Does Carnival disable Internet to control bad press?

[Mississippian]

During the late unpleasantness on the Magic I didn't notice any posts from people actually onboard the ship, which is unusual. Does anyone know if Carnival deliberately limited Internet access.

 

A lot of people use the Internet to check in for flights, book hotels, and so forth, so I would think not having it would be a problem. Just curious.

[JLee1973]

I am sure some were upset by why assume people did not have a good time regardless and Carnival limited people from reporting?

 

 

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Edited October 19, 2014 by JLee1973

[cruzinlisa]

Its not impossible, but I doubt it. Internet is a big money maker for Carnival and they don't like to lose out on money. Plus, it would end up being MORE negative publicity for them if they cut off internet deliberately to avoid bad press. The people on the ship would eventually be debarking (didn't they debark today) and talk anyway.

[jimbo5544]

During the late unpleasantness on the Magic I didn't notice any posts from people actually onboard the ship, which is unusual. Does anyone know if Carnival deliberately limited Internet access.

 

A lot of people use the Internet to check in for flights, book hotels, and so forth, so I would think not having it would be a problem. Just curious.

There were posts from people on the ship during the helicopter removal of the blood sample, including a reporter (assuming he was on vacation). Why in the world would they limit internet on a cruise at all, especially one with nothing wrong? Maybe they were just enjoying their vacation, and it was just the rest of the world that going crazy for nothing.

Edited October 19, 2014 by jimbo5544

[seeing this world]

there was live reports from guests from the ship while this was all going on.

[Mississippian]

Good enough. For quite a while there weren't any comments from anyone on board on the long thread and a number of people commented on it. I thought it was odd. That's why I asked.

[jimbo5544]

Good enough. For quite a while there weren't any comments from anyone on board on the long thread and a number of people commented on it. I thought it was odd. That's why I asked.

From all reports I have seen, other than missing Cozumel, they were pretty much enjoying their cruise. Probably not a lot of people on the internet to back home during a cruise, don't know on average how many people talk to off ship people during a cruise. We have done it once in 30 cruises for a medical situation back home.

[DebJ14]

No need to limit internet to control the flow of negative information. They show CNN on the TVs in the cabins.

[irishnyc]

I wouldn't be spending those prices for Internet just so I could update CC on such a non-issue.

[A2Mich]

There were posts from people on the ship during the helicopter removal of the blood sample, including a reporter (assuming he was on vacation). Why in the world would they limit internet on a cruise at all, especially one with nothing wrong? Maybe they were just enjoying their vacation, and it was just the rest of the world that going crazy for nothing.

 

Because the conspiracy theorists are absolute extremists....

[realmccoy]

Don't know about internet, but can tell you back when we were in a similar situation on the Splendor. We left LA on Sunday for a Mexican Riviera Cruise and the swine flu was just hitting the news...on Monday morning the CDC issuesed a travel restriction to Mexico...which we were unaware of. Unknown to us, Carnival had restricted the TV access to only the Carnival channels...thus we could not get any news (there were no internet ubs back then). The next day Carnival announced on the PA that the CDC would not allow anyone off of the ship. So they do have the ability to limit your access to the outside world when they want to.

[mzlinda]

I'm with the OP on this one. I couldn't believe that absolutely no one onboard was posting anything to cruise critic....Not even to complain about missing a port, especially when they were sitting offshore until noon waiting/hoping for clearance to dock.

 

 

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[falkcor]

the premise of this thread is just a bit out there for me...

 

there were people on board posting to the carnival forum... to twitter... that reporter also live tweeting...

 

also keep in mind they were in international waters (solely after belize) and would have to buy internet, etc. to do so.

 

a lot of people don't buy internet. even fewer post to cruise critic from the cruise ship. i never have, and i'm not sure i ever will. they were on vacation!

 

if it truly were such a conspiracy, i think any of those on the ship which are indeed cc members would be here today (after their vacation) to tell us about how terrible it were, or if, perish the thought, they were being censored. :eek:

 

really i think the whole issue is much ado about nothing, and the fact that there is no backlash of sorts today, only reinforces that fact. sorry, but this is just a bit of a reach imo...

[momof3cruisers]

There were posts from people on the ship during the helicopter removal of the blood sample, including a reporter (assuming he was on vacation). Why in the world would they limit internet on a cruise at all, especially one with nothing wrong? Maybe they were just enjoying their vacation, and it was just the rest of the world that going crazy for nothing.

 

Exactly. People are acting like this was a cruise from Hell when all that really happened was that they missed a port. Big deal...ships have to skip ports all the time due to various issues. I'd be thrilled to miss one port for $200 OBC and half off a future cruise.

[Orison]

During the late unpleasantness on the Magic I didn't notice any posts from people actually onboard the ship, which is unusual. Does anyone know if Carnival deliberately limited Internet access.

 

A lot of people use the Internet to check in for flights, book hotels, and so forth, so I would think not having it would be a problem. Just curious.

 

There was a reporter on board. I guess you missed his reports.

