chengkp75

There are typically two types of voltage converters/transformers. Some are designed for electronics, and are relatively low wattage units. These are usually rated in the 200-500 watt range. Others are made specifically for the resistive loads of heat generating appliances. For the hair dryer in question, you need one that is rated for 2000 watts. This will not heat up more than becoming warm to the touch. This is all assuming that the hair dryer in question is not dual voltage. Those with a "brick" in the cord are typically dual voltage and don't need a converter.

Not really. Most of the electric kettles you see on the ships are 220v UK/European models, so the current draw on them is halved over a 110v kettle, and the current ratings for the 110v and 220v circuits are the same, so having a kettle operating at the same time in every cabin is not a problem on the 220v circuit. The major reason they are not placed on most ships is that: 1. North American cruisers don't use them, so they are wasted money, and 2. the amount of man-hours required to routinely take these out of service for testing and inspection and then rotating back into service is just not worth any added passenger convenience. The testing and inspections are called for by the insurance underwriters, due to known failures of the "auto-off" switches causing meltdowns. Ships where they have kettles in every cabin have higher insurance costs, and higher crew costs.

I see that I may have misunderstood the part about Victoria and Seattle, and the poster wanted more time in Victoria. That may have been driven by tides, which control the under keel clearance and the air draft under bridges that the ship has to contend with, and could also be due to the maximum currents that the ship is allowed to transit under, also driven by tides. These ain't pleasure boats, where every idiot on the water thinks they can go wherever they want, whenever they want.

Actually, both cover ships, one deals with cargo ships, one deals with passenger ships.

Let's pick this post apart. They stayed extra in Sitka to allow divers to examine the azipod. They likely didn't know how long this would take, so if it was going to be completed before the decided extra 2 hours, how long would it take to round up the passengers all over town? Not sure what you want here. If you wanted to visit Seattle, the ship arrived 2 hours early, which is 2 hours more time to visit? So, did you want more time in Seattle, or more time at sea on a ship you don't feel is safe? Let's see. Last time I checked a map, Victoria was "on the way" between Sitka and Seattle. So, you would have had a 3 day sea trip to Seattle, at the very least, though because it is further to Seattle, you would be more likely to have 3-1/2 or 4 days at sea. And, you do know that the ticket contract you signed gives the line the right to pass the PVSA fine along to you, so if they didn't stop in Victoria, you would have seen a $715 charge on your onboard account. Is that what you want? They did not say that it is "unsafe to sail the ship", they said "for your safety, we are returning to Seattle, since we cannot make the scheduled ports given our current speed capability". I realize its "all about me", but your rants are really difficult to justify.

Any line touting biodegradable straws is merely trying to limit their exposure to plastic dumping fines, but are trying to cash in on the environmental hot button topic of single use plastic. As for metal straws, this would be an area that would require CDC/USPH input on whether existing warewashing equipment would adequately sanitize these.

Yes, the issue for Carnival is their environmental compliance with not accidentally disposing of plastic mixed with food waste. This has been a legal problem for Princess for over 20 years, and led to Carnival Corp being fined millions. It has absolutely nothing to do with plastic degradability, , it is all about dumping plastic at sea.

The only thing allowed to mix with the food waste (from the grinders), that gets discharged into the sea, is food. Wax paper would need to be landed ashore or incinerated onboard.

And the study reported by the WSJ says that in the ocean, they claim they break down in 3 weeks, if the sea water temperature is 86*F. Average sea temp is 47*F, so they would take longer still to break down. No, they are still considered plastic. You are correct that this does not solve the sorting the plastic straws from the food waste problem for Carnival.

The major problem is that this is still a plastic straw, and the biodegradability of it has nothing to do with how it can be disposed of at sea. It will still need to be hand sorted from the rest of the trash into "plastics only" bins and disposed of ashore. This is US and international law. Second, the WSJ has reported that scientists have said that the manufacturer's claims of biodegradability at sea (if you could dispose of this at sea) are greatly overstated, and could still take years to degrade. Given Carnival Corp's past and continuing difficulties with environmental compliance, and one of the main offenses they were convicted of was not properly sorting plastic from the food waste, I doubt they will be in any hurry to look at an "alternative" plastic, that would easily be mixed with food waste.

As soon as you mentioned ice, the decision was taken out of the Captain's hands. Based on the new Polar Code, operating a passenger ship in waters off Greenland with any ice possible, voids the ship's "certificate of class", meaning it loses all insurance, and the ability to sail at all.

Or so they said.

