qtlikeme
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The final voyage of the Costa Concordia :(
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Sailing on the Sun in one week! Reading the Dailies is increasing my level of excitement ten fold!!!!!:)
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http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/247359600
What ever will I do with my spare time at the computer??? I appreciate everyone's contributions to this thread!
Take care and happy cruising everyone!!
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"As to belongings, it has been reported that items will be returned. Who knows? We haven't heard from 2 survivors that sometimes drop in here for a while now which is probably the only way we'd know for sure."
SB : I'll let everyone know if we receive any of our belongings from our cabin. We had not put anything in our safe as we had only boarded 4 hours before the impact and were busy going to dinner and then the magic show...I did have time to wash a wee bit of laundry and sadly my unmentionables have been fluttering on the clothesline in our cabin shower all this time!! Perhaps they'll be dry now that the water level is below deck 6 where we were!! Costa had promised to return items from the safes but we've never heard about anything else. If our belongings are returned, won't that be a sorry mess of a parcel to open!!! Yuck, I don't want to even think about it!
I have quietly been reading this thread almost every day since it started....not sure how I will pass my spare time when the ship is finally gone from Giglio!!! I want to thank each and every one of the contributors, it has been a very informative and therapeutic experience for me to follow this thread!
Life is so good!!! And we are forever grateful to be survivors!
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We DID get sent to the naughty room on the Star Mexican Riviera cruise because of a bottle of Maple Syrup that I had packed as a gift to exchange at the Meet and Greet! I hadn't thought about bringing some for our own use but I might do that next time!! We get so spoiled by having the real deal every day on our cereal that anything but is not acceptable!;)
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We did the Amalfi Coast in a van in January. The visibility was spectacular in all directions! A car with head rests could not offer the view that the van did. There were 8 of us and the driver. It was the best day ever!!!:)
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My DH and I really enjoyed all the food we were served on the Jade!!!! We had zero complaints!! The only specialty restaurants that we tried were Moderno and Cagneys and they were both excellent! The service is second to none and every aspect of our time on the Jade was over the top fantastic!! We hope to sail on her again in 2015 in the Med.:)
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We missed Santorini in 2012 due to high winds.
We missed Sardinia on the Jade in January due to forecast high winds. We stopped at Palma instead and that was a pleasant and lovely port and our planned sea day was moved back a day due to this change! I think you have to be flexible and remember you are on vacation and if the port is missed for safety reasons, I don't get upset in the least!;)
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Thanks qtlikeme that is very interesting.
May I ask you if you have received any of your possessions that were in your cabin. I understood that the Italian authorities were making that a priority after the parbuckle.
Hope you are well and recovering from your ordeal.
Best Wishes
Clive
Hi Clive,
No, we have not received any of our possessions from our cabin and I really do not expect that we will! Our cabin is currently underwater as we were on deck 6. We were only ever promised the contents of the safe which unfortunately we had not had time to make use of! We are well, thank you for asking! We have mostly been able to put the ordeal behind us but are keenly interested in reading the news and information shared on here and otherwise on the internet pertaining to the Concordia.
Thanks to all the contributors to this site!
Laurie
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Jade January 2014
Captain: Lars
Hotel Director: Jean Michel Dhelin
Concierge: Karabi Saikia
Cruise Director: Jill Tasker
Casino Host:
Chief Engineer:
Food & Beverage Mgr: Deepak Punia
Restaurant Manager: Viorica Dumitru
Beverage Manager: Vesna Campos
Group Services Coordinator: Giannina Pedraza
Executive Chef: Rodney Bennett
Butlers
Sorry this is as complete as I can supply for our sailing mid to end of January 2014. They are a wonderful staff and we thoroughly enjoyed our time aboard!!!
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They are also cutting off the rudders' date=' most likely to make the tow easier.
AKK[/quote']
When we were at Giglio this past January we were told by Titan and Micoperi salvage workers that the rudders being removed were going to be transported to the Caribbean and used on another Costa ship!! Just an interesting tidbit we learned from a South African employee of Titan Salvage that was working on the dock at Giglio and who we were chatting with.
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I rewatched a documentary that was mostly footage taken by passengers and crew. At one point it was announced overhead "Tango India, Tango India Lifeboat 3" I am wondering if anyone knows what this means with regard to the Costa Concordia? We were standing at Lifeboat #7 waiting to load our lifeboat and I recall looking toward Lifeboat #3 when they were starting to load it! Someone standing at our lifeboat said to our crew "they are loading lifeboat 3, let us get on our lifeboat too!" At this point I believe that the crew stepped aside from the opening on the railing and we started to load lifeboat 7 with heavy crowding. My DH was right behind me and had said to me that once the person ahead of me moved forward I was to stay close behind and not hesitate. The lifeboat was filled quickly without incident. I don't recall hearing the Tango India message overhead but I wonder if it meant that lifeboat 3 had been launched or was that giving them permission to launch??? It was very noisy at this point and I don't recall hearing the message but now that I've heard it on the documentary it has gotten me wondering.
Thanks for any information.
