LOUSY CRUISE ON ZUIDERDAM

[KAKcruiser]

Mary 229 - You mention a penalty free cancellation policy for booking with the onboard cruise consultant. What is this?

[Mary229]

11 minutes ago, KAKcruiser said:

Mary 229 - You mention a penalty free cancellation policy for booking with the onboard cruise consultant. What is this?

Last I purchased one in April the policy was still in force. You only pay the low deposits I mentioned and it is refundable up to final payment date.  I am not aware of any changes to this policy.  This differs from when you buy a FCD and apply it later, then it may or may not be refundable 

[Florida_gal_50]

51 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Last I purchased one in April the policy was still in force. You only pay the low deposits I mentioned and it is refundable up to final payment date.  I am not aware of any changes to this policy.  This differs from when you buy a FCD and apply it later, then it may or may not be refundable 

If I have used a future cruise deposit and canceled before final I've gotten it back or are you talking after final in the case of a last minute cancelation?  Thanks.

[Mary229]

1 minute ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

If I have used a future cruise deposit and canceled before final I've gotten it back or are you talking after final in the case of a last minute cancelation?  Thanks.

In certain cases it is no longer refundable.  That was something new to me.  I booked a cruise in June with a FCD and they made it very clear it would not be refundable.  I will be canceling that cruise this week, as it happens, and I can report back 

[kazu]

58 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Last I purchased one in April the policy was still in force. You only pay the low deposits I mentioned and it is refundable up to final payment date.  I am not aware of any changes to this policy.  This differs from when you buy a FCD and apply it later, then it may or may not be refundable 

Any Future Cruise Deposit I have bought has been refundable up to final payment  / penalty date.  I’ve been buying them for decades.

 

Edited to say - posting at the same time - I am very surprised you had one where it would not be refundable unless you bought “Best Price” which is a non refundable deposit.  In that case, whatever the deposit is  will not be refundable.

[Mary229]

Just now, kazu said:

Any Future Cruise Deposit I have bought has been refundable up to final payment  / penalty date.  I’ve been buying them for decades.

See my post above yours

[Florida_gal_50]

1 minute ago, Mary229 said:

In certain cases it is no longer refundable.  That was something new to me.  I booked a cruise in June with a FCD and they made it very clear it would not be refundable.  I will be canceling that cruise this week, as it happens, and I can report back 

Well that sucks.  I haven't had that issue thankfully.  I could understand if it's a non refundable fare but otherwise not so much.

[Wakepatrol]

2 hours ago, alexisaboard said:

I’m surprised not to see mention of the dozens of buckets spread throughout the ship, across all decks, collecting dripping water from the ceiling. I work in hospitality - we would be terribly embarrassed if this were our guests’ experience. 
 

It seemed as though every other person I spoke with either had a toilet fail or AC break, or both. In our case, it was both. My husband got food poisoning, I got an ear infection. 

 

As far as shipwide experiences go: Significantly delayed embarkation, 2 cancelled ports (leaving a total of 4 ports for a 14 day cruise), 3 medical evacuations (not counting the two ambulances that met us at Port Everglades), 1/2 pools open for the first 5 days, menus on the app/TV never quite seemed to match up with the offerings in the lido.

 

The crew was phenomenal, but the Zuiderdam is on her last legs. It’s really rather appalling that HAL does not have more shame. The buckets collecting dripping water really say it all. And that was across all decks, from deck 1 to deck 10. 
 

We made wonderful friends and had a great time overall. We have a good attitude and are easy-going, pretty easy to please. But these issues, on paper, paint a pretty grim picture. As one of our new friends said, it felt like we were on the holodeck or an episode of the Twilight Zone. Something was just off on this voyage. 

Just curious- What can HAL do to cut down on medical evacuations?

[Mary229]

2 minutes ago, Wakepatrol said:

Just curious- What can HAL do to cut down on medical evacuations?

At one point early in the pandemic there was a discussion if cruise lines would start requiring physicians letter  for those over a certain age.  The people medically evacuated I witnessed would definitely not been onboard , there is no way a physician would have approved travel for them

[Florida_gal_50]

Young people get sick too.

[Wakepatrol]

4 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

At one point early in the pandemic there was a discussion if cruise lines would start requiring physicians letter  for those over a certain age.  The people medically evacuated I witnessed would definitely not been onboard , there is no way a physician would have approved travel for them

This reads very strange, “Certain Age” 

what about passengers who might have

asthma,obesity, or underlying conditions

Woild they need a doctors letter as well?

