old nutter

For those thinking this thing might go away, here is a trusted voice spelling out the issues very well:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52182509

Not looking good.

I suspect that individual risk is going to be a minor issue for the cruise industry in the whole.  The biggest risk will be what happens if a port refuses landing because "they" or their population thinks there is a problem on a ship.

The last three ships in this current episode only docked yesterday and the MSC one had a problem in the earlier stages down under when even though they had no cases on board they were denied a landing because locals demonstrated against it stopping there.  Just look at the latest tweet from POTUS last night where he is trying to effectively extend a virtual wall all round the US to stop any chance of someone bringing the virus into the country.

Everyone now knows just what happens if a cruise line ends a cruise in a foreign country and the passengers then get abandoned in a country that cannot then help them get them home because either that country or the home one has closed borders in and out.  That risk will not be fully mitigated by any personal measures because the individuals movements are taken completely out of their hands and it can change very quickly.  Risking your future when you have no hope of mitigating that risk will be the greatest issue for potential customers.  And do not forget that corona virus is no longer a risk that any travel insurance will cover on new bookings from now on!  Not very hopeful, I am afraid.  The outlook is not very good for quite a while, never mind this summer.

The biggest issue would be if you get unloaded for any reason (eg virus or bad injury ending in hospital), then you might need a passport. You could also find yourself being airlifted to a foreign country off the ship and you might need a passport then as well. Finding out that having a US identity document doesn't always seem to mean much outside in the wide world seems to come as a shock for some.  A six month plus passport is the only identity document that is universally accepted wherever you are on the planet, so often best to cover for everything since you can. Everything else is a risk, albeit often a small one.

Been on Epic, Getaway, Pearl and Jade Havens.  The Epic arrangement is fine once you get used to the way they coped with the afterthought nature of the whole area and having to keep your key-card handy all of the time can be a bind.  The Epic glass elevators out of the Bar up to Posh and down to the ice cream machines in the buffet are so cool.  The Getaway was fine except when it rained without it having a roof (OK warm rain in the Caribbean).  The Jewel Class ship Havens are really good if, like us, you like the peace and quiet.  The smaller courtyard  means that you almost have a personal choice about whether the roof is open, closed or half-and-half, and that upstairs sun lounge area on them is a massive feature with it's permanent views of the sea, land and sky - and virtually guaranteed sun lounge spaces.  The formal and informal Epic restaurants are definitely the best in the fleet.  And if they had more variations in the evening meal choices, those inbuilt Haven restaurants would be unbeatable.

I agree about approximately the 90% English speaking.  Almost all Europeans speak English as either first or second language.  Even the French who do not like to speak English when on home territory will use it when on the neutral space aboard ship.  The only people who will probably not be able to converse in English will be Orientals, mainly the Chinese.

NCL have not come clean on either what happened to the engine in detail, or what thet need to do to get it back to full use again.  There was quite a lot of info on here from people who were on her when the fire happened for us to know that the damage to the engine was quite extensive.   The spec for the star is available and shows that she is one of the fastest cruise ships around other than the Cunard ocean liners when all is well and she can easily make a bit over 25 knots.  She has not been above 21 knots since the troubles and experts here have been able to work out that this means she is currently working well with three engines at the moment.

As to what will happen when she goes back to Europe in the spring, we can only speculate what is going to happen.  However, it is obvious that NCL would not go to the trouble of cancelling one cruise, handing the passengers over to the Dawn and moving the TA forward unless they were trying to make somme headroom to repair that engine.  It will have taken a long time to get the bits for the repair and get them into place, hence the long lead time.  If they need to completely replace an engine, they may need a dry dock, but if it is  a case of repairing the huge crankshaft  it might be possible to do it without drydocking.

There is an oldish video if you want to see what can be done here:

22 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

Besides the mechanical issues, I recall that NCL's decision to put Haven Suites where the nice observation lounge used to be was a horrid mistake.

