AchileLauro

11 hours ago, david63 said:

 

 

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the cruise lines reverted to having a full emergency drill at embarkation.

I can't see how that would make any difference. When the full muster drill is carried out periodically passengers are forewarned and make their own way to their muster stations at a set time. I can't ever recall seeing evacuation chairs being used to transfer mobility challenged passengers down staircases when these drills take place.

What you are possibly thinking of is a full blown emergency evacuation exercise where the complete process is tested under as realistic as possible assimilated conditions. Such a test if ever carried out would never involve passengers for safety reasons.

I have seen videos of such exercises taking place when "working up a ship" when it's first introduced to service. I have no idea if the exercises are repeated periodically but I assume they would be.

14 hours ago, david63 said:

Almost certainly and in a way that is within all equality laws.

 

P&O (or their masters) have made a decision that the having wheelchair/disabled passengers does not fit their passenger demographic going forward.

It seems that this is the case, but not out of malice or discrimination. They are simply limiting numbers to those that can be  managed safely in an emergency.

1 hour ago, Bill Y said:

 

 

 

 

I am not a battery or fire expert but there has been a lot of bad publicity regarding lithium batteries used on scooters (two wheeled) and bikes, often aspersions have been cast upon the provenance of the batteries and chargers. I would have thought that people using electric mobility devices on cruises would not be sourcing cheap dubious spares, and after all you don’t hear of electric cars busting into flames, although someone will probably say otherwise. Compared to mobility devices cars could be considered a mobile bomb yet there are no restrictions as to where they can be used, stored or recharged. So the pantomime at Carnival towers seems a master class of how to shoot oneself in the foot, a Ratner moment perhaps? And this calls for tough executive decisions to be made.

 

 

 Bill I am in total agreement with you when you said -

"I really feel sorry for those with disabilities who enjoy cruising as a practical way to have a holiday that now are having their cruises cancelled  and will now find it increasingly difficult to make a booking."

Unfortunately you are quite mistaken when you say that electric cars don't burst into flames, they most certainly do, and they can and do present very serious problem to fire services both in the U.K. and abroard when they do.

You are also mistaken when you say that there are no restrictions on where they can be stored or charged, there most certainly are.

The problem is that cruise ships are extremely complex and rely upon some quite ingenious fire engineered solutions to achieve a satisfactory standard of fire safety, especially with regard to maintaining a satisfactory standard of fire compartmentation and ventilation/smoke control in order to ensure useable escape routes and access for firefighting.

Introducing the same restrictions on charging and storage of electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters on cruise ships as you have in land based structures would be extremely difficult and overall prohibitively expensive. Therefore the only alternative is to control the risk that they potentially pose. 

I am sure that at some time in the future we will see naval architects and fire engineers come up with a satisfactory design solution to the potential problems associated with powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters. However, don't be surprised if it comes at a cost due to specialised charging and storage areas perhaps contained within disabled cabins. 

That's exactly what I suspect also.

11 hours ago, Dabra said:

We have just tried to book a cruise on Arcadia. We have always had a folding wheelchair in the standard cabin. Latest news is that all wheelchair users full time or casual need an evacuation chair assistance. We could not book as there were none left. Not sure if you can bring your own as the agent talked about a rollator. She checked on Aurora for next April and that had none left.

A rollator is no substitute for an evacuation chair.

Providing your own evacuation chair would not be a solution as you need at least two trained able bodied persons to safely operate even the most basic of evacuate chairs on a staircase.

No mobility scooters are not a medical aid, they are a mobility aid, but from a fire safety perspective there is absolutely no difference between a mobility scooter, an electric wheelchair or for that matter an ebike.

You are absolutely spot on  when you say is a very complex subject, in fact the whole issue of disability and disabled evacuation  is an extremely complex subject. I really don't envy the job that P&O has to adequately address it, while at the same time complying fully with legal requirements and not upsetting their loyal long term customers who have become accustomed to how things were previously.

I also get the points that crompton21 makes about it possibly being seen as an attempt to change the demographics of the company but to be honest I simply don't think that's the case.

I believe that the simple honest truth is that for many years cruising has been promoted as being a way that the disabled and in particular those with mobility issues have been able to holiday or travel the world in comfort and with relative ease. Unfortunately it became too popular and while it was considered O.K. in the past, that is until it was closely scrutinised and someone asked are we really able to evacuate such numbers of disabled persons in the event of an emergency. Or, have we been properly carrying out our duties of identifying everyone that may require additional assistance in an emergency.