 

[Mary229]

1 minute ago, Wakepatrol said:

This reads very strange, “Certain Age” 

what about passengers who might have

asthma,obesity, or underlying conditions

Woild they need a doctors letter as well?

 

That is what the discussion was, people of a certain age.  There was no discussion of the other health issues.  At the time age was considered the primary comorbidity which turned out not to be true. 

[ShipWalker]

28 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

Young people get sick too.

 

27 minutes ago, Wakepatrol said:

This reads very strange, “Certain Age” 

what about passengers who might have

asthma,obesity, or underlying conditions

Woild they need a doctors letter as well?

 

...and so once again began the "whataboutism" tactics.

Edited December 5, 2022 by ShipWalker

[alexisaboard]

1 hour ago, Wakepatrol said:

Just curious- What can HAL do to cut down on medical evacuations?

I don’t have a solution for that nor was that the focus of my post. We are in our 30s and were not among those griping about the evacs - despite our age we have the good sense to know that it could be any of us who got sick, broke a bone, etc., and needed serious medical intervention and we would have been grateful to the ship for taking good care of us. But such a preponderance of evacs does color the experience a bit. I was conservative in my post, other friends we made on the trip said they counted 6 total evacuations. As I stated, I developed a sinus infection - on the night I spent in medical, they had 3 emergencies. The doctor said she had spent every cruise on her contract so far in a constant state of triage. And our fellow passengers were not behaving responsibly in my opinion. There was a constant chorus of unmasked coughs (not just people clearing their throats) each of the 3 times we sat in the theater waiting for excursions, and then we sat on buses with people with productive coughs. We were masked and I feel lucky to have walked away with a simple sinus infection. (We wound up isolated and tested 3x times before being “released”, for anyone curious)

[Florida_gal_50]

9 minutes ago, alexisaboard said:

I don’t have a solution for that nor was that the focus of my post. We are in our 30s and were not among those griping about the evacs - despite our age we have the good sense to know that it could be any of us who got sick, broke a bone, etc., and needed serious medical intervention and we would have been grateful to the ship for taking good care of us. But such a preponderance of evacs does color the experience a bit. I was conservative in my post, other friends we made on the trip said they counted 6 total evacuations. As I stated, I developed a sinus infection - on the night I spent in medical, they had 3 emergencies. The doctor said she had spent every cruise on her contract so far in a constant state of triage. And our fellow passengers were not behaving responsibly in my opinion. There was a constant chorus of unmasked coughs (not just people clearing their throats) each of the 3 times we sat in the theater waiting for excursions, and then we sat on buses with people with productive coughs. We were masked and I feel lucky to have walked away with a simple sinus infection. (We wound up isolated and tested 3x times before being “released”, for anyone curious)

Same thing happened on my cruise.  People coughing up a lung, even admitted that they were sick but didn’t care.  This is why I wear a mask except when eating or drinking.  I got on an elevator and in the short ride twice this jerk said to me “you are scaring people with that mask”.  Right.  People were “scaring me”  not acting like responsible adults and coughing up a storm all over the ship. 

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, Mary229 said:

That is what the discussion was, people of a certain age.  There was no discussion of the other health issues.  At the time age was considered the primary comorbidity which turned out not to be true. 

I recall a discussion about all the major comorbidities (age, weight, diabetes, copd, etc….). Although over time age has been most prevalent and would be easiest to implement. 

[Wakepatrol]

42 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I recall a discussion about all the major comorbidities (age, weight, diabetes, copd, etc….). Although over time age has been most prevalent and would be easiest to implement. 

Was it  a discussion  among Doctors and nurses or cruise critic members pretending to be doctors?

[Copper10-8]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:53 AM, Mary229 said:

That seems to be an unusually high incidence of medical emergencies.  Maybe one of our resident experts can weigh in on expected number of emergency incidents per week per capacity.  I fully understand emergencies happen but if this becomes a trend I could imagine a day where a doctor’s note is required for certain passengers.  

 

3 hours ago, Wakepatrol said:

Just curious- What can HAL do to cut down on medical evacuations?

