Triumph Inspection Fail

I scrolled and didn't see anything about this - sorry if there is a thread already started.

http://crew-center.com/carnival-triumph-fails-usph-inspection

Thanks for the news.

I'm not saying this isn't true, it just seems fishy to me. When I first saw this was shocked not to see this reported anywhere else especially seeing the inspection was 3 days ago(according to the article). This is news that would travel like fire in the media with headlines like "are you really safe" or "we need more regulation on cruise ships" and it would be the lowest the Triumph has ever gotten.

Will have to wait in see what the official report says. The Triumph last inspection was on 6/29 with a score of 93.

The lowest score it was 88 and that was in 2009 so the article is correct about that.

Edited for bad link: You can lookup every score Carnival Triumph has received from the CDC going back to 1999 - https://wwwn.cdc.gov/inspectionquerytool/InspectionSearch.aspx

Very rarely are the citation in areas/functions that a passenger will see or be impacted by. Meaning from a safety perspective....its not in thoses areas. Its usually related to the logs they must maintain showing regular performance of certain sanitation tasks, possibly a discrepancy in refridgeration temperatures, etc. The CDC is very strict and rightfully so....

The report will show the details....and many times they areas written up are difficult to understand

Very rarely are the citation in areas/functions that a passenger will see or be impacted by. Meaning from a safety perspective....its not in thoses areas. Its usually related to the logs they must maintain showing regular performance of certain sanitation tasks, possibly a discrepancy in refridgeration temperatures, etc. The CDC is very strict and rightfully so.

The report will show the details....and many times they areas written up are difficult to understand

Have you read some of those reports? On another thread today I quoted the following few items from a Miracle inspection. These inspections include front and back of food and beverage operations as well as public pools and spas and drinking water tanks and much, much more. They are quite extensive.

Here's an item from the inspection of the Carnival Miracle done in July of this year per the CDC website. While this example does not pertain to the current method of pre-made sandwiches sitting out unprotected it does offer some clues (imo) as to what the future holds as per the CDC regs for Carnival.

"Item No.: 19Site: Buffet-DeliViolation: Passengers were standing at the counter less than 1 meter (40 inches) from where crew were actively preparing sandwiches and this food was not protected.Recommendation: Protect food on display from contamination by the use of packaging; counter, service line, or salad bar food guards; display cases; self-closing hinged lids; or other effective means. Install side protection for sneeze guards if the distance between exposed food and where consumers are expected to stand is less than 1 meter (40 inches)."

Another example per the same CDC report indicated the presence of flying insects:

"Item No.: 39Site: Buffet-Chinese StationViolation: One live fruit fly was observed by upright refrigerator 70.Recommendation: Effectively control the presence of insects to minimize their presence in the food storage, preparation, and service areas and warewashing and utensil storage areas aboard a vessel.

And here again from same CDC report:housefly.

"Item No.: 39Site: Galley-Buffet/Garde MangerViolation: One live house fly was observed by the deli slicer.Recommendation: Effectively control the presence of insects to minimize their presence in the food storage, preparation, and service areas and warewashing and utensil storage areas aboard a vessel.

Also medical record keeping, HVAC, lighting, housekeeping, construction of food service spaces and equipment, laundry services and so on. To give an example of the detail, food preparation equipment is not allowed to use slotted or phillips head screws on the outside, since these are hard to clean. Every piece of equipment in the galleys needs to be specifically designed to meet USPH requirements.

Not surprised.

So what happens when a ship does score low? Does it continue to sail and just get inspected again within a short period of time or does it have to fix everything before it can sail again?

Wow. That's scary.

Wondering if this might be an elaborate hoax.

If for real wondering what actions they will take.

Wondering if this might be an elaborate hoax.

 

If for real wondering what actions they will take.

:confused: Or Royal Caribbean smuggled in a couple of industrial spies to sabotage the Triumph.

Or the Russians hacked the USPH computer system and changed the records.

And where the heck was Hillary on November 10th, right before the inspection? Hmmm?

Unless the violations "pose a direct and serious threat to public health", then yes, the ship is allowed to sail. The ship's management must come up with a Corrective Action Report (CAR) for each item noted as a deficiency, including a time line for correction, and then the ship will be inspected within 6 weeks.

A Silverseas ship a couple years ago was found with perishable food being stored in crew cabins and passageways (not refrigerated) to hide it from inspectors. The inspectors were so outraged by the conditions that they required the crew to move all the questionable items to one location and douse it with bleach. I've never heard of that before, and the ship was allowed to continue in service.

One thing to note, the USPH inspectors are mainly former health inspectors from places like NYC, and they will tell you that they would prefer to eat on a cruise ship that might have had a failing score over most local restaurants, because the requirements are so much stricter. As I noted, their requirements go as far as to the type of screws used on equipment, and construction details like not having any gaps in walls or ceilings that you could push a credit card into (how many land restaurants could pass that test?) And, there can be massive deductions for a simple thing like them finding one yogurt container out of temperature (yes, they will go and puncture one to insert a themometer), despite the fact that there are 50 others in the same refrigerator at temperature, or one day where the pool chlorine was detectable, but below the required level. I've seen each of these infractions result in 5 point deductions, out of a possible 15 total before you fail.

