a whole doesn't deserve a black eye for this but you know that's what will happen if this gets any press at all... One of my folks broke his hip on the Carnival Magic last March as we headed to Jamaica. The med staff onboard took fabulous care of him until we arrived in Montego Bay. They arranged and paid for an ambulance to meet the ship and transport him to Sangster International Airport for medical evacuation back to the US. He had trip protection and that covered the flight back to the US but the cruise line didn't charge him a dime for the treatment on board. That's typical of how such situations are handled by cruise lines but no one ever hears about those situations...

It will be a relief to have the Concordia gone from the reef off Giglio. The event was, and is, entirely unforgivable and put an indelible mark on the entire cruise industry. Righting the ship and removing it will be very risky but it must be done... for the sake of the people on the island and for the families of those who perished in the capsizing.

Exactly right. As I said in my post, we all know that it's virtually impossible to just fall off the ship. I've heard a report of a guy who was trying to get from one balcony to another by going around the outside of the divider standing on the balcony rail (stupidity...) and another report of an elderly gent who left a suicide note in his cabin. We can't prevent risk completely no matter how hard we try. Everything in life has an element of risk, end of story. I get so tired of people trying to plan for the least common denominator. I've got a ladder with SIX warning labels on it! I've flown jets with fewer warnings than that!!!

Princess has stated that the Sun Princess will be delayed returning to service by at least two weeks... Additionally, Celebrity has announced that they have cancelled the next four sailing for the Celebrity Milennium due to the ongoing issues with the ship's propulsion systems... http://www.cruiseserver.net/travelpage/news/c_news.asp Where's the media???

From the article: "In the case of cruise passenger Jason Rappe who went overboard from Holland America Line (HAL) Eurodam cruise vessel last year, HAL did not install the required man overboard system even though several cruise passengers recently disappeared on HAL ships." 'Required'? Required by whom? For the life of me I don't recall any maritime law or Coast Guard regulations that REQUIRE one of the discussed man overboard systems to be installed on any vessel. Everyone here is an experienced cruiser. I'm more than sure that everyone here knows how high the rails are both on the open decks and on the balconies. You don't 'fall' overboard. There must be a level of intent there... or remarkable stupidity. Given the height above the water that open decks and balcony cabins are at the fall itself is likely to be either incapacitating or fatal. No matter how rapidly the man overboard is reported chances of recovery are very slim. Sure, we've heard of a few folks who have gone overboard and been recovered but it's certainly not the norm. Please don't get me wrong... I'd love to never see another man overboard report but there have to be some practical limits in efforts to prevent people from doing flat stupid things. No matter what kind of system is installed people who want to jump off the ship will jump off the ship. After this they'll be asking that the entire ship be encapsulated by a net!!!

Yep! That show was 'Extreme Country'!! You're right... he DOES kill that song!!!

Now, THAT'S funny!! Ya' know, we had the Ecstasy here in Texas for over 5 years and she was wonderfully well received! Carnival has an award, the Crystal Eagle, which is awarded each year to the ship and crew with the highest passenger satisfaction rate. The Ecstasy won it all 5 years she was here. A great deal of that was due to her having and absolutely fabulous cruise director, Steve Cassel. The guy is amazing! You would swear he's your nerdy uncle but, man, can this guy play a fiddle! He does a fantastic show called 'Extreme Country.' Here's Steve with our mascots...

Sarge, the folks on the ship knew what had happened and that's likely the reason I never saw the little cigar sniffer again. Also, friends of mine in Miami who work for Carnival had been reading my daily installments about the cruise and emailed me to get the details. I'd be quite surprised if he continued with the cruise line after we returned to port... Just wondering Mach, what ship was that?? The Carnival Ecstasy, Sarge...

Sarge, the folks on the ship knew what had happened and that's likely the reason I never saw the little cigar sniffer again. Also, friends of mine in Miami who work for Carnival had been reading my daily installments about the cruise and emailed me to get the details. I'd be quite surprised if he continued with the cruise line after we returned to port...

I answered 'Yes, we have and still do on every cruise.' to the first and 'No, never thought about it.' to the second. Lemme do a little bit of 'splanin here... With the exception of one cruise we have tipped our cabin steward and wait staff extra. I have never seen people work so hard to make sure that our vacation is going to be everything we expected and more. They deserve a bit of an extra show of appreciation. However... on one cruise the cabin steward didn't get anything extra and I'll tell you why. On the first day of the cruise, embarkation day, we got our suitcases unpacked, met our cabin steward (a nice enough Indonesian chap) and headed off to dinner. The food and service were very good and we were off to a great start. We went to the Welcome Aboard Show, as we always do, and were greeted by the cruise director right after the show. As we were chatting with him we were approached by a little guy in a security uniform who interrupted our conversation with the CD. He asked if we could confirm who we were and we did so gladly. He said, rather abruptly, 'My Chief needs to speak to you, follow me.' He headed off, little legs scurrying leaving us in his wake. I called to him and asked him to slow down, which he did, and where we were going. His response... 'To my Chief.' OK... I could see that Stitch was a bit distressed and I was just a bit concerned myself. Did the previous guests leave drugs in our cabin or some such? We were headed toward our cabin so I assumed that would be our eventual destination. In the distance I could see three more people wearing the same uniform as the little security guy was. Yep... they were outside our cabin door. Upon arriving at our cabin the Chief of Security introduced himself to my wife and I and quite politely asked if we had any weapons on board. HUH? WEAPONS? Now, I'm a gun owner and have a concealed carry permit and occasionally travel with a weapon but never on a cruise!!! I told him 'No... no weapons' as my mind swirled about trying to figure out what the heck was going on. The he asked if I had any ammunition in the cabin and it struck me... my cigar cutter! At first glance it looks like a .44 caliber cartridge but, it breaks apart to play Transformer and become a cutter to slice a plug out of the top of my cigars. Here's a picture... As I figured out what was going on I told the Chief of Security that I knew what he was referring to and invited him into our cabin. EVERYONE followed me in. There, on the counter, was my cigar cutter which had been nicely tucked away in my travel humidor... a rather solid little device with no windows in it but, none the less, there was my cutter. I picked it up, explained what it was and demonstrated it to the Chief who immediately cracked up laughing and apologized for the error and inconvenience. I told him not to worry and it wouldn't affect our cruise. They wandered off and I heard the Chief offering some advice to a few of the folks who were with him as they headed down the hallway. Now... the bottom line. Someone, and it had to be our cabin steward, opened that humidor, found the cutter and alerted security. He never appeared at our cabin again. He never said a word... never left a note... nada. I got a rather nice bottle of champagne and a tray of chocolates for my bride from the Cruise Director with a nice note but never heard from the cabin steward. He didn't get tipped extra. So, as you can see, someone really has to do something untoward to fall into that category of not deserving a bit extra tip from us...

