chengkp75

Okay, had to check the itinerary, as Caribbean Princess has a different itinerary. Caribbean re-enters the US in Bar Harbor, after Canada, so Immigration is done there, and just customs in NYC. But, since NYC is your first stop after Canada, both will be done in NYC. I've never known CBP to do an onboard clearance in NYC, especially for a closed loop cruise.

If your environment is humid, it takes longer to dry out the trap. Your toilet holds at least a gallon, look at the trap under your sink, that is the size of the floor drain traps. Maybe a pint. It can take about a month or two, especially if the ship has been rolling a lot. I've never had a toilet dry out in our summer house either, but the sink and shower traps will be bone dry. The problem with new ships is that the crew does not know the location of all the various traps in the mechanical lockers, etc, and those can be hard to track down sometimes, much more so than cabins, and they have never been filled. Unlike your drain system at home, on a ship, the gray water drains (sinks, showers, laundry, galley) are totally separate from the black water (toilets), until they get to the holding tank.

That would not be an 11 minute continuous blast.

No worse than drain traps everywhere else in the world. As I said, if you've ever opened a seasonal home that has been shut up for several months, the smell will be there as well. At one time or another, I've noticed the smell on every ship I've ever been on, cruise ship or cargo. Couldn't tell you. I've explained this to cabin stewards, housekeeping supervisors, Executive Housekeepers, and Hotel Directors, with generally mixed results. My plumbers were always told to respond to a "smell" issue with a gallon jug of water in hand.

There is a drain, with a trap, in the floor of the bathroom (not the shower drain), typically a round drain tucked under the toilet where you don't see it, or a gutter type drain at the bathroom doorway. These drains see almost no water, unless the shower overflows, and the dry air evaporates the water over time. Just like when you open a seasonal home, very often there is a "funk" until you run some water in the sinks and showers to refill the traps.

Actually, that is the least common cause of the smells. I've responded to 20 times the number of dry trap calls than overflowing toilets.

Yes, these are what are known in the food industry as "pasteurized liquid egg product". Fresh eggs are taken from the shell in the factory, scrambled, an emulsifier is added to keep them from separating again during storage, and then pasteurized. These are used by the cruise lines for all types of egg uses, like the scrambled eggs, and where uncooked eggs are needed like ceasar salad dressing, and hollandaise sauces. Since they need to use the pasteurized product for the sauces, it only makes sense for them to use them for scrambled eggs as well, eliminating the added step of reconstituting a powdered egg product. The reason that many people think the scrambled eggs in the buffet are powdered is that there is water that shows up in the bottom of the steam table pan. This is not powdered eggs separating, this is real eggs (and this happens with fresh eggs as well), when too much heat is used to cook the eggs quickly. After a short period sitting, water will start to separate from the scrambled eggs. I don't even think the US Army uses powdered eggs anymore.

Hmm. Marinetraffic has her about 30 miles south of Freeport as of 4:30 EDT, looks like killing time at 10 knots, for an 0645 arrival in Bimini.

Next docking isn't until next year. Funnel will not likely be replaced before that.

Haven't done it as a passenger, but did it decades ago on a towboat. Hope you enjoy locks and dams, cause there are 20 on the way to Pittsburgh. While passenger vessels get priority, locking for commercial tows can be quite a challenge, with the boat only capable of bringing a few barges through at a time, and then locking back, picking up more, and locking through again. Sometimes takes a day or two.

Lots of misinformation here. While it is true that embarking in Seattle, and disembarking in Victoria makes the OP's cruise an "open jaw" cruise, the fact that it ends in a foreign port takes it out of the jurisdiction of the PVSA. So, as far as the Jones Act/PVSA is concerned, this would be perfectly legal. Now, due to covid regulations, nearly every cruise line has stopped allowing "downlining" (late embarkation and early disembarkation), so refusals may be due to this. Actually, it isn't. The reason that CBP allows US citizens to cruise on a closed loop cruise with only a DL and birth certificate, and why they only have a cursory entrance exam when disembarking, is the fact that they have had the passenger manifest for several days during the cruise, and can screen the passengers over time. When someone leaves a cruise early, the ship must submit a new passenger manifest to CBP, who then consider it to be a "new voyage" starting in this case in Victoria and going to Seattle. This is now a foreign cruise, not a closed loop out of the US, and they can, and have, (the case mentioned was an attempt by NCL to "interport" a Tampa to Belize cruise (some pax cruised Tampa to Tampa, and some Belize to Belize)) require a more stringent interview with all passengers when the ship would return to homeport. Even though the manifest may only be different by one or two names, and the vast majority of passengers have already been screened earlier in the cruise, they must now redo it for the new manifest.

I don't do that, but until she actually picks up passengers in PC, we won't know if she might make a right turn and head for the scrapyard, right after they pay for the funnel work. 😉

Just undocked at 7:20pm. Nice leisurely steam at about 12-13 knots to PC.

For an 0800 arrival, she could leave between 10pm and midnite.

Here's what I wrote in another thread about this. The ship is completely seaworthy at the present time, and will be completely seaworthy after the drydock. The regulatory bodies won't let a ship go to sea that is unsafe. Knowing that there is a TA scheduled for 11/1, explains why they decided to dock earlier than required by statute, as there are extremely limited drydocks in North America to take the Escape.

Not real likely that they'd take a revenue generating asset out of service if it wasn't necessary. I think Freedom is due for a drydocking in 2023, so that would be when they do it.

If they wanted to go at 20 knots, it is only 8 hours, so for a typical 6am arrival in PC, they could leave at 10pm. Since they don't have to turn cabins, they could arrive a little later, but I'd say midnight is around the latest.

