<p>Perhaps the offer should be enough for the passengers to take a nice non-cruise vacation - or at least the cash value + airfare of the free cruise they offered.</p>
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<p>I imagine that your demand would have been met with a snort. Thousands of people are likely making all kinds of demands at this point.</p>
<p>I really feel sorry for the staff of that ship. NOTHING they do will make the passengers happy;most of them had nothing to do with what happened, and have no power to effect any significant changes. AND they are suffering the same conditions as the passengers but cannot allow their own frustration to show. I’d rather flip burgers than work on a cruise ship.</p>
<p>dude. the smart staff on that boat would have changed out of their uniform by now, so they don’t have to deal with all of the b1tching.</p>
<p>I had relatives on the Amarest Quest, the crippled cruiseliner that was disabled off the Phillipines last year. IIRC, they were offered much nore ample credits and refulds and such, and the problems they encountered were nowhere near as disgusting as the current Carnval ship.</p>
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<p>I’ve cruised several times, and have had some wonderful voyages. Many people have health insurance which covers them while out of the country, and there is trip insurance which you can buy rather inexpensively which will cover medical expenses, trip cancellation, and trip interruption. </p>
<p>Most of my cruises have been on smaller ships, however, with far far less passengers than these mega ships. I loved sitting on my balcony late at night listening to the waves hit the ship, enjoyed the gorgeous sunsets, the moonlight glistening on the water, the fantastic service, etc. But these cruises were not marketed toward the masses and the smaller ships in my opinion offered a far superior product than the mega ship (we took one and it was fine, but not nearly as wonderful as the others).</p>
<p>Most of the disasters you hear about cruise ships are quite rare in comparison to the number of voyages which occur with nary a problem every year. But it sure would suck to be on one of those, and even in the best of circumstances, cruising is not for everyone. DH can take it or leave it, while our Ds and I have really enjoyed them.</p>
<p>I am hoping that someone on board maintains contact with a worker, to find out how they are treated post-cruise. Won’t they lose their jobs while this thing sits in the dock getting repairs? Will they lose their tips, given the refund?</p>
<p>And I wonder how the people who are booked on this ship in the near future are being treated?</p>
<p>Um…isn’t MaineLonghorn on a cruise right now? Has anyone heard from her? I sure hope she’s not on the Carnival Triumph. :eek:</p>
<p>I worked on a cruise ship back in the '70s. I’m sure that the crew will still be paid while the ship is undergoing repairs. Many of them will be expected to work in dry dock while others will be given the time off. They won’t get tips, though, until they have passengers again. Maybe Carnival will pay them some kind of supplement but judging by how cheap they’re being with the $500 per passenger, I doubt that they’ll give much if anything to the waiters and cabin stewards.</p>
<p>She is on a different carnival ship. Hope she is having a blast.</p>
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<p>There are several advantages with cruising. You have the opportunity of visiting many places in one trip. You don’t have the inefficiency of checking in and out of hotels, lugging your baggage and spending time waiting in an airport or on a plane. Your stuff stays in one place and you get sufficient entertainment between stops, and when you get to port, within an hour you’re out on your land trip. And if I had to be on a vessel that has a fire in the engine room, I’d rather it be a cruise ship than a jumbo jet…</p>
<p>I’d rather be in a car… where there’s land.</p>
<p>I just cannot imagine the ordeal for these people. Imagine having kids on the ship, which many passengers do. And what if you had a boss who was unsympathetic to your unplanned extra week’s absence from work?</p>
<p>Carnival is known as the “budget” cruise line for good reason. My sister who lives in Florida will not travel on their boats at any cost. They are dated and (as in this case) often suffer from deferred maintenance. Also, I just talked to a friend who got back from another Carnival cruise Sunday. She said she and her daughter couldn’t even lie by the pool because it was so loud all the time with the loud stereos and unruly passengers.</p>
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<p>Kids bounce back. My friend has a 98 year old father on board.</p>
<p>That is awful. I cannot imagine BEING 98, let alone living on a squalid ship for five days at that age.</p>
<p>We went on a cruise about 10 years ago and had a great time. Back then (and always it seems) the big worry was rotovirus: Many cruises were having problems with up to half of the passengers getting violently ill (ewwwww!!!), but we learned a long time ago to be wary of “boat parties” ; you know, where you get on a boat for a 3 hour cruise of the river or whatever. After 1 hour you are ready to leave… but you can’t… uh oh… same deal, only worse, on a cruise.</p>
<p>" the Cruise from Hell Complete with Excrement"</p>
<p>Well, that certainly gives a new meaning to “all inclusive”.</p>
<p>“What a bout dropping some food and porta-potties on that huge deck?
Can’t believe that nothing really proactive was done!”</p>
<p>Really, how absolutely pathetic. I never go on a cruise without a bag of some sort of food, just in case, but seems like it would be easy enough to bring in a helo and some food.</p>
<p>Too bad there wasn’t an extra cruise ship that could have been sent to rescue these folks. </p>
<p>On my first cruise back 20 years ago, a carnival boat was next to ours at departure time in San Juan. It was a miracle no one from that boat fell overboard. They were hanging off of every deck…and it sure looked like the party began LONG before the ship sailed. I would not choose that particular cruise line.</p>
<p>Still…this current situation is something NO ONE should have to endure.</p>
<p>I hated the one cruise I was on (Holland America). </p>
<p>Give 'em free cruises for life.</p>
<p>The waivers of liability supposedly signed by the passengers won’t hold up in court. Most of the cruises were booked by travel agents, and the passengers never even saw, no less agreed to, the blanket waivers (which are included with their tickets).</p>
<p>I think the passengers have not had showers in 5 days… and no AC. Just to add to the misery. :(</p>
<p>Why couldnt they drop in some engineers with parts to fix the equipment??</p>
<p>Thumper, i thought of that also, but my husband said that with only one elevator working it would take forever to offload all those passengers to another ship.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID X2 using CC</p>