Travel and vacations - Brave move?

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- - Brave move? (http://www.travelbanter.com/showthread.php?t=174907)

I think that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity made a brace move by writing
to their agents, and frequent guests, explaining their sympathy for the
families and friends of the victims of the Concordia crash and detailing
their own safety records and procedures.

We have not heard from any other lines, including other Carnival
companies.

This was a brave move as even some agents and frequent passengers may
think that Royal Caribbean is controlled or , owned by Carnival.

My hats off to RCI for taking this brave move.

Gadget

On 1/24/2012 8:52 PM, Gadget World wrote:
I think that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity made a brace move by writing
to their agents, and frequent guests, explaining their sympathy for the
families and friends of the victims of the Concordia crash and detailing
their own safety records and procedures.

We have not heard from any other lines, including other Carnival
companies.

This was a brave move as even some agents and frequent passengers may
think that Royal Caribbean is controlled or , owned by Carnival.

My hats off to RCI for taking this brave move.

They didn't write to me. I'm Diamond on Royal and Elite on Celebrity.
I'm booked on a Celebrity ship for an April 2012 sailing.
I'd love to see their statement.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

On 1/24/2012 11:34 PM, Janet Wilder wrote:
On 1/24/2012 8:52 PM, Gadget World wrote:
I think that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity made a brace move by writing
to their agents, and frequent guests, explaining their sympathy for the
families and friends of the victims of the Concordia crash and detailing
their own safety records and procedures.

We have not heard from any other lines, including other Carnival
companies.

This was a brave move as even some agents and frequent passengers may
think that Royal Caribbean is controlled or , owned by Carnival.

My hats off to RCI for taking this brave move.

They didn't write to me. I'm Diamond on Royal and Elite on Celebrity.
I'm booked on a Celebrity ship for an April 2012 sailing.
I'd love to see their statement.

Dear xxx,

Like you, all of us at Celebrity Cruises, both shipboard and shoreside,
are deeply saddened by the events surrounding the tragic Costa Concordia
accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the
incident.

I debated about writing to you, as I wanted to be respectful of the
investigation process and avoid adding to the speculation as to the
cause or related failures. However, the concerns that have been raised
about the safety of cruise ships compelled me to take the opportunity to
share what an intense focus we have always placed on safety, and how
rigorously we put that focus into practice every day.

Since Celebrity Cruises’ founding more than 20 years ago, the safety of
our guests and crew has always been our highest priority. The measures
we take in the interest of safety are many, often exceeding regulatory
requirements. It’s a critical part of our ongoing commitment to
innovation and continuous improvement in every aspect of our business.

Our guests see just a portion of our safety practices through the
mandatory muster drills we conduct at the outset of every sailing. But
our safety practices encompass so much more. In light of the Costa
Concordia accident, we chose to post a summary of our safety practices
on our web site. Simply go to, www.CelebrityCruises.com/Safety, and
click on the tab labeled "Safety and Security". I encourage you to take
a look, and to share the information with your family and friends.

Above and beyond what we’ve communicated there, you also may be
interested to know that the leader of Celebrity Cruises’ Captains is a
highly experienced former officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, Greg Purdy.
As the head of our Marine Operations Department, Greg’s highest priority
is to guide and monitor the safety of our fleet. His own experience at
sea, including serving as Captain of a Coast Guard vessel, combined with
his depth of knowledge of cruise ship safety, ensures that he and the
entire Celebrity Marine team continue to build on our strong safety culture.

Our Captains across the Celebrity fleet hold degrees from some of the
world’s finest maritime institutions. You also may be surprised to know
that, along with the Captain, every one of our ships has at least two
other officers who hold the level of license required to serve as
Captain of a cruise ship. Essentially, we have three people onboard
every Celebrity ship who qualify as a Captain.

On average, each of Celebrity Cruises’ Captains has 25 years of seagoing
experience. Besides the training and drills we conduct onboard, our
Captains and their bridge teams also participate in navigation simulator
courses and other training. One of the cornerstones of our training is
that everyone is expected to speak up if they detect something wrong,
regardless of their rank. Our shipboard officers and our shoreside team
spend a considerable amount of time focused on how we can continually
improve our safety procedures.