Okay. Ships are required to drydock "twice in 5 years" (all ships, every one), so that works out to be every 2.5 years. Now, everyone on CC knows that cruise ships drydock every 5 years (except HAL, which follows the twice in 5 rule), so what gives? For ships less than 15 years old, the class societies grant that an underwater inspection (divers with video) in lieu of drydock is acceptable for the mid-period. This is far less expensive than a drydocking, so most ships follow this plan. So, Escape's last drydock was October 2020. That means her mid-period exam (which normally would have been an underwater inspection) would be in the 10/22 to 4/23 period. But, due to the presence of a temporary repair, class decided that the underwater survey was not acceptable, and so the ship needed to drydock during her statutory period, and they were able to find a time slot in September. Now, the temporary repair is not "failing" or likely to fail at any time. The repairs done in PC were overseen by the USCG (who really don't have the technical know how about ship construction), but also by the class society, which acts as the insurance underwriter for the ship. Damage like this, is typically written into the ship's "certificate of class" (document stating the ship is safe to sail) as "to be repaired at the next scheduled drydock", and this is the scheduled mid-period drydock, so no one should read anything dangerous or nefarious into the fact that the ship is drydocking now to repair it. I fully expected this to happen. The 4 week timeline is a bit of a surprise, but I don't know all of what is planned to be done. There may be problems with the shipyard getting enough labor to work 2 or 3 full shifts, and that would stretch things, or it could be supply chain issues with materials and parts. There could also be other sections of the hull that are dented (but didn't breach), that would be allowed to remain on the ship until it is scrapped, or until the next drydock, that will get repaired. Many ships go their entire life with dented and dimpled hull plating that is not renewed as it is not a safety concern, merely cosmetic. As for the comment about using cement for the breach, this is common practice, but it is only to stop water inflow at the time, so that welding of a patch plate can be done. The patch plate is fully welded to the hull to seal it, and is as strong as the original hull plating. New stiffeners (framing) inside the patch will be installed to match the new curvature of the plating. Everything done is to industry best practices to produce a repair that is just as good as the original. Regarding the Epic having a hole cut in the side of the ship to remove engines, this is the standard practice, and should not present any concerns to people. What is the hull anyway, but a bunch of steel plates welded together. If you don't think they can weld a patch plate in properly, why would you trust the tens of thousands of feet of welding that hold the hull together in the first place. Oasis dropped a section out of the bottom, to get the middle of three engines out of the ship. Welded back up just fine. And, every ship, every 10 years, needs to "box the compass" (swing it in a stationary circle) to check the compass correction, and adjust the compass balls (two softball sized cast iron balls, one on each side of the compass binnacle), so that is not unusual. Folks, if you don't trust the class society surveyors to ensure a good and safe repair, you should never set foot on a ship, because they are the ones overseeing the standards of how the ship is built in the first place, and how it is maintained over its life.

And, yet, I'm the one that said it would be back in service in 4 weeks or less, and you're the one saying it should be scrapped.

Why should I explain what a BOV is, when there isn't one on the engines. You don't reduce load instantaneously as you do with a car's throttle, so no need for a BOV. And, I wasn't questioning whether you "understood" turbocharging, but whether you had heard of cleaning turbochargers while running, or the use of walnut shells as a cleaning agent. Not sure where that went to a BOV, but not sure where a lot of your "arguments" go. And, quoting yourself? Points for effort.

Not sure what the link has to do with arbitrage oil futures, but its a widely known fact about what a barrel of crude can produce. It has also been known since I worked in the offshore oil field about 40 years ago, that each barrel of oil is bought and sold 7 times before it gets to the consumer. Is it right? Probably not, but it is no different than the automatic trading on the stock market. Doesn't do anythinng for the consumer, just for the shareholders and investors.

Yes, I've seen that type of construction, but I think that with all the stuff going into that "wing" that they may make it in a couple of pieces. Could be either way.

I'll have to remember that, the next time the duty engineer fails to call the bridge when they do the daily turbocharger cleaning, blasting ground walnut shells into the turbocharger (what, never heard of it? join the maritime industry), and the wind carries the embers over the stern and catches either the trash barrel, the mooring line (it only smolders, so no big deal), or the shrink wrap that the yachts we were carrying were wrapped in, on fire. I also remember once going under the Key Bridge in Baltimore, after doing a repair on a waste heat boiler tube, and the Captain calling to complain that the sparks were going up through the grating roadway and stopping traffic. Nope, no sparks here. Try not to confuse your shade tree auto mechanics with marine engineering.

Actually, Sam, if you read real carefully (I know its hard), you'll see that I said they would need to make a temporary wing until they could mold a new one. And, the mold for the iconic "wing" is Carnival's property, and since they continue to use them, it would not be out of the ordinary for them to keep it, or to have the shipyard keep it, since the shipyard continues to make ships for Carnival. And, you know what, it isn't a one piece mold, anymore than the wing is one piece of fiberglass. It is made in sections and bolted together. And, how many ships do you think use a fiberglass fairing, or any fiberglass for that matter? None. This is a shipyard, not a boat builder. So, the molds would not be amongst a pile of "thousands". Try to get facts right before trying to post, Sam.

Typically, in the industry, a ship is individually "mortgaged" for the construction, for a term typically of 10 years, after that, it can be "refinanced" or it can be used as you say, collectively as collateral for corporate debt. If it is used as collective collateral, then selling the asset (which means "scrapping" to some) becomes more difficult.