# Why haven't they rescued the cruise line passangers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 13, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135 "2013-02-13T00:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![This\_Just\_In\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/61 "2013-02-14T20:58:32Z")
[Now the tow lines has broken.](http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cruise-ship-tow-line-20130214,0,7853945.story) I wouldn’t want to be on a boat where shit is hitting the fan like that. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/62 "2013-02-14T21:04:51Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > [Now the tow lines has broken.](http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cruise-ship-tow-line-20130214,0,7853945.story) I wouldn’t want to be on a boat where shit is hitting the fan like that. I wouldn’t want to be on a tug or CG boat within poo-flinging distance, thass fer sure. This is getting to be a bit like the issues with giant buildings, maybe more back in the 70s and 80s than now but still a problem - these things exceed all reasonable “rescue” capabilities. Too big to move, too big to supply at sea, too big to evacuate… Sorry, didn’t mean to say “evacuate.” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/63 "2013-02-14T21:08:19Z")
Yep, the rule with the large vessels is that as long as there is no uncontrolled fire/sinking threat, they are their own best lifeboat. I suppose a backup system capable of handling the full “utilities” for the passenger section would in fact have to be nothing less than an entire utilities powerplant with its own watch, in a location separate from the main propulsion powerplant, which arrangement would be inefficient. > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I took a cruise on the carnival triumph once and find this hilarious.I dont recall a helo landing pad on deck. [This picture](http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/02/11/triumph_wide-c41f8c2cfb1c758f5ce99474049064095c9fa880-s6-c10.jpg) seems to confirm that. Only some of the very largest poshest liners have a dedicated landing pad, otherwise it’s not profitable to occupy valuable topside surface area that way – when the QE2 was called up as a Royal Navy Reserve Fleet troopship during the Falklands war, helicopter platforms were _added_ as removable temporary superstructure. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/64 "2013-02-14T21:09:30Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > [Now the tow lines has broken.](http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cruise-ship-tow-line-20130214,0,7853945.story) I wouldn’t want to be on a boat where shit is hitting the fan like that. Geez, Shit Boat can’t catch a break! ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/65 "2013-02-14T21:23:03Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > The toilets work on a vacum suction system and the plumbing system can’t operate without power. So…you’re saying it’s all gone to shit because the plumbing _doesn’t_ suck? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/66 "2013-02-14T21:23:35Z")
Carnival just can’t catch a break. They choose not to reserve rooms in Mobile. Instead they have rooms reserved in New Orleans. That’s a 2 hour bus ride away. If they had docked around 4 to 5pm as planned that wouldn’t be a big deal. But now they are expecting to dock at 10pm or later. Late night and no rooms booked close by. I’d bet the passengers aren’t going to be happy. The mayor of Mobile is already questioning why rooms weren’t booked in his city. [http://news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-cruise-ship-stopped-towline-broken-192926545.html](http://news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-cruise-ship-stopped-towline-broken-192926545.html) > [@](#): > > Mobile Mayor Sam Jones questioned the plan to bus passengers to other cities, saying the city has more than enough hotel rooms and its two airports are near the cruise terminal. > > “We raised the issue that it would be a lot easier to take a five-minute bus ride than a two-hour bus ride” to New Orleans, Jones said. Jones said Carnival employees will be staying in Mobile. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/67 "2013-02-14T21:40:38Z")
I hadn’t heard about this. Interesting article on the towing operation. The Mexican towboat helped a lot. > **[Cruise Line’s Woes Are Far From Over as Ship Makes Port (Published 2013)](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/us/carnival-cruise-line-ship-triumph-towed-into-port.html?_r=0)** > > For 4,200 hungry, scared people whose ship limped into dock Thursday, an ordeal was finally ending. For Carnival Cruise Lines, the work was just beginning. > [@](#): > > But Mexico would be an early hero in the drama. The first vessel to get to the cruise ship was the Dabhol, which came to the aid of the drifting cruise ship at 4 p.m. Tuesday. > > Although the Dabhol was not strong enough to bring the Triumph to port – it is a harbor tug, not an oceangoing tug – the vessel managed to check the cruise ship’s northward drift, which had carried it 90 miles from the spot where its engines initially shut down, 150 miles off the Yucatán Peninsula. ---
**Author:** ![TimToyGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@TimToyGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimToyGeek)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/68 "2013-02-14T22:27:36Z")
To answer a couple of questions from the thread, most cruise ship customers go with Carnival as a first time cruise because it’s usually the cheapest, and they do shorter itineraries than most other lines. The lack of quality, long lines and cattle-car feel of the mega-ship short-form cruises appeal to some, but for most customers when they go for their next cruise they usually opt for one of the higher-tier lines like Royal Caribbean, Holland America or Princess. Of course, Carnival owns Princess, so there are some similarities, but the next tier up often has longer itineraries, better food and amenities, and so on. There are several tiers up from there in terms of quality, but I think that most of the middle-tier lines give you a good vacation for your money. The base-price that you pay for the cruise can often be negotiated or discounted, because every cabin on those big ships generate on-board revenue - drinks, excursions, gambling, etc. As to the Triumph, it will very likely go into what’s called a drydock refit - the ship will be taken out of the water and repairs will be done to everything that was damaged mechanically, and very likely all of the carpets, furniture and linens will be completely torn out and replaced. They essentially strip the hotel part of the ship - anything that can bear smells or disease - away and replace it with new stuff, while giving everything else several industrial cleanings. If you’ve never seen one of those huge ships at drydock, it’s pretty interesting to see - I once got to drive underneath one just hanging there on huge concrete