You must remember what the USPH/CDC mandate is. It is not to protect the health of cruise ship passengers while on the ship, it is to prevent the introduction into the US of infectious diseases. USPH has the mandate to board and inspect every ship, not just cruise ships, that enters the US from foreign for disease, every time the ship enters the US. The VSP program is a way to ensure the ships meet USPH standards while not requiring inspections every time the ship enters a US port from foreign.

I doubt it's a hoax, ships fail the inspections sometimes. If you go to the CDC ship inspection report page, I believe you can filter by failing scores to find those.

If for real wondering what actions they will take.

Stu, it's worth a look by going to the CDC vessel sanitation program and seeing for yourself. The corrective reports submitted by the ships are also posted there for you to review. This is public information and the CDC is funded with our tax dollars. My dad was the public health director of Chesapeake, Va and a retired navy captain (medical corps) and I learned this from him.

You'll be happy to read there that many of the unsatisfactory findings are corrected during the inspection itself. Some of it can even be amusing like the waffle makers that were encrusted in food and found under a desk in the maitre d's office on the Miracle.

Click on "Inspection Scores" highlighted in blue on the left side of the page at this site and follow the prompts. Once you do I doubt you'll ever go on a ship again without first reading up on how it performed during its last inspection. I find the reports reassuring: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/public/public.htm

And you'll notice that some deficiencies noted do not result in points deducted. Some items may be a 5 point deduction, but they have sort of a scale that is used to determine the severity of the 5 point deduction (i.e. if there are several in the same area or type of deficiency, then the points can go to 5, but if there is only one, it may drop to 1).

And yes, the hotel department sometimes tries to hide equipment that is dirty or not working. Every piece of food service equipment needs to be fully functional, or shrink wrapped and marked "out of service" (and preferably removed from the galley) and marked with a purchase order number or time for estimated repair. These kinds of minor infractions are what we were looking for when we did the weekly "USPH inspection" on NCL. Every supervisor on the ship was tasked with taking part in this (25-30 people), and you would form teams of two. One person would be in charge of the area to be inspected, and one would be from a totally different department, to provide "fresh eyes" to catch those things the people working there see every day, and start to ignore (first engineer inspecting kid's club, for instance).

I am glad that we do have these programs in place for the protection of passengers. However, I also think we tend to overreact to some of the data received. (not that they are too strict- just that we underestimate how difficult it would be to control certain aspects of the areas inspected...)

For example- in my own kitchen at home I get a random housefly that gets in through our back door. When I see it, I grab the swatter and kill it as soon as possible. If I had a health inspector in my home at that time, I would be charged with the presence of a fly... Does that mean that my kitchen is filthy and I'm incapable of preparing healthy meals for my family? Now carrying that model back to the ship scenario- several of the ships have open restaurants on the aft area or promenade part and now Serenity areas- Flies live outside... granted they are few and far between while at sea- but the inspections are done in port...

Safety at sea (as well as at home) should be of utmost concern- I am just saying that we should take those results (violations) with a little more understanding of the overall picture. Is the company putting their customers at risk? That is a question that only you can answer.

Not surprised.

I am

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And you'll notice that some deficiencies noted do not result in points deducted. Some items may be a 5 point deduction, but they have sort of a scale that is used to determine the severity of the 5 point deduction (i.e. if there are several in the same area or type of deficiency, then the points can go to 5, but if there is only one, it may drop to 1).

And yes, the hotel department sometimes tries to hide equipment that is dirty or not working. Every piece of food service equipment needs to be fully functional, or shrink wrapped and marked "out of service" (and preferably removed from the galley) and marked with a purchase order number or time for estimated repair. These kinds of minor infractions are what we were looking for when we did the weekly "USPH inspection" on NCL. Every supervisor on the ship was tasked with taking part in this (25-30 people), and you would form teams of two. One person would be in charge of the area to be inspected, and one would be from a totally different department, to provide "fresh eyes" to catch those things the people working there see every day, and start to ignore (first engineer inspecting kid's club, for instance).

This bears repeating apparently ;)

I am glad that we do have these programs in place for the protection of passengers. However, I also think we tend to overreact to some of the data received. (not that they are too strict- just that we underestimate how difficult it would be to control certain aspects of the areas inspected...)

For example- in my own kitchen at home I get a random housefly that gets in through our back door. When I see it, I grab the swatter and kill it as soon as possible. If I had a health inspector in my home at that time, I would be charged with the presence of a fly... Does that mean that my kitchen is filthy and I'm incapable of preparing healthy meals for my family? Now carrying that model back to the ship scenario- several of the ships have open restaurants on the aft area or promenade part and now Serenity areas- Flies live outside... granted they are few and far between while at sea- but the inspections are done in port...

Safety at sea (as well as at home) should be of utmost concern- I am just saying that we should take those results (violations) with a little more understanding of the overall picture. Is the company putting their customers at risk? That is a question that only you can answer.

Actually, the VSP is not there to "protect passengers". That is not the USPH mandate. The mandate is to prevent the introduction of infectious disease into the US. Under this mandate, the USPH would be required to board every cruise ship, every week, and not only inspect, but interview crew and passengers as to their health. In order to avoid this massive and obtrusive requirement, the VSP was initiated, such that if the ship agrees to meet the construction and operation requirements, the ship will only be liable for up to 2 random inspections a year.

As for the flies, outside food areas on the ship are required to have some sort of pest control (the electronic bug zappers are the most common), and even these are inspected for cleanliness.