I saw a very short piece on Fox News about the Celebrity ship. It lasted less than 20 seconds, if that long. There were, of course, references to the Carnival Triumph.

I certainly am not opposed to restricting the areas where smoking is permitted and most, if not all, cruise lines have done this. I do find your concern regarding smoking sneaking into the cabin a bit of a stretch. For a very large part of the time that my cigar is lit it's idle, either between my fingers or resting in an ashtray. Given the fact that the smoke dissipates almost instantly I can't imagine smoke getting into the cabin. I can assure you it never has gotten into my cabin. I don't smoke cigarettes, haven't in 40 years, BUT I do enjoy the occasional cigar. I don't inhale ( I can't imagine what that would be like) and I try to be mindful of others around me when I do indulge in one as does everyone I know who smokes cigars. I'm sure there's the odd twit who could care less how the people around him are affected by his actions but that would be true regardless of situation. I can't tell you how many obnoxious drinkers I've run into on cruises, regardless of cruise line. Carnival was the first cruise line to introduce a totally smoke free ship (The Sensation) and they had to change the concept because of suffering sales. There are quite a few statistics out that that claim that only about 24% of the population smokes these days. I'm betting that number is skewed a bit by people providing the politically correct answer to make themselves feel better. I do have to say that I was pleased to see Carnival's piano bars go smoke free. It really wasn't that the smoke in the room bothered me as much as the smell of my clothes the next morning!!!

When the entire thing about the Triumph reared it's ugly head I can't tell you how many clients I told 'It's a machine... occasionally, things go wrong.' citing issues with cars not starting, washing machines needing repair, etc. It's a ship... it's not perfect. Nothing is. Something will break eventually. Face it. Now, if we could get the media to treat all cruise lines equally...

I LOVE to smoke a cigar on my balcony at sunset and sip a good scotch... I'm hoping that Carnival has more sense than to ban smoking on balconies. Think about it... the ship is doing 20 to 25 mph... how much of my smoke is actually going to end up on anyone else's balcony? Next to none...

What a pleasure to see that you folks lean toward the traditional side. When I started cruising a suit was standard attire for gents at dinner and a tux for formal nights. We've never had to worry about the ladies... they always know how to dress and generally are the guiding light for the guys to make sure we don't mix plaid and polka dots or some such silliness...

Sarge, I'd LOVE to cruise with you guys! I can tell you're the type of folks we'd have a great time with! Sadly, we'll be just back from our Halloween cruise and we're out of almost all of our vacation time for this year. Darn corporations... don't they know that CRUISIN' is VASTLY more important than work???

Great job, Sarge, and thanks! I love sailing from Tampa... the folks are fantastic, embark and debark the easiest I've found anywhere!! Having the Florida State Aquarium right across the street is a great plus and a wonderful place to visit.

Spot on... absolutely dead nuts accurate. I agree with everything you said. Despite dress codes becoming more relaxed I would not wear shorts to the main dining room. Having said that, I really don't care a great deal how others in the dining room dress but I do prefer to have those sitting near me dress better than min standard. Also, I'm a big fan of traditional dining. I enjoy knowing who I'm going to be sharing my table with and who my wait staff will be every night. For me... and my wife... it's an important part of the cruise experience.

Nope... haven't seen a thing on the news outlets about and I get several feeds including the Associated Press. Not a peep. Now, if it had been CARNIVAL I'm bettin' the situation would be quite different... There was barely a peep on the news, regardless of where you get your news, when the Millennium first had problems and I'm betting there will be none this time, either...

WOOOOHOOOOQ! Spot on, MaryLou! I like the way you think!!!

I don't sleep much at home... 3... 3 1/2 hours and the same is true on a cruise. My wife gets up a little later than normal but always meets our a few of her girlfriends on the Lido Deck for coffee. I refuse to miss a sunrise at sea... refuse. Before sunrise I wander the ship taking pictures of the tiny elements that fascinate me so much... little details that make the ship what it is. The quiet times on the ship let me get to know it at a bit of a more complete level. I sailed on the same ship seven times and came across details that I had never seen previously. Wandering the ship before the guest population begins getting about gives me an opportunity to chat with crew members when they aren't so pressed to get this or that accomplished and I've made a number of friends that way. Yep... late to bed... early to rise puts a smile on my face and a few thousand extra photos in my albums...