 

There is no rhyme or reason, no pattern to predict how many, or when, medical disembarkations take place on HAL, or other cruise lines. I have worked itineraries (the security officer is very much involved in all medical disembarkations), anything from regular one week long Carib or Alaska cruises, to Atlantic and/or Pacific crossings, to two-week Panama Canal transits, to a full world cruise where we went weeks without medical disembarkations. Then the next week, on the same itineraries, there were multiple! Of course, the longer the itinerary, i.e. a grand world voyage, the higher the odds you will have a, or multiple, med. disembarks however, you can never tell ahead of time how many, if any, you will have!  

 

Just a bit as to how a medical disembark works; the ball starts rolling with one of the two physicians onboard - each HAL ships has two; one with primary responsibility for the passengers/guests; the other for the crew. The doctor(s) will be presented with patient who suffered a medical emergency. The infirmary on the ships, and the staff who run it (doctors and nurses) are there to stabilize the patient, similar to an E.R. on Terra firma. Yes, the docs are E.R./trauma hospital qualified as are most of the nurses; they can run blood and many other tests onboard, take X-rays, administer meds from their on-board pharmacy, place patients on oxygen, apply splints, get you crutches and a wheelchair, etc. but they are not specialists in all forms of medicine like you'll find in a Level 1/II trauma hospital on land such as LAC Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in my particular area.

 

If a medical emergency, i.e. heart attack, stroke, major trauma, etc. presents itself no matter what time of the day or night, you will hear the announcement made over the ship's P/A system by the officer of the watch on the bridge (the recipient of the 911 call) and a team of 1st responders will come running (the old "Bright Star" call). The patient will be transported to the infirmary by the stretcher team and the two docs and staff will attempt to stabilize the patient. If the latter's condition is not stable, i.e. he/she requires advanced and or specialized treatment ashore, the senior doc will make that recommendation to the captain for a medical evacuation of that patient. The captain has no medical background so will rely on his doctor's expertise and will 99% of the time go with that recommendation. He will bear the final responsibility for that decision

 

The next decision to be made is how fast to get the patient to a land-based critical care facility and that has to do with where in the world the ship is at the moment, how far that critical care facility is in relation to the ship's position, and how to get the patient there as fast as possible. Options will be a) a medical evacuation by air (read helicopter), b) a medevac by boat, and c) a medevac by land, meaning the ship will steam as fast as possible to the nearest port where the patients is taken off the ship via the gangway to a waiting paramedic/ambulance.

 

Medevacs by air are inherently dangerous, no matter what. Something can always go wrong when a helicopter is hovering in very close proximity to the bow (usually, at times the stern - the aircraft commander, not the ship's captain, has the final say as to the location) of a moving ship. That's why it's SOP to have at least two of the ship's fire teams standing by with charged fire hose (water and/or foam) lines when an aerial medevac is in progress. In the case of a military organization like the US Coast Guard, or Royal Canadian Air Force performing the medevac by helo, a flight surgeon (yes, that's also a medical doctor) from that military unit will discuss the patients condition via radio with the ship's doctor and he/she (the flight surgeon) has to sign off on the medevac before it can take place.

 

Criteria like the helicopter's range/fuel/loiter capacity will come into play. If the ship 's position is beyond those criteria, the mission is scrubbed and you will have to go to Plan B. Now, in the past, a medevac by helicopter has taken place beyond the normal range of USCG helos. There are very few helicopters around that can be refueled in mid-air to extend their range. That was the case in May 2013 with the Westerdam medevac in the Pacific far off the coast of Baja California where a HH-60G Pave Hawk helo from the California Air National Guard out of Moffett Field, near Sunnyvale/Santa Clara County received fuel in mid-air from a HC-130J Combat King II (the combat rescue variant of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules) in order to extend its range and then successfully medevac'd a patient from the bow of the Westerdam to fly him/her to a trauma hospital in San Diego. That's the exception to the rule! 

 

If the helicopter medevac is a no go, the ship will have to steam post haste to the nearest land fall where either a coast guard vessel or rescue boat (again the land facility has to have such a boat and trained crew available - it can not be done by a glass bottom boat or whale watching vessel) can meet up and where the patient can be transferred to that boat via the tender platform of the cruise ship. Or, as stated if that's out due to, i.e. bad weather/rough sea/rolling swell conditions, the ship will have to sail into port and dock where a transfer directly to land can take place. 

