Peacock documentary: Hell of a Cruise

[Barry ATL]

Streaming service Peacock releases a documentary on the Diamon Princess Covid crisis.  This one is longer than the HBO one released about a year ago. and covers more of what happened off of the ship.  Decider.com has a pretty good review on it at  

 

https://decider.com/2022/09/14/hell-of-a-cruise-on-peacock-stream-it-or-skip-it/

 

Here is a couple of partial quotes about the documentary: 

 

"Hell of a Cruise takes a bigger, broader approach to the topic, roping corporate and political bungling and malfeasance into the narrative, reaching a conclusion that’s harshly critical of decisions made at the top. And to name names, that includes an especially pointy finger pointing at Carnival CEO Arnold Donald – who, per a postscript title card, made $10 and $13 million in 2020 and 2021 respectively..."

 

"But the overall picture is wholly damning of the Carnival Corporation. Especially egregious: The company concocting a hashtag, #HangInThereDiamondPrincess, to boost morale aboard the quarantined ship."

 

"But the overall picture is wholly damning of the Carnival Corporation. Especially egregious: The company concocting a hashtag, #HangInThereDiamondPrincess, to boost morale aboard the quarantined ship."

 

I just finished watching and it is very damning of the cruise lines.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Barry ATL

[cali-croozer]

It was interesting but then got bogged down with the blame game, in my opinion.  No one knew what to do in the beginning and cruises weren't the only places people were congregating. Things were still normal as far as nba games, concerts, airlines, etc. We spent the last week, before the shutdown, at a very crowded Disneyland. 🤷‍♀️

[Kay S]

I will watch this.  We sailed on the Diamond a few years before this, and it was one of my favorite ships.  I think everyone has learned what not to do now, 20/20 hindsight, but at the time it was, literally, uncharted territory.

[Steelers36]

I don't want to watch it.  Agree that hindsight is 20/20.  Politicians and medical advisors were equally unsure in many cases of what it was, what to do, and what was coming.  I am sure we all remember "two weeks to slow the spread".  I feel like it will just be a depressing exercise and we basically know what went wrong.  I choose to look forward.

[suzyed]

Blame game, in deed.  
What was not at all mentioned in the movie was that we had over 2000 people on the Coral Princess in South America.  We started our journey on March 5th, 2020 and WE didn't get to go home until April 6th.  Many many others did not get home till a week or so later.
It was as if they didn't even know we were out there....and cruising was "paused" on March 18th or 19th...but Hey!  We were still cruising!  And we had 2 people die on the cruise with several others taken off in ports as we passed by them.  March 13th in the Falklands was the last day we set foot on terra firma. There was not a single port who would take us....not even ultimately Ft. Lauderdale...we ended our sailing in Miami.
Most everyone we knew onboard got sick when we got home....some nearly dying.

We don't blame Princess, well maybe for not being better informed but it was a crazy, scary time! 20/20 hind site for sure.

Edited September 15, 2022 by suzyed

[AZjohn]

I just watched it.

Yes, memories of the beginning of the spread. 
 

Two things that I personally thought was important from it (I’ll let others discuss the politics and what went wrong):

 

1.) It was the outbreak on Diamond that they first discovered that half of infected were asymptomatic 

 

2.) All the crew members on all the ships (not just Princess) were just left onboard for months without a way to go home or get payed.

 

I wonder if this plays a part currently with crew shortages?? 

Edited September 15, 2022 by AZjohn

[Barry ATL]

1 minute ago, AZjohn said:

 

 

2.) All the crew members on all the ships (not just Princess) were just left onboard for months without a way to go home or stay safe.

 

I wonder if this plays a part currently with crew shortages?? 

I thought the same thing.  I had forgotten that the cruise line stopped paying them with a promise they would get their pay when the lines started sailing again.  For a lot of those crew, that money goes to their family.

 

If you treat THOUSANDS of employees badly in a crisis, that might tend to bite you in the a$$.

[suzyed]

2 minutes ago, Barry ATL said:

I thought the same thing.  I had forgotten that the cruise line stopped paying them with a promise they would get their pay when the lines started sailing again.  For a lot of those crew, that money goes to their family.

 

If you treat THOUSANDS of employees badly in a crisis, that might tend to bite you in the a$$.

Our room steward on our recent Alaska cruise, told us he was held onboard for 6 months!!!
Thankfully he came back to cruising...he was wonderful!