 

 

Just to put the record straight for now, the Star did not get any Haven Suites fitted when it was changed, they were just "Suites".  There are no Haven suites on Star.

As far as the "mechanicals" are concerned, Star has two rear mounted Azipods that are currently fully serviceable.  There are four diesel-electric power generators that provide the electrical power to operate the two azipods and all hotel services on the ship.  One of these engines is currently out-of-service because of a mechanical failure which happened during the summer.  With full power coming from the three engines running there is enough electrical power to provide all hotel services and have enough to move through the water at around 20 knots which is about 4 or 5 knots below the absolute max for the ship.  When used, that extra speed is expensive in fuel costs so is only used when it is absolutely necessary to go that fast to maintain an unavoidable  tight schedule between ports, so the sequences between ports are normally set so that it is not necessary under a normal schedule.

Most of the port changes over the past few months have been where those very tight scheduled journeys would be otherwise be necessary and changes have been re-planned to account for the loss of that extra boost power from a fourth engine.  Other unavoidable port changes have been for the likes of the sudden changes in Venice after the MSC ships re-engineered the canal banks in the summer and some big forecast storms that forced a route change for the recent TA.  That TA was completed without any known power issues, so repeating the trip the other way with the three serviceable power generators is perfectly feasible.

From what is publicly known, it looks as though the work to restore the fourth engine will be done immediately after the April TA.  That work on the fourth engine apparently needs significant dockside activity,  probably cutting a substantial hole in the side to get "big stuff" in and out of the engine room, but not an actual dry-dock.  Therefore, unless they will be taking the opportunity to do some below waterline work, dry-dock facilities will not be necessary.

Every thing else about this latest "episode" is how NCL have handled the enforced non-availablity time to get the fourth engine back to use.

3 hours ago, mugtech said:

Can't imagine crossing the ocean and not taking a cruise when I get there.  People already made reservations in Europe based on the original sailing dates, airfare etc.  

Maybe use the time to explore some of the beautiful and historic inland places around Europe this time, or perhaps switch to a river cruise - there is much to see that will never be possible from port stops.

I was trying to describe the rationale to make space for a short dry dock to repair the bad engine in a pre-booked full schedule.  The cancellation I talked about was the one needed to be able to advance the TA without actually cancelling anyone's cruise.  Clearly that is what they did and now they have a gap when she arrives in Europe to do the repairs without removing a cruise all together.  Quite a clever compromise really for the business, unless the TA advance disruption is causing you impossible problems or if you were looking forward to a B2B in Europe after the TA.

As has been said a number of times on this board, the engine issue is an electrical power problem, not an azipod mechanical one.  She normally has four engines to supply the electrical power for the ship, including all electricity around the ship and enough electrical power for full speed on the azipods.  Star and Dawn have the highest top speed in the fleet and can make up to around 25 knots with all four engines running which they rarely use only when they have to because it is expensive to run at full speed for long.  With only three at present it looks like she can only make about 20-ish knots max, so they do not have the leeway on some longer legs for even minor delays such as late passengers or bad weather, hence a few port changes.

Since the fire, only three engines are available at present and they did the recent mainly uneventfultransatlantic crossing on those three.  The cancellation of the Azores stop on that run was purely to do with bad weather on that northern route.  At the time she went across, virtually every ship of all types went south because of that storm.

If I was trying to second guess about the transatlantic date advance, I would assume that they can accommodate a single cruise cancellation while over there because there is a lot more capacity to absorb changed bookings than in Europe at that time to make free headroom for some dry dock time once across the Atlantic - or maybe European dry docking will be cheaper.

9 hours ago, PeleNipsy said:

 

They have removed this to add deluxe owner's suites on the Jewel, so the Jewel is now like the Pearl.  Major bummer for the Garden Villa, which lost its outdoor area overlooking the main pool area.

Are you sure we are talking about the same space.  The two forward facing Owners Villa villas on Jewel and Pearl look as if they were created from splitting the big one  that overlooked the pool area, not the sundeck that you get to from the steps out of the Haven courtyard that has cabanas on the Jade and looks over the port side and  back over the stern past the side of the funnels.  Losing that area would be a major bummer for the 2-bed suites round the main courtyard.