 

Lastly, not every country in the world has the capabilities, be it aircraft/boat, trained crew, logistics, etc. to perform a successful medevac from a cruise ship. There is a difference if you find yourself on a cruise ship off the western or eastern seaboard of North America or Western Europe, compared to say, western Africa, Antarctica, certain parts of Southeast Asia, or even certain areas of Mexico and Central America. That's not a secret and it's not to take anything away of the hardworking and brave military units of the countries concerned in those areas of the world!   

 

As far as how to prevent medical disembarks from cruise/HAL ships? It's just not that easy! I have been involved in medevacs of an 86-year old male who suffered a stroke, but also of a 32-year old crew member who suffered a heart attack with no prior adverse medical history. Where are you going to draw the line as far as "You can't sail with us?"                         

[julia]

@Copper10-8

Thank you for this extremely informative post...  ❤️

[Mary229]

7 hours ago, Wakepatrol said:

Was it  a discussion  among Doctors and nurses or cruise critic members pretending to be doctors?

No, it was something floated by one of the cruise lines briefly, very briefly.  This was very early in the pandemic - before they realized they would t be sailing at anytime in 2020.  
 

Thanks @Copper10-8 for a detailed explanation 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Mary229

[cruisemom42]

9 hours ago, Wakepatrol said:

Was it  a discussion  among Doctors and nurses or cruise critic members pretending to be doctors?

 

It was a discussion among cruise line execs. Draw your own conclusions:

 

https://www.travelagentcentral.com/cruises/cruise-lines-to-require-medical-certification-for-older-guests

 

[boone2]

7 hours ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

 

There is no rhyme or reason, no pattern to predict how many, or when, medical disembarkations take place on HAL, or other cruise lines. I have worked itineraries (the security officer is very much involved in all medical disembarkations), anything from regular one week long Carib or Alaska cruises, to Atlantic and/or Pacific crossings, to two-week Panama Canal transits, to a full world cruise where we went weeks without medical disembarkations. Then the next week, on the same itineraries, there were multiple! Of course, the longer the itinerary, i.e. a grand world voyage, the higher the odds you will have a, or multiple, med. disembarks however, you can never tell ahead of time how many, if any, you will have!  

 

Just a bit as to how a medical disembark works; the ball starts rolling with one of the two physicians onboard - each HAL ships has two; one with primary responsibility for the passengers/guests; the other for the crew. The doctor(s) will be presented with patient who suffered a medical emergency. The infirmary on the ships, and the staff who run it (doctors and nurses) are there to stabilize the patient, similar to an E.R. on Terra firma. Yes, the docs are E.R./trauma hospital qualified as are most of the nurses; they can run blood and many other tests onboard, take X-rays, administer meds from their on-board pharmacy, place patients on oxygen, apply splints, get you crutches and a wheelchair, etc. but they are not specialists in all forms of medicine like you'll find in a Level 1/II trauma hospital on land such as LAC Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in my particular area.

 

If a medical emergency, i.e. heart attack, stroke, major trauma, etc. presents itself no matter what time of the day or night, you will hear the announcement made over the ship's P/A system by the officer of the watch on the bridge (the recipient of the 911 call) and a team of 1st responders will come running (the old "Bright Star" call). The patient will be transported to the infirmary by the stretcher team and the two docs and staff will attempt to stabilize the patient. If the latter's condition is not stable, i.e. he/she requires advanced and or specialized treatment ashore, the senior doc will make that recommendation to the captain for a medical evacuation of that patient. The captain has no medical background so will rely on his doctor's expertise and will 99% of the time go with that recommendation. He will bear the final responsibility for that decision

 

The next decision to be made is how fast to get the patient to a land-based critical care facility and that has to do with where in the world the ship is at the moment, how far that critical care facility is in relation to the ship's position, and how to get the patient there as fast as possible. Options will be a) a medical evacuation by air (read helicopter), b) a medevac by boat, and c) a medevac by land, meaning the ship will steam as fast as possible to the nearest port where the patients is taken off the ship via the gangway to a waiting paramedic/ambulance.

 

Medevacs by air are inherently dangerous, no matter what. Something can always go wrong when a helicopter is hovering in very close proximity to the bow (usually, at times the stern - the aircraft commander, not the ship's captain, has the final say as to the location) of a moving ship. That's why it's SOP to have at least two of the ship's fire teams standing by with charged fire hose (water and/or foam) lines when an aerial medevac is in progress. In the case of a military organization like the US Coast Guard, or Royal Canadian Air Force performing the medevac by helo, a flight surgeon (yes, that's also a medical doctor) from that military unit will discuss the patients condition via radio with the ship's doctor and he/she (the flight surgeon) has to sign off on the medevac before it can take place.