[Steelers36]

19 minutes ago, AZjohn said:

(I’ll let others discuss the politics and what went wrong):

We cannot do that here or posts are deleted and thread shutdown.

[AZjohn]

1 minute ago, Steelers36 said:

We cannot do that here or posts are deleted and thread shutdown.

Forgot to put my sarcastic smile at the end of that line😆

[Steelers36]

11 minutes ago, suzyed said:

Our room steward on our recent Alaska cruise, told us he was held onboard for 6 months!!!
Thankfully he came back to cruising...he was wonderful!

How much of that was PCL choice or could some crew not be returned to their home country?  It does seem odd though unless the ship would have had to literally sail to each home country and off-load.  (I say that as it was always possible for citizens of (at least most) countries to return to their home.  This was certainly the case for Canada and US, for example.  Anyone in the other country could return home even though borders were closed.

[PescadoAmarillo]

14 minutes ago, suzyed said:

Blame game, in deed.  
What was not at all mentioned in the movie was that we had over 2000 people on the Coral Princess in South America.  We started our journey on March 5th, 2020 and WE didn't get to go home until April 6th.  Many many others did not get home till a week or so later.
It was as if they didn't even know we were out there....and cruising was "paused" on March 18th or 19th...but Hey!  We were still cruising!  And we had 2 people die on the cruise with several others taken off in ports as we passed by them.  March 13th in the Falklands was the last day we set foot on terra firma. There was not a single port who would take us....not even ultimately Ft. Lauderdale...we ended our sailing in Miami.
Most everyone we knew onboard got sick when we got home....some nearly dying.

We don't blame Princess, well maybe for not being better informed but it was a crazy, scary time! 20/20 hind site for sure.

We had friends who were with you in that cruise. In the end, Princess did the right thing. I think they were flown home from O’Hare on a small chartered jet. 
 

But I still shake my head at the lack of communication in those first months of 2020. We had been in Australia and the South Pacific for 5 months, and COVID was huge news there, with its proximity to Asia. We got home in mid February when the Diamond was in the midst of its quarantine and felt thrilled that we had just got out in what felt like the knick of time. And I remember friends at home were really happy about how low gas prices were and we said, do you know what’s happening across the world?  It’s going to be here any day.  I’m sure they thought we were overreacting.

 

But what really shocked us was that people continued to cruise for the rest of February and into March. We just couldn’t believe it. We were on our last Majestic Princess cruise in February asking ourselves in every port if we should just fly back to Sydney and try to get home sooner, and people at home were still taking cruises. Information was not getting out. I remember the doctor on the Diamond Princess admitting he (or she, I don’t recall which) was basically functioning alone, and getting no direction from Princess Medical. Can you imagine being in that position with no support?

 

I am dismayed to hear that crew members were not paid for those weeks and months spent on the ships after the shutdown. Do we know that is fact?  Were they ever paid?  That is really troubling. 

[Steelers36]

1 minute ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

We had friends who were with you in that cruise. In the end, Princess did the right thing. I think they were flown home from O’Hare on a small chartered jet. 
 

But I still shake my head at the lack of communication in those first months of 2020. We had been in Australia and the South Pacific for 5 months, and COVID was huge news there, with its proximity to Asia. We got home in mid February when the Diamond was in the midst of its quarantine and felt thrilled that we had just got out in what felt like the knick of time. And I remember friends at home were really happy about how low gas prices were and we said, do you know what’s happening across the world?  It’s going to be here any day.  I’m sure they thought we were overreacting.

 

But what really shocked us was that people continued to cruise for the rest of February and into March. We just couldn’t believe it. We were on our last Majestic Princess cruise in February asking ourselves in every port if we should just fly back to Sydney and try to get home sooner, and people at home were still taking cruises. Information was not getting out. I remember the doctor on the Diamond Princess admitting he (or she, I don’t recall which) was basically functioning alone, and getting no direction from Princess Medical. Can you imagine being in that position with no support?

 

I am dismayed to hear that crew members were not paid for those weeks and months spent on the ships after the shutdown. Do we know that is fact?  Were they ever paid?  That is really troubling. 

Your post reminds me - with apologies for hazy memory - that initial stories were it was isolated and not likely to affect North America much, etc.  We are not privy to conversations, etc, and while it is sad to be left alone, perhaps HQ thought there was a lot of over-reacting going on? 