It looks like she might be struggling a bit again because the AIS is showing a night run only going as far as Zelinika which is about half as far as they would travel if they were to go to Bar.  Current speed is only a bit over 8 knots.  Something may have gone wrong and another engine is not working properly, or they are doing some localised switch-gear work or they are doing some work to recover completely and need a bit of downtime to sort the whole recovery plan out.  Let's hope it's the latter.   It looks a though they might be running on just one good one at the moment?

1 hour ago, All-ready2cruise said:

I thought it was the new norm in Venice due to the MSC Opera incident. 

It is - two in and two out now.  That's what is causing some of the issues with depature times.  Mainly affects NCL with the Star on Sundays because of the ship numbers at the weekend.  Harbour Master sets the timings based on tugs and keeping locals a bit quiet - nothing to do with ship serviceability.

If you do fancy network stuff that needs to link to your data sources in your home network you would need some sort of secure tunnel direct from your laptop.  As Moby0125 said, any risk on board ship is virtually identical to any access using your laptop anywhere else inside or outside your home network.  Assuming we are talking off-site web broswing such as personal banking, the risk transfers to how dangerous is it to you if you don't get the information.  As again, the good example given by Moby0125 about not tracking your your bank account, shows that you are more in danger by not getting the information than the infintessimal chance of someone hacking your htpps connection.  You are also more vulnerable using the ship computers because of the volume of cookies and other tracking stuff you leave behind in almost every connection.

The real problem is that computer links are almost the only way to do mobile business these days.  Arranging meetings for private tours and airport taxis, for example, while on board often involves virtual money, so it is probably worthwhile having a "Third-Party" payment account like PayPal where your credit card numbers are not given to the traders.

Protecting your data from the dangers needs a balanced set of measures and always involves looking to reduce exposure where it is most vulnerable.  For example, having a very safe secure tunnel to anyone is no good if the loss of data happens when the link hits the remote network and the data is extracted by hostiles from there.  A basic example is from a friend of my dad who had expensive racing pigeons kept in a shed put three massive locks on the door. He came to the shed one day and the door was open and all his birds had gone - The two leather hinges had been cut off!

The other thing most people forget about the Jewel ship Haven is the huge sun deck above the port side suites.  That area has a side rail that gives great views outside down to the water and stretches along the whole length of the Haven.  Some of the Jewel ships have also got cabanas up on that deck with great big cushions.  You can see along the port side and out across the stern as well.  And the Courtyard Valet will serve drinks and treats up there if he knows you are there as well.

Most of the queue issues at Santorini occur on the downward leg.  That is because the tender operation throttles the up queues quite a bit more than the free-for-all down by delivering lumps of people who have queued on the ship to get on a tender.  It is worth doing a bit of planning when you visit to check what times the other ships that are there on your day are the are leaving.  It is safe to assume that the period from two hours before the last tender for each one (normally half an hour before departure) to the last tender time will have the most people wanting to go down and onto each ship.  Most people do not want to leave it too late, so the queue will probably peak at around 60-90 minutes before departure time. 

The trick to plan for the best time to down is to draw a timeline showing each ship's departure and track back about 2 hours  from when it is due to leave. If any blocks of time in the 2 hours before departure overlap there will be potential for serious congestion at the top that will peak about 60-90 minutes before departure of the first one that overlaps.

Assuming there is no overlap in any of the 2 hour time blocks on the timeline, just avoid the period about 60-90 minutes before each ship departs because the queue will be at it's longest then.  The best time to plan to go down is probably around 30 minutes before each ship departs because everyone for that ship should have got to the bottom and away by then.