 

Criteria like the helicopter's range/fuel/loiter capacity will come into play. If the ship 's position is beyond those criteria, the mission is scrubbed and you will have to go to Plan B. Now, in the past, a medevac by helicopter has taken place beyond the normal range of USCG helos. There are very few helicopters around that can be refueled in mid-air to extend their range. That was the case in May 2013 with the Westerdam medevac in the Pacific far off the coast of Baja California where a HH-60G Pave Hawk helo from the California Air National Guard out of Moffett Field, near Sunnyvale/Santa Clara County received fuel in mid-air from a HC-130J Combat King II (the combat rescue variant of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules) in order to extend its range and then successfully medevac'd a patient from the bow of the Westerdam to fly him/her to a trauma hospital in San Diego. That's the exception to the rule! 

 

If the helicopter medevac is a no go, the ship will have to steam post haste to the nearest land fall where either a coast guard vessel or rescue boat (again the land facility has to have such a boat and trained crew available - it can not be done by a glass bottom boat or whale watching vessel) can meet up and where the patient can be transferred to that boat via the tender platform of the cruise ship. Or, as stated if that's out due to, i.e. bad weather/rough sea/rolling swell conditions, the ship will have to sail into port and dock where a transfer directly to land can take place. 

 

Lastly, not every country in the world has the capabilities, be it aircraft/boat, trained crew, logistics, etc. to perform a successful medevac from a cruise ship. There is a difference if you find yourself on a cruise ship off the western or eastern seaboard of North America or Western Europe, compared to say, western Africa, Antarctica, certain parts of Southeast Asia, or even certain areas of Mexico and Central America. That's not a secret and it's not to take anything away of the hardworking and brave military units of the countries concerned in those areas of the world!   

 

As far as how to prevent medical disembarks from cruise/HAL ships? It's just not that easy! I have been involved in medevacs of an 86-year old male who suffered a stroke, but also of a 32-year old crew member who suffered a heart attack with no prior adverse medical history. Where are you going to draw the line as far as "You can't sail with us?"                         

As a former member of the medical team( nurse) on board thank you for a very succinct  description of the procedure.   As you say there is no rhyme or reason to the number of medevacs.  On a 49 day of the Amazon we had one disembark across the Amazon by boat. That was a very healthy cruise with no night time call outs. The following week in the Caribbean we had emergency calls every night and at least 3 disembarks in a  7 night cruise.

 

[BermudaBound2014]

28 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

It was a discussion among cruise line execs. Draw your own conclusions:

 

https://www.travelagentcentral.com/cruises/cruise-lines-to-require-medical-certification-for-older-guests

 

 

This ^ .. and I believe cruise line executives were getting their lists of comorbidity data from talks directly with the CDC.

 

The discussion also ramped up again between the time ships started sailing again in Europe (Fall of 2020) and ships sailing from the USA (June 2021). It was short lived. Obesity was one of the talking points. You can imagine how that went.

[dchip]

9 hours ago, Copper10-8 said:

There are very few helicopters around that can be refueled in mid-air to extend their range.

We had this type of medical evacuation on the Zuiderdam 45 day SouthPacific voyage this November. We were 5 hours flight time from San Diego. There were two helicopters and two airplanes for refueling. Praying whoever was evacuated is now okay. 
 

[Wakepatrol]

11 hours ago, Copper10-8 said:

 

 

There is no rhyme or reason, no pattern to predict how many, or when, medical disembarkations take place on HAL, or other cruise lines. I have worked itineraries (the security officer is very much involved in all medical disembarkations), anything from regular one week long Carib or Alaska cruises, to Atlantic and/or Pacific crossings, to two-week Panama Canal transits, to a full world cruise where we went weeks without medical disembarkations. Then the next week, on the same itineraries, there were multiple! Of course, the longer the itinerary, i.e. a grand world voyage, the higher the odds you will have a, or multiple, med. disembarks however, you can never tell ahead of time how many, if any, you will have!  