 

In the beginning the whole thing was not thought to be a big concern, IIRC.  It wasn't until early March that N.A. seemed to wake up to it.  Personally, when it became "a thing" we thought we may as well stay in warm sunny FL and not rush back to cold wintry Ontario where we'd be in worse environment. 

 

There was a certain finality driving across the bridge from Buffalo, knowing not only did we have to remain at home for two weeks, but there was no turning back for an indefinite period of time.

 

[suzyed]

7 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

We had friends who were with you in that cruise. In the end, Princess did the right thing. I think they were flown home from O’Hare on a small chartered jet. 
 

But I still shake my head at the lack of communication in those first months of 2020. We had been in Australia and the South Pacific for 5 months, and COVID was huge news there, with its proximity to Asia. We got home in mid February when the Diamond was in the midst of its quarantine and felt thrilled that we had just got out in what felt like the knick of time. And I remember friends at home were really happy about how low gas prices were and we said, do you know what’s happening across the world?  It’s going to be here any day.  I’m sure they thought we were overreacting.

 

But what really shocked us was that people continued to cruise for the rest of February and into March. We just couldn’t believe it. We were on our last Majestic Princess cruise in February asking ourselves in every port if we should just fly back to Sydney and try to get home sooner, and people at home were still taking cruises. Information was not getting out. I remember the doctor on the Diamond Princess admitting he (or she, I don’t recall which) was basically functioning alone, and getting no direction from Princess Medical. Can you imagine being in that position with no support?

 

I am dismayed to hear that crew members were not paid for those weeks and months spent on the ships after the shutdown. Do we know that is fact?  Were they ever paid?  That is really troubling. 

Not sure if they were paid or not...I will ask my daughter if our room steward mentioned that or not.

We have had people ask why we cruised in March and I can only answer that it seemed like a problem in Asia and not in S. America. I do recall that they were not allowing anyone to sail who had been in China the previous weeks or month.   No mention of it in Chile when we embarked.  We were more worried about whether we should use precautions for yellow fever....who could have anticipated a global pandemic.   

[The Mikado]

14 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

We cannot do that here or posts are deleted and thread shutdown.

You can say that two times. 

[suzyed]

17 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

How much of that was PCL choice or could some crew not be returned to their home country?  It does seem odd though unless the ship would have had to literally sail to each home country and off-load.  (I say that as it was always possible for citizens of (at least most) countries to return to their home.  This was certainly the case for Canada and US, for example.  Anyone in the other country could return home even though borders were closed.

I know the Brits and indeed, some of the S. Americans couldn't get home. Yes, the Americans were the first off.  Princess actually drove us home from Miami (with 3 other couples) right to our driveway. 

Of course we were all treated like lepers when we got home...everyone was afraid of us and we didn't even let on that we got sick after we got home.  We self quarantined for close to a month when we got home.

 

Our aforementioned room steward was from Central America.

[PescadoAmarillo]

11 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

In the beginning the whole thing was not thought to be a big concern, IIRC. 

I wish we could have been relaxed about it in my marriage but my husband spent years in NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare) in the military he said from from the second week in January it was going to change the world.  Darn, I hate it when he’s right. 😆

[Kay S]

We were due to do a two-week transatlantic a couple of days after they hit "pause."  That's why we have all this FCC to use up.  I live in California, and we shut down earlier than most.  We did do a cruise shortly after the restart (first cruise ship to dock in San Francisco, as it turned out) on Princess and then a couple more on HAL.  I have become a big fan of HAL, BTW.

[omynameistaken]

I literally just finished watching it and I thought it was very interesting. The Diamond Princess reminded me of a modern-day Titanic situation. I remember thinking at the time, what are they going to do with that ship when it's all over with. Surely they're going to scrap it or sell it. Boy was I wrong about that, as a matter of fact I will be getting on her January 5th to Hawaii 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

[leck57]

9 hours ago, Barry ATL said:

Streaming service Peacock releases a documentary on the Diamon Princess Covid crisis.  This one is longer than the HBO one released about a year ago. and covers more of what happened off of the ship.  Decider.com has a pretty good review on it at  

 

https://decider.com/2022/09/14/hell-of-a-cruise-on-peacock-stream-it-or-skip-it/

 

Here is a couple of partial quotes about the documentary: 

 

"Hell of a Cruise takes a bigger, broader approach to the topic, roping corporate and political bungling and malfeasance into the narrative, reaching a conclusion that’s harshly critical of decisions made at the top. And to name names, that includes an especially pointy finger pointing at Carnival CEO Arnold Donald – who, per a postscript title card, made $10 and $13 million in 2020 and 2021 respectively..."