Don't forget that emergency evacuation of the disabled or those with limited mobility is very labour intensive and that cruise lines have actually reduced crew numbers in some cases.

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

For those mentioning the Iona incident in November 2023 here is the link to that discussion. Having just reread it to refresh my memory I noted at the time that under law there is, and presumably remains, a very important distinction between an electrical powered wheelchair and a mobility scooter.  As P&O/Cunard are now combining the two under one category they do seem to be sailing pretty close to the wind on their handling of the issue.

 

Towards the end of the thread the owner of the mobility scooter involved explains what happened.  Certainly very interesting discussions and considerable difference of views displayed by CC members.

 

 

Speaking as an ex-fire service inspecting/enforcing officer who dealt with hospitals, care premises and other sleeping risks from a fire safety perspective there is absolutely no difference between a mobility scooter and a powered wheelchair. Perhaps you are thinking about the difference as regards use on pavements and the roads.

Incidentally I formally brought the very serious safety issue of mobility scooters causing obstruction and posing a fire risk due to charging in corridor escape routes to the attention of the safety officer on board Oriana more than twelve years ago. Things improved slightly after that but I still think P&O have been very slow to properly address the matter.

With regard to potential sources of ignition and/ or the risk of a lithium ion thermal runaway what is the difference between a mobility scooter and a powered wheelchair?

46 minutes ago, SausPud said:

love the big and the small ships.

I'm doing the Arcadia in December this year and just booked the Aurora for the Summer 2026. She is getting a major refit next year, around April, so looking forward to maybe seeing USB ports in the cabins and any thing else exciting they might add, rather than carpets and new chairs.

 

I'll be reading with excitement for you.

Enjoy the cruise and baby ship.

Personally if I had to make a choice I would rather have new carpets and worn furnishings replaced rather than USB ports in cabins. When I get on a holiday cruise one of the first things that I do is switch off the phone and lock it in the safe and only take it out if going ashore.

The P&O "app" was tried a couple of times but found to be totally useless so I don't have a need for a phone when at sea.

We've experienced it where the Captain's corny jokes have actually been better received than those of the so called comedian that was onboard.

50 minutes ago, wetterthanwater said:

Probably some light relief for the crew on Iona who won't have to hear the same jokes and announcements for the 69th Fjords cruise in a row. 😁

You're probably right on that. 😏

I can honestly say that we've never been annoyed by any of the captains that we've sailed with and got to quite like listening to the announcements from the likes of Ian Waters, Hamish Read and even "Commodore speaking" Ian Gibb.

On the other hand the perpetual announcements from a certain cruise director who shall remain nameless and hopefully long forgotten really, really, really irritated.😬

2 hours ago, showingdiva said:

 

I haven't been on Arcadia post-covid, but prior to that enjoyed a lot of cruises on her of varying lengths, including her maiden.   She's still my favourite ship in their fleet, and despite having since left P&O for numerous reasons, I will always have a soft spot for her.

 

However .. whilst I certainly don't look at any ship with rose coloured spectacles, I don't understand the buffet being ram packed, let alone closed.   In fact, I always felt that even at full passenger numbers, she was a ship where it was never difficult to get a seat, get a drink, have a meal without carrying a pager, standing in a queue etc.   So, what has happened?

Only ever sailed on Arcadia for one short cruise so can only comment on what we witnessed on that cruise. Both my wife and I were of the opinion that crewing issues or rather the lack of sufficient crew numbers appeared to be the main issue.

Sailing at maximum capacity with insufficient serving staff perhaps?

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

IMO the worst buffet in the P&O fleet. Two problems come to mind.

 

1. Arcadia has no senior staff mess so part of the seating and serveries is cordoned off in the evening.

2. Numbers of lower staff grades that are allowed to eat in the buffet can arrive like a plague of locusts and strip the serveries of the best food. Ever had beef in black bean sauce without any beef? The beef had been fished out of the sauce by 3 staff members. How about the last two sandwiches being taken by a staff member, when I complained he put one back, with his hand.

Passengers should ALWAYS get priority, after all we are PAYING.

That's terrible and totally unacceptable behaviour by the crew.  

The way that some of the passengers behave on occasion is bad enough but they should be setting an example.

39 minutes ago, Cathygh said:

I think Arcadia is due for a refit in November, hopefully that will resolve some of the issues.