Yes, the refusal to allow boarding is an example of an innkeeper's right to refuse accommodation to someone who owes them a debt. Detaining you onboard from disembarking is illegal (though some countries allow hospitals to detain (hospital imprisonment) non-paying patients. But, as I say, under US law, the innkeeper has the right to lien and seize all baggage the person has.

Actually, the major concern is the rim of the glass touching the dispenser bar (the thing that gets pressed back to dispense). If the machine is the type where you press a button to dispense, then refilling is okay. Most machines with dispensing bars, you couldn't touch the spout anyway.

Stars are located using tables, given your "assumed" position, it will give the altitude and azimuth of the star you are looking for. Adjust the sextant to the altitude and use the pelorus of the compass to determine azimuth. The sextant has a mirror that is split, with one half mirrored, and one half clear. The mirrored half you will see the star, and the clear half is looking at the horizon. You then adjust the arc of the sextant to "bring the star to the horizon", meaning you will see the star in one half of the mirror, with the bottom of the star on the same level as the horizon. This gives you the actual altitude of the star at your position. While it is basic spherical trigonometry to calculate the position, the formulas deal with your assumed position, the time of the sight (typically you start a stopwatch when the sight is made, so you can back off that much time from when you check the clock in the chartroom and start calculations), the altitude of the sight, the almanac to show the exact position on earth that the star is directly over at that time, and a set of tables or a calculator to perform the trigonometric equations. Wiki can give you a quick and dirty primer on celestial.

And, while your municipality wants the effluent to break down to liquid as much as possible, a vacuum toilet system needs to have some "cohesion" to form a "plug" that gets sucked down the piping. If the piping runs are too long, there are "booster" stations that are designed to recreate the "plug" so the effluent gets sucked down the piping. Huge difference between land sewage and treatment plants and ship's vacuum systems.

Yep, since they are the ones who usually take the sights.

So does an RV toilet.

Typically an RV toilet is set directly above the holding tank, so when you press the button to start the water flowing into it, it discharges straight down into the holding tank. There will be water in the bowl at all times, acting as the drain trap for odors, just like your home toilet. A marine toilet may be "dry flushed" or "wet flushed", meaning whether or not there is water in the bowl all the time (toilets on small boats move around more than RV's, so water in the bowl could splash out). The marine toilet not only has a water pump for the water supply, but has a pump for the effluent from the bowl, so the toilet does not have to be directly above the tank. This can be an advantage when placed in a smaller RV, like your "class B".

OP, without knowing how much you know, or want to know, about toilet systems, let me get into a discussion based on some of your symptoms. First, as the sanitary system goes from the top deck to the engine room, more and more toilets join the system. Any one of these toilets can contribute to a problem, and everyone "upstream" of the blockage will not have a working toilet. So, if I went to a crew cabin (typically the lowest on the ship), and purposely introduced something to block the piping, then everyone on that vacuum system (there are usually 3-5 separate systems on a ship), even if this is hundreds of toilets, will not have working toilets. Some problems can make it past the first few bends, and then get stuck further down the line, causing more toilets not to work, than just the offender. The complicating thing about a vacuum toilet system, is that unlike a shoreside, gravity, waste system, where the pipes get bigger and bigger the more things (showers, sinks, toilets) are connected to it, a vacuum system is the exact same size pipe from the highest toilet to the engine room. This is to keep the "plug" of "product" in the pipe as a plug so it will continue to move. Think of a vacuum cleaner. If I try to pick up water, it doesn't work very well, but if I pour water into the hose, and then put a ping pong ball into the hose, as the ball is sucked up the hose, it takes the liquid with it. Now, everything on a vacuum toilet is controlled by the system vacuum. The valve that opens when you flush to empty the bowl, is operated by vacuum. The valve to allow water into the bowl is operated by vacuum. If there is little vacuum, the valves try to work, but may only partially operate, causing your "gurgling", or perhaps just the water valve opening, and not the "discharge" valve that empties the bowl. If there is very little vacuum or no vacuum at your toilet, then it won't flush at all. If you have pushed the flush button, and nothing happens, it still has "cocked" the operators, and once vacuum is restored at your toilet, it will complete the flush cycle (this is the commonly referred to as the "ghost flush", that can happen hours later). I would say that the problem is still likely to be a passenger either flushing things that don't belong down the drain, or using the "half a roll of paper for each dump" system of personal hygiene. Massive clumps of toilet paper at one time can cause clogs as well. But, if there are recurring issues in the same areas of the ship, yes, there is likely an underlying cause. This is most likely either a previous clog that was not completely cleared (causing a partial blockage that works most of the time, but when the wrong thing comes along, it stops up), or a sign of poor piping maintenance. Trying not to be too gross, but urine is alkaline, and forms scale in the pipes. This scale, over time, can reduce the pipe diameter to such that clogs become frequent. The typical treatment for this, is that the cabin steward, once weekly during turn around, drops a packet in each passenger toilet, lets it dissolve for a few minutes, and then flushes the citric acid (yep, made from oranges) down the piping, which then dissolves the scale. Crew cabins, since they are typically closer to the end of the system (less piping) are treated once monthly during cabin inspections. This was more likely a "gray water" problem. Ship's systems separate "black water" (toilets) from "gray water" (sinks, showers, laundry, galley), unlike shoreside systems. If there was a leak in the vacuum toilet system, it would have meant no vacuum for a section of cabins. Water leaking out and smelling, is more likely a gray water system leak. They should have been able to make temporary patch repairs if nothing else, using fiberglass tape to last until the shipyard. These pipes are typically very thin walled, and subject to corrosion and leaking. As for the second bathroom drain, I've never seen a "wet unit" (the prefab bathroom unit) that didn't have one, unless there is no curb between the shower and the rest of the bath. It is most often found directly under the toilet, and you have to get down on hands and knees to find it. And, again, even though it is underneath the toilet, it is a gray water drain, so it has nothing to do with the toilet system.