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I read recently that if "Abandon Ship" is called on a cruise ship, it means each passenger is refunded their fare. I understand from reading this, that the decision is not taken lightly and that a captain and the company that owns the ship would want to do everything but call abandon ship if there was any chance that the ship could be saved and also the passengers stay on board. I am also wondering if anyone knows the obligation to compensate passengers in the event of this situation? We now understand that the minimum payment for passengers is 11 thousand euros per passenger, but can not find it written anywhere, the circumstances when this compensation would be necessary. If this payout is necessary if abandon ship is called in addition to the refund, then there was indeed a huge amount of money at stake if all passengers were entitled to this. I am starting to understand the delay and what might have been part of the reason for it!! It was all about money.....as so often things in this world are!!! Also the fact that a lost life is only worth 70 thousand euros really sickens me!!!
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Hey, all;
Just ashore from work.
Here's my take on cruise ship elevators. Tonka, I have to disagree with you, the elevators are powered by the emergency generator. When we did our mandated monthly test of the emergency generator under load, you got a momentary loss of power to the elevators, so we scheduled this for minimum pax count times, and with lots of announcements.
Now, if the emergency generator is off-line, the elevator will stop wherever it is when the power goes out, regardless of whether it is between decks or not.
The elevators are programmed to move to a mid-point (deck 5 or so, depending on the ship) if a fire alarm in the fire zone the elevator is in, to provide a "fire block" to the chimney of the elevator shaft, but that is not the case here.
Unfortunately, no one is ever assigned to check elevators, in my experience. The only time you would check the elevators is after the pax muster is taken, and there are missing pax. Then the evacuation teams would recheck cabins, and public areas, and then engineering from the quick response team would be sent to check.
Having said that, the elevator alarm, that is activated from the cab, is on battery power, and would alarm on the bridge, so anyone trapped could signal quickly that they were there, and then personnel would go free them. Rather than winding a cab up or down, you would open the deck doors above the cab, and then climb down the ladder in the shaft, and let the pax out of the escape hatch in the cab ceiling.
I haven't had time to read all the linked articles, or catch up on the trial news, but just wanted to chime in. The problem, in my opinion, is that because Schettino declared that everyone was to return to their cabins, no muster was taken, and I doubt if one was ever completed to see who was at the boats or not. I would have to review the official report's timeline to see if the completion of the muster was ever reported to the bridge, or whether things had gone completely to s*** on the bridge by then, because the ship was basically going over by the time he decided to abandon ship.
Hello chengkp75 : I am a survivor and all along the thought that passengers were trapped in the elevators has haunted me! At no time, from our arrival at deck 4 at our muster area, to finally loading the lifeboats, to our arrival on shore, did anyone ask us our name, cabin # or nationality. We were first asked these questions as we boarded the passenger ferry the morning of January 14th to be taken from Giglio Island to the mainland at Porto Santo Stefano! We did not listen when we were told to leave the lifeboat area and go up to deck 5 to a lounge area to await further instructions. The stairways were congested with passengers and we made the decision to stay at the lifeboat area along with a significant number of our fellow passengers. It was not too long after that we were finally allowed to board our lifeboat and reach the pier at Giglio.
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Uni ... It is one thing to open a lift/elevator that is at a floor or landing, it is totaly different when it is between floors and unseen! and as the emergency lighting generator failed sadly those people were never going to be found regardless of what orders were or were not being given.
Doors on lifts/elevators in commercial buildings or tower flats can be opened using a lift key in order to see where the lift car is positioned, there are some lift cars that are programmed to return to a given floor which could be dangerous in the event of a fire. I doubt that cruise ships have this type.
The only people who would likely be trained in persons marooned in lifts on a ship would likely be the engineering department.
The emergency lighting generator was functioning for more than 2 hours after the impact!! Lights were on in the hallways and public areas of the ship as bright as they would be with the regular power system. Our photographs taken in the lifeboat area, while we waited for the call to evacuate and from the pier after we made it ashore, show plenty of lights still bright and glowing in the night until at least 11:40! Our friends, who started their swim from the ship around midnight have stated that at this point there was minimal light on the lifeboat deck or elsewhere on the ship. I find it a hard fact to accept that no one in authority thought that perhaps there were passengers trapped in the elevators and no one was assigned to check the elevators for trapped passengers! I will be avoiding using cruise ship elevators from now on!!
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I am deeply saddened to once again read that passengers died in the elevators that night. If the crew knew that the emergency generators were not working, why did someone not force open the elevators and rescue the ones that were trapped in the hour before the evacuation was called!! Sounds like lots of time to investigate whether anyone was trapped and manually smash open the elevators!!! It is not a widely publicized fact that some were trapped and ultimately died there, but this article when translated seems to state this detail! It gives me shivers to think how terrifying it would have been to be trapped in an elevator and ultimately drown there!
http://dreamblog.it/2014/03/03/concordia-tendine-bloccate-il-giallo-sulla-nave-ora-e-nel-locale-dge/
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Hello,
We are trying to decide between two Mediterranean cruises and want some advice on which ship would be better to be on for a 7 night cruise. Norwegian's Norwegian Jade or MCS Cruises' MCS Lirica? We are leaning more towards the Norwegian Jade, but are looking for some feedback about both ships before we book.
