<p>jym, that was funny. But could you imagine someone that has OCD in particular fear of germs that was stuck on the poop ship? It would be a valid claim.</p>
<p>Few years ago, this would have been my son but luckily he is over it now, or at least his focus is towards other obsessions… like the SAT, 
.</p>
<p>ognopod-</p>
<p>you are absolutely correct–but I sincerely doubt many true germ phobics would take a cruise :eek:</p>
<p>And oh, wouldn’t it be glorious IF students with PTSD (*post traumatic SAT disorder) could be compensated!!! 
:D</p>
<p>Well, I will fast couple months before boarding the ship and pack a lot of foods in my suitcases with me. If they don’t make my weight lower then I will sue them.</p>
<p>I think that $500 pp is not enough. Granted they are getting a full refund and compensation for extra travel costs and possible compensation for additional days of lost time at work… but given that people were beyond inconvenienced… they were trapped in unsanitary conditions putting their health at risk… and lost the pleasure of actually having a vacation and relaxing in the first place.</p>
<p>^^ Agree that $500 is ridiculous. Here’s what they should have gotten:</p>
<ol>
<li> Full refund of every penny they spent on this trip, including cruise fare, airfare, hotel.</li>
<li> First-class flight home, wherever that is.</li>
<li> Free cruises for life on Carnival, Princess, Holland America, Seabourn, and the other cruiselines owned by Carnival Corp.</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m trying to think of what we would do in this situation, we cruise a lot and have an upcoming one with RCCL pretty soon. I’m sure we would have transitioned from vacation mode to survival mode pretty quickly, and initially made a rush to the gift store for batteries and snack food. And stocked up on alcohol and chocolate, of course. But then, I suspect we would start helping the crew with poop pickup duty, brought food to people who couldn’t get around, and given a cabin to someone who was having to sleep on deck (we usually are on upper floors, two cabins).</p>
<p>There are probably plenty of passengers who helped out on this cruise, and I suspect the ones who were able to transition to survival mode pretty quickly and kept busy were probably less annoyed than the rest. I’d be happy about the aspect of losing five pounds as opposed to gaining it.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Carnival is definitely not offering enough. Absolutely no free cruises for life, some people would spend the next 40 years on Seabourn Cruises (big buck cruises). Maybe refund of cruise and onboard/shore excursion expenses, airfare. Free cruise of their choice, even a longer one, in a very nice cabin. Then maybe a couple thousand dollars each. They’d go broke if they reimbursed people for a week of work.</p>
<p>busdriver - I’m with you, on the compensation. It should be enough to help passengers get over what happened, but not bankrupt Carnival. We weren’t there, so we don’t know exactly what they could have done, in terms of trying to get the passengers off the ship. The reality is they were safe, even if it was uncomfortable. If they had tried to remove the passengers, it might have posed greater risks - how exactly do your remove the passengers, even if you have another ship on which to put them?</p>
<p>I believe what Carnival has offered: $500, refund of this cruise plus most onboard spending, plus a free cruise later, is close to reasonable. Maybe they would have tried to remove individual passengers if there was a serious medical risk, I don’t know. There was one passenger who apparently broke her leg, and the CEO escorted her to the ambulance when they arrived in port.</p>
<p>Many of those passengers probably don’t realize just how bad conditions are in other parts of the world, and while it was worse than anything they can imagine, it was still relatively safe. Probably no worse than some parts of the world after an earthquake or other natural disaster. Yes, probably preventable on the part of Carnival, but not the disaster some make it out to be.</p>
<p>Gerry Cahill, CEO of Carnival Cruises, made $3.7 million last year. That’s $1100/Triumph passenger. </p>
<p>Carnival Corp posted full year income of $1.3 Billion. Offering $5-10k/person, will not bankrupt this company. </p>
<p>Yes, what these passengers experienced pales in comparison to what people in Africa face day-today, however they were paying to go on a vacation, and were denied basic accommodations that one would expect, including water and basic food.</p>
<p>I agree w busdriver. I would have gone into full survivor mode. Some would stem from being gluten-intolerant. I cannot each ketchup sandwiches. (that said, I probably would have brought on-board a stash of energy bars and GF bread and would have been hoarding fresh fruit even before the engine room fire).</p>
<p>I think Carnival knows full well that its compensation offer is just an opening gambit in a long process of negotiating to a settlement, and like many settlements, this one may be kept confidential as part of the deal. In the end, the passengers will make out fine financially, and they have a story to dine out on for years to come.</p>
<p>This situation certainly takes the term
“poop deck” to a different level.</p>
<p>We always travel with granola/energy bars. Note to self: remember to do the bottled water “prebuy package” for the next cruise.</p>