 

I find more information on other boards these days. Things here just disappear.

 

As far as bad press, I think Carnival has learned a few things over the past couple of years. After a wonderful Blog by John Heald after the Splendor fire, Carnival seemed to do an about face with every incident they had, from the Concordia, through the Triumph, and a hand full of other ships, like the Dream, Legend, and some others.

 

No PR, and their social media just went dark. There was a scathing article about their handling of these issues by some, and it seems they acknowledged their problems, suddenly with retribution overkill, and updates. I personally would have loved to have been on the receiving end of a 200 OBC, as well as a 50% off toward their next cruise, just for skipping one port, but still think that was a bit much.

 

And am still curious what they will be extending to that Lab supervisor.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Orison

[kingoftheicedragons]

It's virtually impossible to kill information these days.

 

Yes, I suppose they could cut off access to outside TV like CNN if they really wanted to. They could cut off access to the internet. But people still have phones that they can receive phone calls from home on. Then you'll have people telling what they heard from home, and the fact that people can't turn on CNN to check things out for themselves, or go online (I wouldn't go online, it costs too much for too slow of a service), and then the rumors will start to grow, and you could end up with panic. That would be even worse for the cruise line...last thing they'd want is for the news to be that there's just one big riot on their ship because of some small issue, or in this case, a non-issue.

[Spaniel Lover]

We were onboard the Carnival Spirit in November of 2010 when the Carnival Splendor had the engine fire that left her adrift off the coast of Mexico. For more than a day, all the satellite TV channels except the Carnival channels went away... presumably so that us passengers would not get the news about what had happened onboard the Splendor.

 

They did not turn off the Internet... only the satellite TV channels... so I found out about the Splendor incident over the Internet. But clearly they did not want the passengers seeing the non-stop TV coverage about the Splendor accident on all the news channels.

[Cruise_Christy]

There were tweets from people on board, there was a reporter on board on holiday who tweeted very regularly. He even tweeted a picture of the letter given to all passengers regarding the situation.

 

I think people have a mistaken view of exactly what % of cruise critic members is actually on board these ships - usually very limited compared to the overall pax and many of those will not want to spend their expensive wifi minutes on cruise critic, which is quite bulky at times to load. Mediums such as twitter are far quicker and far more heavily used.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Cruise_Christy

[Rh2458]

We were onboard the Carnival Spirit in November of 2010 when the Carnival Splendor had the engine fire that left her adrift off the coast of Mexico. For more than a day, all the satellite TV channels except the Carnival channels went away... presumably so that us passengers would not get the news about what had happened onboard the Splendor.

 

They did not turn off the Internet... only the satellite TV channels... so I found out about the Splendor incident over the Internet. But clearly they did not want the passengers seeing the non-stop TV coverage about the Splendor accident on all the news channels.

 

Isn't it more likely that the reason that only the Carnival stations were working was because the fire cut their satellite TV feed?

[bigdog1958]

There were tweets from people on board, there was a reporter on board on holiday who tweeted very regularly. He even tweeted a picture of the letter given to all passengers regarding the situation.

 

I think people have a mistaken view of exactly what % of cruise critic members is actually on board these ships - usually very limited compared to the overall pax and many of those will not want to spend their expensive wifi minutes on cruise critic, which is quite bulky at times to load. Mediums such as twitter are far quicker and far more heavily used.

 

I agree, there were numerous posts on the carnival forums, just not here.. There are probably 5 to 10% of cruise critic members on any one cruise. I think people think the majority of cruisers are on cruise critic, and that is certainly not the case

[jimbo5544]

Isn't it more likely that the reason that only the Carnival stations were working was because the fire cut their satellite TV feed?

I think he was referring to being on the Spirit and the fire was on the Splendor. There are times when we had no satellite feeds on several cruises (no sat in range type of thing). It sounds much more suspicious to say big brother (Carnival in this case) turned it off. Even if true, it is a long way from eliminating people from talking to the outside world (which did not happen).

[PacificMountain2012]

We were on the cruise. Wrote my sister late Thursday night, while we were still floating off Belize and again sent her pictures Friday morning, while waiting to find out if we could go to Cozumel....No blackout of internet or the news channels.

[andy.capitan]

Was it the Triumph (?) or one of the Carnival adventures, where a different Carnival ship came close enough so those on the Triumph could make phone calls and/or use the Internet.

Edited October 20, 2014 by andy.capitan

[jimbo5544]

Was it the Triumph (?) or one of the Carnival adventures, where a different Carnival ship came close enough so those on the Triumph could make phone calls and/or use the Internet.

It was the Triumph.

[cmich068]

I think he was referring to being on the Spirit and the fire was on the Splendor. There are times when we had no satellite feeds on several cruises (no sat in range type of thing). It sounds much more suspicious to say big brother (Carnival in this case) turned it off. Even if true, it is a long way from eliminating people from talking to the outside world (which did not happen).

 

It's not unheard of in the travel industry. Though if this were the case, I'd expect them to only block CNN, not every channel.