And, I hate to say it, but there are enough people on a bridge watch in the Navy, that she had the time to waste using a sextant. A commercial ship's bridge, even a cruise ship, while still fairly relaxed, is busy enough to keep the watchstanders busy. While I believe that knowing how to fix a position by the stars or sun is important for mariners to know, the reality is that it is relegated to their own personal time to maintain competency.

This is an urban myth. With "normal use", any toilet paper is fine to use on ship's toilets. Now, if you are of the "use half a roll for each use" persuasion, then any toilet paper can also cause problems, but more so with the thicker types. People think that ship's systems are the same as boat systems, which is far from true. The cruise lines use the thin, papery type because they go through pallet loads of it each week, and it is the cheapest they can get. Facial tissues are also okay to flush, as these share a common manufacturing technique with toilet tissue, i.e. they both use pressed paper fibers (the factory presses wet short paper fibers between rollers to form the paper when it dries). When wet, these fibers break apart fairly quickly. Wipes (facial, baby, sanitary) as well as things like paper towels, use woven paper fibers, where the naturally long paper fibers are forced together so they intertwine with each other, producing the strength that is desired in these products. These products will cause problems in vacuum toilet systems, and are one of the primary culprits when we clear a clog.

Yeah, all the cargo ships I was on in the 70's had the truly archaic LORAN A, and DECCA (heck, DECCA was used for the Normandy landings).

Typically, they will come and suck out the non-flushing toilets if the problem is going to persist beyond a day.

Unfortunately, unworking toilets are not uncommon on cruise ships, and three days, while a long time, is not out of reason. Since it is reported that other cabins have the same problem, the blockage has moved down the system. Just like your house, the waste system keeps adding toilets as it travels down the ship. Your toilet will join with those surrounding it, then join with others on the same deck a little further away, and then with cabins above and below you, and if the blockage stops up the pipe anywhere between your toilet and the vacuum pumps in the engine room, you and everyone else "upstream" of the blockage will be without a toilet. This is why "giving an inside cabin across from your cabin would likely not work, as that cabin almost certainly doesn't have a working toilet either. And, as the OP says, they may have abided by the proper use of the toilet, but not everyone does. A difficulty of marine vacuum toilet systems, is that unlike your home's sanitary system, which continues to get bigger as it goes down (from the 1.5" sink drain or the 4" toilet drain to the 6" main sewer line leaving the house, to the 24" sewer line in the street, and so on, the vacuum toilet system is 2" even when connected to 200 toilets. This causes problems when someone flushes something down the toilet that doesn't belong there. I remember one time, when someone flushed what appeared to be (from the debris we collected in the roto-rooter) a bath towel down the toilet. This managed to move down to a section of piping that was particularly difficult to access with the rooter, and it took us 2 days to grind the towel up enough to unblock the pipe, and about 100 cabins were without toilets during this time. We were working around the clock on this, but it was the hardest blockage I've seen in 45 years at sea. I don't comment on customer service or compensation aspects, as that is not my area of expertise, but unfortunately stopped up toilets are a thing to live with on a cruise ship, as long as people are a-holes.