pillars. Tim ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/69 "2013-02-14T23:09:43Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Carnival just can’t catch a break. They choose not to reserve rooms in Mobile. Instead they have rooms reserved in New Orleans. That’s a 2 hour bus ride away. If they had docked around 4 to 5pm as planned that wouldn’t be a big deal. > > But now they are expecting to dock at 10pm or later. Late night and no rooms booked close by. I’d bet the passengers aren’t going to be happy. > > The mayor of Mobile is already questioning why rooms weren’t booked in his city. > [http://news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-cruise-ship-stopped-towline-broken-192926545.html](http://news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-cruise-ship-stopped-towline-broken-192926545.html) When I took my cruise on the boat, the boat was late due to bad weather. Instead of us hanging around New Orleans, they chartered a bus for us to go downtown to watch a movie, then they drove us back. The people who decided to just stay at port rather than be shuttled into town then back to port boarded the ship about 3-4 hours earlier than we did. I get the impression they don’t run things well at Carnival. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/70 "2013-02-14T23:29:32Z")
Also I find it amusing that we are all so dependent on technology and the system running smoothly that within 3 days of a kink in the machine people are reduced to eating onion sandwiches and shitting in ziploc bags. Maybe the survivalists have a point. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/71 "2013-02-14T23:39:01Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also I find it amusing that we are all so dependent on technology and the system running smoothly that within 3 days of a kink in the machine people are reduced to eating onion sandwiches and shitting in ziploc bags. Maybe the survivalists have a point. Those of us who are currently on boats floating in the middle of the ocean are that dependent, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/72 "2013-02-14T23:56:45Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I get the impression they don’t run things well at Carnival. It’s the intersection of the lower tier of cruise fares and the problems of marshaling happy people around. The ship pulls in at 10 and tries to unload 3500 passengers as quickly as possible, while the housekeeping staff scampers behind them trying to make every room, every public area look shiny-new for the next load, which starts coming aboard around 2. Sail away, come back, repeat. There’s no margin for problems and the only way to make it work is to herd the passengers like cattle. I’ll say it again: anyone considering a cruise on a mega-ship (over 2000 or so passengers) is out of their mind and not likely to find it a fun experience. Especially if anything - anything at all - goes wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/73 "2013-02-15T00:40:53Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also I find it amusing that we are all so dependent on technology and the system running smoothly that within 3 days of a kink in the machine people are reduced to eating onion sandwiches and shitting in ziploc bags. Maybe the survivalists have a point. It was fortunate that they had a good supply of Ziploc® plastic bags on board, wasn’t it? I imagine that the refrigeration and cooking facilities must have also been impaired. They had to make do with non-perishable items that could safely be eaten raw. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/74 "2013-02-15T00:46:11Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > It was fortunate that they had a good supply of Ziploc® plastic bags on board, wasn’t it? And, if they ran out, doesn’t the ship have a poop-deck? ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/75 "2013-02-15T00:55:31Z")
Don’t ships have a [deck just for such a contingency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poop_deck)? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Jungian\_Camisole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@Jungian\_Camisole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jungian_Camisole)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/76 "2013-02-15T00:59:33Z")
According to tonight’s newscast, the local passengers on the ship are saying that the food is down to cucumber slices and hamburger buns. Haute cuisine! I keep waffling back and forth as to whether I’d want to go on a cruise. But I know for certain that I will avoid Carnival. I can’t imagine the utter exhaustion of the passengers this evening. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/78 "2013-02-15T02:16:56Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > It’s not just the crew-passengers ratio, which isn’t too different across the various sizes. It’s that the megaships are absolutely everything you go on a cruise to get away from, unless you like living in a shopping mall. They tend to be on the shit runs as well (absolutely no lead-story pun intended) and crammed with people you wouldn’t want to spend an elevator ride with, much less a week or two. Emphasis on crammed. > > NCL. Mid-size ships. That is all. You’ve got to be kidding?! NCL is worse than Carnival. The one NCL we were on, was horrid. The crew was surly and over worked. They ran out of milk to drink on day 3 and light cusine on day 5 of a 7 day. Imbarkation/debarkation was in an unair-conditioned pole barn in 120°F weather, coupled with a 3 hour bus ride through fuel farms in sounth Texas. The busses back to the air port were 2 hours late and so everyone finished with customs was pushed out of the shade of the pole barn into the blazing sun. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/79 "2013-02-15T04:14:13Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > If you’re imagining some kind of breeches-buoy or Titanic-lifeboat “evacuation,” you’ve evidently never been on a cruise ship. > > You go down to Deck 3, through a door, and into one of the ship’s tenders. Anyone not in a hospital bed or iron lung can do it. (Meaning some passengers do stay ashore at those stops.) > > Of course, the tenders do need somewhere to go within ~20 miles and it typically takes about 4-5 cycles of them to get all passengers to shore. But it’s not particularly hazardous. Have you done this in the open ocean or just in harbour? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/80 "2013-02-15T05:04:43Z")
I’ve watched some of CNN’s live coverage of the passengers leaving the ship. So far the ones that were interviewed have praised the ship’s crew for working tirelessly to help them and keep spirits up. That’s good to hear. Everyone looks pretty worn out but unhurt. They got a great story for the grandkids. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135/81 "2013-02-15T05:45:15Z")
And a lot of mentions of prayer circles and The Lord. weird… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-they-rescued-the-cruise-line-passangers/650135.md?page=5)