By way of an example, when we next go, there will be three other ships there on the day.  The first to leave goes at 1500, the second at 1800, the third at 2030 and we leave at 2200.  The timeline doesn't have any major 2 hour blocks overlapping apart from a little between the last two, so the queue down will probably be at it worst at 1330, 1630, 1900 and 2030.  We will do our best to avoid around 30 minutes either side of those times those times, avoiding the periods between 1300 and 1400, 1600 and 1700, and 1800 and 1900.

It sounds complicated, but doing a bit of planning to avoid those afternoon down queues if you can is pretty fundamental to enjoying Santorini, especially when it it very hot.

If the booking says 3.00 we have found that timekeeping is normally pretty good and you are likely to be on the tender before half past 3.  Having said that, things happen on cruises, so I would not organise anything time dependent in Oia.  And there is always the weather. Last year, in September we ended up in that area in a hurricane and there were no ships or ferries going to or from any of the islands.  Have a great time but hang loose is our motto and I hope you enjoy Santorini as much as we do!

1 hour ago, MFCRichmondHill said:

Thank you both for your replies - much appreciated!

 

Zqvol, were you at Santorini on an NCL ship then?  And are you saying that the ship makes two "stops".  First it anchors near the Thira port were on the NCL excursion people tender to the special port and then the ship moves and anchors close to Fira and then the "general" tendering starts from there?  If that's the case then I'd assume I'd definitely benefit from booking an NCL excursion by getting off the ship much earlier.  However, someone else told me that the Norwegian Star (same ship I'll be on in Oct) didn't make two stops, it's just that the excursion people tendered from one side of the boat directly to the special port, while the non-excursion people tendered from the opposite side to the main port where the cable cars are.

 

Old Nutter, did you take the exact same excursion that I'm considering then?  If so, do you remember how approx how long it took from leaving the ship to arriving in Oia?  And did your ship make "two stops" for tendering, or just tender the excursion people from a dedicated side?  And lastly do you remember how long you had to wait (from your "meeting time") to actually get called to tender?

 

Thanks again,

Michael

Michael

Yes I have been on the exact same NCL excursion you are considering.  Unless it has changed recently, the ship sails into the caldera formed when the volcano blew up around 1500 BC and stops for the whole time there opposite the cable car and donkeys that go up/down to Fira.  The NCL ships usually stop around 3/4 km off the little dock that the tenders use for general tendering.  The tenders are ones based in Santorini and are larger that the ship's lifeboats, so can move a lot people pretty quickly.  The NCL trips like this one are completely separate and use one of the other main tender mooring disembarking points on the ship.  For instance on the Jewel class ships such as Star and Jade, they will assemble for the trip in the main theatre at the front end and use the forward disembarkation point to handle the dedicated tenders used for NCL trips during the first half of the stay in Santorini.  On all of the NCL stays in Santorini we have been on, these dedicated tenders  travel to a different dock around 2 km to the south where a dock is connected to  the main north/south road where you catch coaches for the trip to Oia.  The return coach trip takes you to the area near the cable car and after going down on it, walking down or using one of the donkeys you can catch one of the general tenders back to the ship in your own time.

Specifically on your questions, you will go straight from the starting point, such as the theatre and will just head down and go more or less straight onto the dedicated trip tender - virtually no waiting other than the queue to get on the tender.  I guess it is about 50-60 minutes from your call time in the theatre until you get to Oia.  From memory, that is about 10-15 minutes to get onto the tender, another 5-10 on the tender, 5-10 more to get off and board the coaches and about 20 minutes on the coach.

I hope that helps, but if you are not going until after the beginning of October, I can let you know how it worked out when we go again next month.

From memory, the tenders for this trip do not take the short route to the cable car, they go to Thira which is the harbour south of Fira where the ship anchors (not Oia) to directly meet the coaches that then take about 15-20 minutes to go to Oia.  These tenders are excusively for the NCL trips and are not affected by anything to do the general tenders.  I am not sure how long we had in Oia, but when we did it I think we caught the coach back after about 2 hours there.  The coach goes back to the inland area of Fira. You have to walk about 200 metres into the central part of Fira and then you are free to shop/sightsee and/or take the cable car back to meet the normal tenders back to the ship whenever you want.

