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TPKeller

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  • Location
    Fredericksburg, VA USA
  • Interests
    Photography
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Royal Caribbean
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Islands

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  1. Either I missed it again or I'm looking at the wrong camera! 😕 I'll keep an eye on it, thanks! Theron
  2. Link? I can only find one live streaming webcam, which is showing the bridge site from down-river looking back towards the port, but I see no barges or cranes. Marinetraffic also shows nothing new this morning. Theron
  3. Ah yeah I forgot about the "nobody boarding" after that one! 🙂 Theron
  4. I'm guessing THAT is what Royal Caribbean was dealing with during what everyone was sweating out waiting for their announcement!! One positive note... if they want, they can stick around an extra day to watch the parade! 😁 Theron
  5. I think I found the actual reason. The City of Norfolk is hosting a two-hour long parade, starting at 10AM, that walks right by the cruise terminal! No possible way to turn around 5,000 passengers in the middle of all that!! 😄 Theron
  6. Thanks for posting this! I am guessing this parade is why RCCL had to shorten the 4/12 sailing, returning to port on the 19th instead of the 20th. The web page for the parade shows the route right in front of the cruise terminal, and the parade starts at 10 AM! Theron
  7. ETA: See update at the end! As others have noted, it does not say the "why!" "Unfortunately, we will need to shorten our cruise by one day and return to Norfolk on April 19th, 2024, instead of coming home on the April 20th, 2024." The next sentence gives a reason for skipping a port (Nassau), but that is not why they are ending a day early. Quite bluntly, unless there is a schedule conflict with the port in Norfolk on the 20th, this makes absolutely no sense. Norfolk is about 7 hours closer to the ocean than Baltimore on both ends of the cruise. That literally gives them an additional 14 hours of cruise time from start to finish, so it simply cannot be only a time and distance problem if they were prepared to sail that original itinerary from Baltimore. I checked one of my normally reliable sources, but did not see any cruise ships scheduled for Norfolk on the 20th, so I am at a loss for the reason they would have shortened the cruise. UPDATE: A later post mentioned that there is a large parade in downtown Norfolk on the 20th. The NATO Parade of Nations. This very well may be the reason for the shortened itinerary! Theron
  8. I sailed from Norfolk on Empress in 2007 and Grandeur in 2009. Two of my favorite cruises. While we're talking about Royal Caribbean and Norfolk, a couple years ago I worked up this to-scale mock-up image of what an Oasis class ship would look like docked at the Norfolk Cruise Terminal. Wouldn't that be a hoot!? 😄 Theron
  9. No. I think the police were at the two ends of the bridge. They typically set up at the beginning of the work zone to alert approaching drivers. ETA: And even if they were somewhere on the bridge, their first priority would have been to get back to the end to stop traffic. From the radio transcripts, I'm not even sure the construction workers would have left. The dispatcher basically said something like "let them know" and "see if..." you can get them off the bridge temporarily. Theron
  10. Here's a thought for you to ponder. Maryland typically provides police cars with flashing lights to stand watch at construction sites. I don't live there, but I do remember seeing this frequently as I have driven through there. One of my initial questions was 'how did they get cops to both sides of the bridge so fast to be able to stop traffic? All in about 2 or 3 minutes?' Then I realized... it was those construction workers being there that had the cops there already! In a way, those construction workers saved the lives of who-knows-how-many more ordinary drivers might have been on that bridge otherwise! Had there been no work crew, there would have been no cops stationed at the end of the bridge, and very likely no way to stop traffic in time to clear the bridge of ordinary traffic. We know the construction workers were lost. They were working in the middle, and there just wasn't time to warn them. But in a way, those lives saved countless others. Theron
  11. I don't think it was a crucial difference. I believe all the vehicles that were in front of the police closure made it safely at least past the point of collapse. I haven't seen any reports on whether there was still traffic on the parts that did not collapse, but no matter, they were fine. Theron
  12. I'll chime in. I think the channel will be open long before that. Remember the channel is only the section between the two bridge supports on either side of the ship. They can leave the rest of the bridge outside the channel to be removed later. The NTSB video posted earlier (well worth the watch, by the way) never caught a view of the whole channel, but I snagged two screen shots that show both sections of the bridge that are blocking the channel. From the twisted angles of the truss, it appears that the two sections are mostly already separated (broken apart from each other), although they could still be connected below the water. They are obviously not completely connected as they were before they fell. That means fewer points to cut them apart. I think it all comes down to whether they can bring in strong enough crane(s) to lift the two sections intact. I honestly don't know if they can, but my hunch is that they can. If they have to disassemble the girders, then the time extends, but they won't take them down to the individual girders, just to chunks light enough to be lifted by whatever cranes they do get. Space to store them on land is not an issue. All they have to do is get the steel out of the channel. They could even dump it a few hundred yards off to the side if they have to. They'll clean the parts up later. There's also the concrete roadway that is laying on the bottom. If those pieces broke up or mostly fell flat, they might just leave it for later as well. Losing a foot or two of channel depth to save a month's closure is well worth it. No doubt they will "sonar the area to death" to make sure there are no hazards... but as important as this is, I think it'll be done in weeks, not months. As acknowledged by all... we can speculate, but only time will tell! Theron
  13. Funny story, I live in Fredericksburg, and drove to BWI for a flight to somewhere. Chatting with a lady on the parking shuttle, she was flying to Norfolk for the weekend. I laughed, and told her I had just driven pretty close to half the distance of her entire trip just to get to the airport for my trip! Theron
  14. Anyone who's sailed these forums for more than a few months has heard it. Probably the most common, universally applicable, and well-known piece of cruise advice of all time: How many clothes, and how much money should I take?? Answer: Lay out your clothes, and lay out your money. Take HALF the clothes, and TWICE the money! Who was the first to come up with this gem, and when? I've been here on Cruise Critic for 21 years, I heard it way back then. Could it be 30 years old? 40? Would you believe it is AT LEAST forty-six years old!? I just happened to run across this clip on an episode of The Love Boat. I'd love to know if anyone can cite a reference to the advice prior to that episode's first air date of October 6, 1977. Wouldn't it be hilarious if one of the best pieces of cruise advice started as little more than a television show joke!? Theron (Sharing this short clip under "fair use" for educational (historical) purposes.) That's Loretta Swit and Richard Mulligan. LoveBoatClip-S1Ep3.mp4
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