Well in addition to sorting out the plumbing on the ship I hope that they do something to improve the dreadfully inadequate Belvedere buffet. On our short cruise the Belvedere was either absolutely ram packed full and it was impossible to get to a counter never mind find a seat, or the blinds were down and it was closed.

24 minutes ago, Pencil62 said:

Is the plan for the app to be introduced on Aurora in the future?

I hope not.

We eventually tried Arcadia for the first time in May this year.

Yes she is looking more than a bit tired, no tatty/grubby in places, but we thought that generally the design of the ship suited us even if it didn't come up to the standards of Aurora which is easily our favourite ship. We were also aware that Arcadia may have some issues with the plumbing system evidenced by the failure of toilets to flush. A problem that seemed to arise in various locations throughout the ship.

It would be a bit unfair for us to judge the ship fully because our cruise was a short three day cruise and spoiled for us by a lot of large single sex groups who treated it as a booze cruise with some very raucous behavior at times.

We have experienced a short three day cruise to Amsterdam only a few months earlier on Aurora, and very much enjoyed it but this cruise on Arcadia certainly had an entirely different passenger make up. Never again will we even consider a short break cruise, far from pleasant, well it certainly was on Arcadia. Perhaps on Aurora the crew are less tolerant of bad behavior.

On our short Arcadia cruise staffing levels were evidently a real problem, with very long delays to be served in nearly all the bars. We were also disappointed that some areas of the ship, East bar for instance, much to my annoyance had been taken out of service for the duration of the cruise.

Would we consider sailing on Arcadia again?  Well yes maybe, but only on longer cruises where the other passengers are likely to be more thoughtful and less determined to drink the ship dry.

She's not up to the standard of Aurora but for us undoubtedly superior to the larger newer ships of the fleet.

Personally I've never seen pagers issued to passengers for breakfast in the Medina restaurant.

The only times that we have seen any great queues for breakfast in Medina was on the morning of disembarkation or when passengers have all decided to leave it to the last half hour of service.

There again we always breakfast fairly early in the service and enjoy a nice relaxed breakfast in an uncrowded civilised atmosphere.

We had the pleasure of having Captain Dunlop on both Iona and Aurora. On Aurora it seemed like every time we stepped out of our cabin which was near the bridge, we would bump into the cheerful talkative captain. We wish him well with his new company, certainly a loss for P&O.

46 minutes ago, Hasha said:

Hi there, 

 

I'm wondering if someone here can help me. I've seen it mentioned in a few places on this forum that the evac chairs situation is due to some new maritime law that came into force in April - does anyone know what this law is/can direct me to it? 

Thanks in advance for any and all help! 

I don't know if it is actually any new law, I think that it's more a case of existing laws and requirements simply being more rigidly applied and enforced.

7 minutes ago, SeaJane said:

No she still does have the same atrium and curving staircase although the sculpture no longer has water cascading. I actually prefer the welcome onboard party being in the Crows Nest or show lounge. On Ventura I found it strange to be all gathered around the atrium staircase.

Yes we much prefer the welcome aboard reception being held in more civilised surroundings also.

Hundreds of people congregating on a staircase just isn't right as far as I am concerned. Besides that on those ships where its held in the atrium its a main thoroughfare with those not involved passing through and helping themselves to drinks from waiters trays.

22 minutes ago, JohnCoffield said:

So good to hear you enjoyed Aurora. It’s our first trip on her tomorrow as we head off to Norway, Iceland & Ireland.

I'm sure that you will enjoy her. Have a lovely time.

Aurora is the finest ship in the fleet. We've sailed on her 7 times to date and in November it will be our eighth cruise on her.

P.S. Can't see why you say she doesn't have an atrium, there's always been an atrium on Aurora when we've sailed on her, don't tell me that P&O have have converted the space to extra cabins. 😬

It should be possible as crew and entertainment staff do it all the time but you need to speak to P&O and arrange it.

Alternatively just misbehave badly enough and P&O will take the decision out of your hands.

1 hour ago, wetterthanwater said:

Just disembarked Iona and my goodness.. my balcony was filthy! Covered in pubes and other dirt.

 

I've seen cleaner pavements. 🤣

 

You've just disembarked and you're complaining about pubes left on your balcony. 😏

Perhaps you would like to rephrase that?  LOL.

39 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

No but the queue to join the drop off queue can be very long.

Only ever had that with Iona (we will never cruise on her or any of the other very large ships again).