chengkp75

Yes, doing surveys out of synch with others gets expensive, so they should be stretching and compressing intervals to bring things into line.

Well, I'm assuming you are in the DNV Vessel Register, and entered the ship name. This will display a page with all the POA data on it. A "dry dock" is not a required survey/inspection, under "Surveys" you will see the "Bottom Complete Survey", this is the dry dock survey of all things under the waterline. This is showing as "next due" 6/29/2024. There is leeway there in the date range for the due date, so a few weeks either side is possible, allowing for dry dock availability. This date is somewhat out of sequence, as her last docking was June 2021, so this June is 36 months later, when it should have been no more than 30 months, so this must have been a covid exemption (shipyards not working), as her main class renewal date (the 5 year cycle of major inspections/surveys) is March 2025, and ships are normally required to dry dock for the renewal survey. Also, her class certificate is due in June 2025, which is again out of line with the renewal date of March 2025, so things are a bit muddy, but Covid tended to do that.

NCL has had azipods since the Dawn class, back in 2001. Spirit, POA, and the Jewel class all had azipods, then NCL returned to shafted propellers for Epic, and then back to azipods for Breakaway. Hawaii requires tugs to be on hand for docking/undocking in most ports, but they are almost never called on, and don't have to escort to the sea buoy. Can't remember if Hilo had tugs or not. Most tug work on cruise ships is "on a line" pulling, not pushing up against the ship, where the black tires mar the white hulls.

All international SAR is free of charge.

Oystein was Staff Chief on the Sky when I joined as observing First Engineer (had been sailing Chief for about 20 years, but took a step back to start with cruise ships) for a few months prior to the reflagging of the Aloha. Wonderful guy. Reflagging and dry docking the Sky was accelerated about 4 months or so, due to POA sinking.

No more than I am, just a simple boat mechanic.

I can't remember, but I don't think there are any tugs of any real pulling power based in Hilo, so if POA has an azipod out of service, she needs a tug escort for the entire (acknowledgedly short) maneuver out of harbor, so they may be getting a tug down to help out. Only real reason I can think of to delay the ship a full day in harbor.

Yeah, looked her up, Lindsey Smith. She was hired by NCL as a third engineer, as one of the original Pride of America crew. She actually made it to the shipyard, I was due to fly out to Germany the day the ship sank at the dock, so everyone was transferred to the Pride of Aloha (Norwegian Sky) for familiarization and reflagging. She has spent nearly her entire career with NCL, and on the POA in particular. While for senior engineers (Chief, Staff Chief, First) longevity on the ship leads to a lot of institutional knowledge and consistent maintenance, junior engineers can benefit from experiences on other ships and types of ships. Having said that, Linds was a good engineer.

Yeah, that's the southern route, the other route, north of Mauna Loa takes you past the ski mountain.

Not all clothing, please.

Depends on which way you go. One route goes past the Mauna Kea ski resort, though no snow at this time of year.

A Captain of the Pride of Aloha (former NCL ship in Hawaii), lived on the Big Island, and told me how some days they would go skiing in the morning on the mountain, and surfing in the afternoon.

What kind of maintenance? Are you talking about the appearance of the hotel areas, or things that don't work in the hotel? Or, the actual maintenance of the ship's systems? If you mean the latter, then I would ask your qualifications to make that statement, and your ability to determine what has caused the problem, and how you know the state of the ship's equipment. You are not new to CC, so you must have seen any of the numerous threads, across virtually every forum, many that I have responded to, regarding technical problems that either cancel cruises, delay ports, slow ships down, cause itinerary changes, or even require emergency dry dockings, and so on. It happens to every cruise line, and I would say that over the life of every cruise ship, it has happened more than once. According to the DNV database, yes, the POA is due for dry docking in June. .I'm not sure anymore (I've been gone for quite a while), but if it who I think it is, I trained her when she was a junior engineer on the Pride of Aloha. I don't recall the POA having any "propulsion" problems (if that is what this is, don't know any details), over the 20 years of her career. She did "tow" a buoy, chain and concrete anchor from Honolulu to Maui during her first year or two of operation, and that did cause some problems with delays in getting that unwrapped from the prop in Maui, but since she does so little time steaming on this itinerary, and most of it is relatively moderate speed, her propulsion system is never really stressed.

First off, no one is getting evacuated "mid-ocean". Just isn't going to happen, unless someone's Naval vessel is in the area, and then it would still take days to get to land. Second, no cruise line that I'm aware of would permit a non-government agency to attempt to land a helicopter, or attempt a winch evacuation anywhere near their ship. Only government agencies train for working around moving ships, and they assume the responsibility if things go sideways. And, only a very few government agencies have the ability to in-flight refuel a helicopter, further reducing the distance offshore that any evacuation would happen. "Evacuation" insurance is not for getting you from the ship to land, it is to get you from whatever hospital, in whatever country you were disembarked in, to a hospital in your home country.

If you're from the land of frat parties, then yes. Would generally lead to a visit from security, and perhaps a disembarkation.