 

Just a bit as to how a medical disembark works; the ball starts rolling with one of the two physicians onboard - each HAL ships has two; one with primary responsibility for the passengers/guests; the other for the crew. The doctor(s) will be presented with patient who suffered a medical emergency. The infirmary on the ships, and the staff who run it (doctors and nurses) are there to stabilize the patient, similar to an E.R. on Terra firma. Yes, the docs are E.R./trauma hospital qualified as are most of the nurses; they can run blood and many other tests onboard, take X-rays, administer meds from their on-board pharmacy, place patients on oxygen, apply splints, get you crutches and a wheelchair, etc. but they are not specialists in all forms of medicine like you'll find in a Level 1/II trauma hospital on land such as LAC Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in my particular area.

 

If a medical emergency, i.e. heart attack, stroke, major trauma, etc. presents itself no matter what time of the day or night, you will hear the announcement made over the ship's P/A system by the officer of the watch on the bridge (the recipient of the 911 call) and a team of 1st responders will come running (the old "Bright Star" call). The patient will be transported to the infirmary by the stretcher team and the two docs and staff will attempt to stabilize the patient. If the latter's condition is not stable, i.e. he/she requires advanced and or specialized treatment ashore, the senior doc will make that recommendation to the captain for a medical evacuation of that patient. The captain has no medical background so will rely on his doctor's expertise and will 99% of the time go with that recommendation. He will bear the final responsibility for that decision

 

The next decision to be made is how fast to get the patient to a land-based critical care facility and that has to do with where in the world the ship is at the moment, how far that critical care facility is in relation to the ship's position, and how to get the patient there as fast as possible. Options will be a) a medical evacuation by air (read helicopter), b) a medevac by boat, and c) a medevac by land, meaning the ship will steam as fast as possible to the nearest port where the patients is taken off the ship via the gangway to a waiting paramedic/ambulance.

 

Medevacs by air are inherently dangerous, no matter what. Something can always go wrong when a helicopter is hovering in very close proximity to the bow (usually, at times the stern - the aircraft commander, not the ship's captain, has the final say as to the location) of a moving ship. That's why it's SOP to have at least two of the ship's fire teams standing by with charged fire hose (water and/or foam) lines when an aerial medevac is in progress. In the case of a military organization like the US Coast Guard, or Royal Canadian Air Force performing the medevac by helo, a flight surgeon (yes, that's also a medical doctor) from that military unit will discuss the patients condition via radio with the ship's doctor and he/she (the flight surgeon) has to sign off on the medevac before it can take place.

 

Criteria like the helicopter's range/fuel/loiter capacity will come into play. If the ship 's position is beyond those criteria, the mission is scrubbed and you will have to go to Plan B. Now, in the past, a medevac by helicopter has taken place beyond the normal range of USCG helos. There are very few helicopters around that can be refueled in mid-air to extend their range. That was the case in May 2013 with the Westerdam medevac in the Pacific far off the coast of Baja California where a HH-60G Pave Hawk helo from the California Air National Guard out of Moffett Field, near Sunnyvale/Santa Clara County received fuel in mid-air from a HC-130J Combat King II (the combat rescue variant of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules) in order to extend its range and then successfully medevac'd a patient from the bow of the Westerdam to fly him/her to a trauma hospital in San Diego. That's the exception to the rule! 

 

If the helicopter medevac is a no go, the ship will have to steam post haste to the nearest land fall where either a coast guard vessel or rescue boat (again the land facility has to have such a boat and trained crew available - it can not be done by a glass bottom boat or whale watching vessel) can meet up and where the patient can be transferred to that boat via the tender platform of the cruise ship. Or, as stated if that's out due to, i.e. bad weather/rough sea/rolling swell conditions, the ship will have to sail into port and dock where a transfer directly to land can take place. 

 

Lastly, not every country in the world has the capabilities, be it aircraft/boat, trained crew, logistics, etc. to perform a successful medevac from a cruise ship. There is a difference if you find yourself on a cruise ship off the western or eastern seaboard of North America or Western Europe, compared to say, western Africa, Antarctica, certain parts of Southeast Asia, or even certain areas of Mexico and Central America. That's not a secret and it's not to take anything away of the hardworking and brave military units of the countries concerned in those areas of the world!   

 

As far as how to prevent medical disembarks from cruise/HAL ships? It's just not that easy! I have been involved in medevacs of an 86-year old male who suffered a stroke, but also of a 32-year old crew member who suffered a heart attack with no prior adverse medical history. Where are you going to draw the line as far as "You can't sail with us?"                         

Fantastic post. Thank you so much😊