On 8/18/2019 at 8:00 PM, bmwman said:

Hi Does anyone know when/if  Papi is going back to Escape. Also where concierge Bruno is. 

Bruno is on the Jade

From what happened yesterday it looks as though the port are insisting that the ships have at least 3 tugs to reduce the danger of an accident, rather than only 2.  The round trip for those tugs is at least an hour to get the ships to the lagoon exit, so with 5 ships exiting, the whole process will take upwards of 5 hours to clear them all.

The run down to Kotor takes about 20 hours so to get hooked up and sorted by 1430 in Kotor, any ship from Venice needs to leave no later than 1830.  Once that becomes impossible from the port departure plans, there is no rush to leave.  The bulk of the time the ship would have been anchored in Kotor might as spent making the loading a bit less hectic, hence the Star seems to have left just before midnight to head to Bar for it's short technical stop of a couple of evening hours.

Solutions are going to clash with geography.  The loading time can't sensibly be changed because passengers are geared up for the port arrivals timings, so late departure could well be the order of the day from now.  The only way I can see that would solve it in the medium and long term would be to possibly switch days in Dubrovnik and Kotor so that the Sunday night run could be reduced to a more manageable time by making Dubrovnik the first stop, or having the last stop in Split instead, if the Dubrovnik to Venice run comes out too long.  Either way changing port bookings might be too difficult at short notice and might even not be possible if too many ships end up where the changes might even be feasible. Not good.  It is ironic that the two recent incidents that crystalised the problem both involved Italian shipping lines.

Maybe another demo has been arranged?

The trip to Kotor is pretty tight for time and has been missed before if the ship has been late leaving, and the stop at Bar has been an option NCL has used if that has occured.  It is possible that something may be known that would delay the ship from leaving on time.  The reason for stopping for a little while at Bar is to do with the EU rules for cruises having to charge VAT on the cruise if all port stops are at EU ports. Montenegro is not in the EU at present so as long as the ship stops at Bar it will have left the EU during that stop and so will not have to charge VAT on anything on that cruise.

That would explain the stop in Bar, but not why Kotor can't be reached.

4 hours ago, fastpitchdad said:

 

I know all about its history thank you and I would almost guarantee that I have traveled the world more than you. There are much more interesting places interesting places to go than Venice. If they don't want tourists in their already polluted waters then so be it. Interesting that it is so precious to the people of Italy since it wasn't even part of Italy until the late 19th century. 

Knowing your history then you would appreciate that Venice could not have been a part of Italy before the 19th Century because there was no Italy before Victor Emmanuel unified it in the 19th Century.  Until that happened Venice was a separate major Mediteranean state.  They were a very important maritime force since the 4th century until unification, so having them in the modern-ish Italy is very significant both to locals and wider Italian citizens.

I agree that there are lots of other interesting places in this world , but Venice is unique and it is likely that it will be on most people's bucket lists simply because there are very few places on earth that can still claim to be truly unique.

1 hour ago, fstuff1 said:

 

 

Apparently, NCL thinks alot if they're pouring in resources on printing plus manpower to put them on every cabin door sign on the ship.

 

Up until i sailed on NCL, i've never even heard of Tanzanite. (it looks blue like a sapphire.)

Now they're adding Zultanite??? (No clue about them.)

Is this a male thing where i think of either of them as fake gems (ie: 1 step above cubic zirconia) yet costs much, much, much more?

 

Just goes to show how educational these cruises can be.  These particular gemstones have been around for years, so the adverts have expanded your knowledge of what exists out there.

Zultanite and Csarite are trade names for Diaspore mineral gemstones that are mined from a particular mine in Turkey.  My other half has had one in a ring for several years that we bought in a reputable dealer inTurkey. The stone changes colour depending on the light falling on it - quite a talking point at times. Clearly they are not diamonds, but they do have a market value along with other mid-level gemstones, so not exactly a con.