<p>A week and a half ago, my sister called me to float the idea of a family 2013 Christmas cruise vacation, instead of our normal extended family gathering at her home or ours. She and her family have gone on three cruises in the past: two to the Caribbean and one to Alaska (the best of which, according to her, was the Disney cruise) and loved them. The Costa Concordia disaster, and now this one, seriously have me reassessing my first positive inclination. I know the chances of such a horror happening while we’re cruising are low, but I’m rather a believer in Murphy’s Law, and somehow, the very idea now gives me the willies. Prior to this occurrence, my biggest fear was of a rouge wave (a rare but freakishly large wave that appears out of nowhere, known to capsize even large vessels). Hearing about the conditions passengers have had to endure during this disaster make me seriously question my own ability to weather the same thing. I’m seriously thinking to call my sister to tell her to count us out.</p>
<p>“This situation certainly takes the term
“poop deck” to a different level.”</p>
<p>Oh, I just knew somebody was going to say that!</p>
<p>Poetsheart, don’t have your sister count you out, seriously. You will be missing out on so much family fun, you just can’t avoid doing things like this because it might turn out badly. You would never take an airplane flight if you counted on Murphy’s Law to screw you, or you would never get in a car. Things are going to occasionally happen in a small number of cruises, that’s just life. Hey, if you just want to ensure that if something like this happened to you it wouldn’t be so bad, do this. Bring a bag with any extra medication you might need, batteries and flashlight, extra food, WINE, and stay on an upper deck. I’ll bet the people on this Carnival Cruise who did that are the ones who weren’t complaining!</p>
<p>No doubt the biggest objection hat people had was spending an extra five days with their families with no electronics or entertainment. And no delicious cruise buffet, oh nooooo…!</p>
<p>I wonder why the crew and passengers couldn’t do even a little organization to keep the fecal situation under control (e.g. use buckets).</p>
<p>^^I know what you mean, ucb. Why couldn’t they say, hey, everyone put your feces in this container and bring it to a central location on your floor (as opposed to leaving it outside your room). Then again, I know how the reporters get it wrong, so what is really true anyways. But if they really did that, it would be ridiculous to leave bags of poop outside of your room as opposed to just putting it in a bucket.</p>
<p>I wondered about the waste disposal as well–it’s not like there isn’t a big body of water to dump that in close by…</p>
<p>There are 1000’s of cruises going on at any given time all over the world, a couple incidences like this is similar to plane crashes, yes, they happen, but not all that frequently. Doesn’t make the situation any easier but I would think long and hard about going on a cruise without easy access to the outside via a balcony or window.</p>
<p>I agree with SteveMA ! Obviously plane crashes are much more devastating and illogically always put dear in me whenever I’ve boarded a plane. That being said, this cruise is being talked about with no significant injuries, and no fatalities. A devastating non terrorist related plane crash with no survivors is almost forgotten ( except by the family and friends of the victims) within a day’s news! Why is this the case? Returning to what the original thread asked: if one is anything like my parsimonious associate who always finds fault in service at a restaurant, on a cruise or hotel, he would demand millions plus free cruises for life for his family through his great grand children!</p>
<p>The poop deck line was used a few days ago. Credit goes to TatinG - post # 64 <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15483498-post64.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15483498-post64.html</a></p>
<p>Cruise ships are already a floating sewage dump. The amount of pollution they dump into the ocean and spew into the air is staggering.</p>
<p>“Cruise ships are already a floating sewage dump. The amount of pollution they dump into the ocean and spew into the air is staggering.”</p>
<p>I bet that quote would come up if I searched for the definition of “buzzkill”.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the whole thread, but I think that Carnival needs to, at a bare minimum, make up what was lost. </p>
<p>My vacation time with my family is precious for me. I’m lucky to work for a place that gives pretty generous vacation time, and even with that, I find that I go through it fast. I’m a 12 month employee in education which isn’t a field where you can do “comp time”, even simple things like coming in an hour late for a Dr.'s appointment, so I burn a lot of leave throughout the year. If I’m lucky I have one week left over for vacation. </p>
<p>So, if I was on that cruise, then I’d be looking at a choice between 1) not taking a vacation next year (ironic, since I’d have a free cruise waiting for me), 2) taking a week of leave without pay, and 3) forgoing things like doctor’s and dentist appointments for the year in order to save up my leave. </p>
<p>Given that, I would expect that if I were kept on a cruise for a workweek, even if it had been poop free, that I would get at least a week’s pay, plus any other expenses such as airplane change fees, boarding for my dog, and long term parking at my home airport. Right there it’s more than $500. I think on top of that, another cruise, one that’s transferable so I can give it away or sell it, would make up for the conditions.</p>