 

"But the overall picture is wholly damning of the Carnival Corporation. Especially egregious: The company concocting a hashtag, #HangInThereDiamondPrincess, to boost morale aboard the quarantined ship."

 

"But the overall picture is wholly damning of the Carnival Corporation. Especially egregious: The company concocting a hashtag, #HangInThereDiamondPrincess, to boost morale aboard the quarantined ship."

 

I just finished watching and it is very damning of the cruise lines.

 

Serves no benefit watching it now. I've moved on........to cruising again.

[bronzey214]

6 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

I wish we could have been relaxed about it in my marriage but my husband spent years in NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare) in the military he said from from the second week in January it was going to change the world.  Darn, I hate it when he’s right. 😆

When I saw that China was welding people into their apartment buildings (early February?), I decided to go to our local pharmacy to try to get some masks.

I ran into a woman in the same aisle. We didn't mention what we were looking for, but kind of locked eyes and both left empty handed.

When I ran into her later at our local hardware store doing the same thing, that's when I started to worry.

[nbsjcruiser]

10 hours ago, cali-croozer said:

It was interesting but then got bogged down with the blame game, in my opinion.  No one knew what to do in the beginning and cruises weren't the only places people were congregating. Things were still normal as far as nba games, concerts, airlines, etc. We spent the last week, before the shutdown, at a very crowded Disneyland. 🤷‍♀️

Exactly. Cruise ships were an ideal target for the media to beat to death. We were on a cruise 2 weeks prior to the world shutting down and I remember a neighbor asking me if I was worried. What? Me worry? Nope. Had I known what was coming I would have had a different point of view but at that time nobody knew what was going on. It took the US months to get their crap together, why would we think a cruise ship could do it in the early stages of this thing?

[nbsjcruiser]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

In the beginning the whole thing was not thought to be a big concern, IIRC.  It wasn't until early March that N.A. seemed to wake up to it.  Personally, when it became "a thing" we thought we may as well stay in warm sunny FL and not rush back to cold wintry Ontario where we'd be in worse environment. 

 

There was a certain finality driving across the bridge from Buffalo, knowing not only did we have to remain at home for two weeks, but there was no turning back for an indefinite period of time.

 

We were on a cruise on the Adventure of the Seas and disembarked in FLL in late February - 23rd or 24th I think. Anyway, when we got to our hotel our son came down with something. We figured it was a really bad cold or even pneumonia. I remember trying to convince him to go to hospital in FLL but he just wanted to go home. He said at the time he felt like someone was sitting on his chest making it hard to breathe. Our daughter and her husband got married on the cruise and they were sick when they got home. It wasn't until we got home that we started putting 2 and 2 together as the world began shutting down. I'm convinced all 3 had Covid and with our son staying in our room all week and in the hotel with us, I'm also convinced we were asymptomatic - we had to be being that close. I found out later here on CC that the next cruise on the same ship had loads of sick people on it.

 

And yes, as the world began shutting down there was a feeling of finality. We thought at the time we may never travel for many years. Luckily we pressed ahead and traveled in late 2021 and even hopped on a cruise ship. You can only live in a cocoon for so long.

[PacnGoNow]

8 hours ago, suzyed said:

Blame game, in deed.  
What was not at all mentioned in the movie was that we had over 2000 people on the Coral Princess in South America.  We started our journey on March 5th, 2020 and WE didn't get to go home until April 6th.  Many many others did not get home till a week or so later.
It was as if they didn't even know we were out there....and cruising was "paused" on March 18th or 19th...but Hey!  We were still cruising!  And we had 2 people die on the cruise with several others taken off in ports as we passed by them.  March 13th in the Falklands was the last day we set foot on terra firma. There was not a single port who would take us....not even ultimately Ft. Lauderdale...we ended our sailing in Miami.
Most everyone we knew onboard got sick when we got home....some nearly dying.

We don't blame Princess, well maybe for not being better informed but it was a crazy, scary time! 20/20 hind site for sure.

Thank you Susan for telling our story. 
I loved the Falklands and my penguins!

I’m not watching this blame game. I lived it.  Looking forward.

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by PacnGoNow

[MileHighAko]

Here is an article with an interview with the director/producer of Hell of a Cruise. It's an interesting read: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2022/09/14/hell-cruise-early-days-covid/8028417001/