Norwegian is: Rome - Montenegro - Slovenia - Croatia - Venice
MCS is: France - Tunisia - Malta - Italy - France
They are both early May.
Thanks!
Dan and Shell
I vote for the Norwegian Jade!! My DH just completed an 11 day dream cruise of the Mediterranean in January. Her crew and hotel staff are all wonderful and professional at what they do! The food, entertainment and accommodations were all perfect! JMHO!!:)
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Sid
I can readily understand Costa Concordia survivors wanting to get back to cruising on NCL's Jade. But, my follow up question would have been: "Are you willing to cruise with Costa again?"
I would have to say NO for us!!
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My DH and I are survivors of the Concordia. We returned to Giglio about a month ago and spent two days there. We met some of the locals and they are amazing and friendly people! We met some true heroes of January 13-14, 2012. A fact that was never publicized by any news article that I read afterward (and I read most of them, I think) was revealed to us when we were there. Several of the local men watched as the Costa Concordia crew got out of the lifeboats when the passengers did, as they arrived at the pier that night. At least 4 of these men got on board the lifeboats and the one man in particular that we spoke to, told us that he made 5 trips back and forth to the ship, picking up passengers and he also pulled many people from the water that night!!! I was totally in awe of this man and his friends. There would have been many more fatalities had it not been for their actions and bravery! This little known fact has got to be made known and these men should be publicly recognized! I am not sure that is what they want as they just felt it was something that they could do to help. We watched from the pier, as the lifeboats returned to the ship and assumed that it was Costa Concordia crew manning them but that was not the case!
Just an interesting news item for everyone to ponder!! I hugged our new friend and there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I thanked him on behalf of all the survivors!! Wow!!!!
That was about the most emotional part of our return to the island for sure!! Just wanted to share with you folks that are still posting items and thank you for your continued interest in this piece of history!
We completed our visit to Italy with a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Norwegian Jade and we had a fabulous time!! So thankful to be back aboard a ship and enjoying cruising!:D
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I am really enjoying your review, thanks so much for posting it!
My DH and I board the Jade on Jan 18th and your sneak peek is making me even more excited!
Great job keeping it interesting, very informative and your photography is fantastic.
Thanks again and hope I can catch some more of the posts before we leave home on the weekend!:)
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Costa Concordia Dancer Admits Schettino Affair here's the link :
http://news.sky.com/story/1161246/costa-concordia-dancer-admits-schettino-affair
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From Giglio News website : (excuse the translations!)
The structure of the Commissioner for the emergency Concordia, incorporating the feedback of the Subject actuator and Technical Director of Research, announced that he had completed all the activities technically possible to search for people still missing following the sinking of January 2012 in front of Isola del Giglio. Indeed, from September 24, immediately after the completion of phase parbuckling, the core operating interforce formed by the Coast Guard, Fire Department, Navy, Carabinieri, Guardia di Finanza and the State Police took over the search interrupted in the spring of 2012, inspecting all accessible areas on board ship - both in the emerged part is immersed in that - in addition to the seabed in front of the Concordia freed from the support of the ship itself. As noted, these activities have allowed us to recover the remains of a body and other bones, when subjected to identification tests, as they become known the results of these investigations will determine whether the research can be considered as definitively concluded or whether it will be necessary to provide for their hereinafter referred to as the Concordia will be conducted in port and commissioning in dry.
Looks like the search for bodies is over! When will DNA testing be complete and finally announced? Must be so hard for the families!!
We are going back to Giglio just after the second anniversary as my DH wants to watch some of the goings on with the ship......It will be emotional to return but it is something that we seem drawn back to!.....wish me strength to face getting on a cruise ship again!
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qtlikeme- Also cannot imagine what it must be like to have escaped the ship and now be watching it return.
May I ask you a question? They say that they will be collecting all belongings from the cabins and returning them to you. Is this what the passengers want? Were you even consulted? Wondering how you feel about this. (and if this is an instrusive question- please forgive and ignore).
Watching the parbuckling seems to be the natural thing to be doing tonight! This story is our story now...we were two among the 12 Canadians onboard and so this has become an everyday topic of conversation wherever we go..... We live in a small community where everyone knows everyone and not a day goes by without someone bringing this up! I have come to accept this and especially today I am starting to feel like this is the start of closure for me at least.
From the first communication with Costa upon our return home, we were asked to supply them with a list of the items in our safe. All along they have been quoted as saying they would do their best to return items from the safes to passengers. Fortunately we did not have anything of value with us on this vacation and ironically we had not taken the time to put anything into the safe as we had only boarded the ship at 5:30 that afternoon! We have replaced all the contents of our wallets except the cash which fortunately did not total much more than a few hundred euros.
To Clive : Thanks so much for your kind words...it means alot to me!!
Motels in Tampa
in Florida Departures
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That's what I'm looking for.....wondering if you could send me the link for the AirBnB that you stayed at as I have no idea how to find one in the correct area near the port!! I hope we can Uber from the airport to the AirBnb and then use Uber again to get to the port the next day! Or is there a certain neighbourhood I should use in my search for the right area? Thanks for any advice or tips!