Along with our vast in-house expertise, we also rely on a group of
experts known as our Maritime Safety Advisory Board. The group was
established in 2006 to help guide our safety program and provide
critical thinking from the world’s leading marine safety experts. The
group includes former senior officials from the US and UK Coast Guards,
as well as leadership from the academic world.

Our Chairman Richard Fain has said there’s no such thing as perfect
safety, but there is such a thing as perfect dedication to safety. And
that’s what we strive for daily.

Whether you’re a longtime cruiser, or have yet to sail with Celebrity, I
hope you’ll help us reinforce the fact that cruising continues to
maintain the best safety record of any industry in the travel business.

Our highly skilled and dedicated crew members look forward to welcoming
you onboard soon to provide you with an outstanding vacation experience.
Meanwhile, I thank you for your continued support of our brand and our
business.

Sincerely,

Dan Hanrahan President & CEO

On Jan 25, 2:30*am, Bill wrote:
On 1/24/2012 11:34 PM, Janet Wilder wrote:
On 1/24/2012 8:52 PM, Gadget World wrote:
I think that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity made a brace move by writing
to their agents, and frequent guests, explaining their sympathy for the
families and friends of the victims of the Concordia crash and detailing
their own safety records and procedures.

We have not heard from any other lines, including other Carnival
companies.

This was a brave move as even some agents and frequent passengers may
think that Royal Caribbean is controlled or , owned by Carnival.

My hats off to RCI for taking this brave move.

I've read the below ... I'd not call it "brave" as much as quite
"business savvy".

We all know that one of the most trusted & effective forms of
advertising is "Word of Mouth" from satisfied customers, which
'frequent guests' would clearly qualify as.

In the meantime, let's see if there's any interesting slants or
perspectives on what they chose to wrote:

They didn't write to me. I'm Diamond on Royal and Elite on Celebrity.
I'm booked on a Celebrity ship for an April 2012 sailing.
I'd love to see their statement.

Dear xxx,

Like you, all of us at Celebrity Cruises, both shipboard and shoreside,
are deeply saddened by the events surrounding the tragic Costa Concordia
accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the
incident.

I debated about writing to you, as I wanted to be respectful of the
investigation process and avoid adding to the speculation as to the
cause or related failures. However, the concerns that have been raised
about the safety of cruise ships compelled me to take the opportunity to
share what an intense focus we have always placed on safety, and how
rigorously we put that focus into practice every day.

Reading between the lines: we don't want this event to hurt our
business.

Since Celebrity Cruises’ founding more than 20 years ago, the safety of
our guests and crew has always been our highest priority. The measures
we take in the interest of safety are many, often exceeding regulatory
requirements. It’s a critical part of our ongoing commitment to
innovation and continuous improvement in every aspect of our business.

Aside: have we ever heard anyone, anywhere, claim that safety wasn't
#1? If I were more cynical, I'd go read their corporation's quarterly
SEC filings to see how much safety is explicitly mentioned in the
context of earnings and profits.

Our guests see just a portion of our safety practices through the
mandatory muster drills we conduct at the outset of every sailing. But
our safety practices encompass so much more. In light of the Costa
Concordia accident, we chose to post a summary of our safety practices
on our web site. Simply go to,www.CelebrityCruises.com/Safety, and
click on the tab labeled "Safety and Security". I encourage you to take
a look, and to share the information with your family and friends.

www.CelebrityCruises.com/Safety is a forwarding URL (lets them track
how many customers are clicking) and the page it goes to isn't
particularly intuitive ... there's multiple sets of tabs scattered
around on the page; the "Safety & Security" one is there (keep
scrolling down). In any case, there's not much real meat there,
although there is a link to a "Stewardship" report, which is published
here (note that it is not under own website's URL). Note that it is
keyword-searchable:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/...e2#/49a26be2/4

Lifeboats are only ever mentioned once (page 28 - fuel cell
technology); evacuation a few times...some contexts are for sick pax,
others are for crowd control. Here's some other potential highlights:

Page 61 - Last paragraph (& one paragraph on next page): study on
evacuation
Page 63 - navigation (prevention)
Page 68 - response preparedness (officers)
Page 69 - crew training

All in all, there's no quantitative benchmarks to gage how they did in
2010 vs prior years, except for a chart on fuel consumption (pg 26).
16% of the report are nothing but full page color photos or covers,
and roughly another 30% is lost by the reports "two column" (out of 3)
page style. It looks pretty much to be a very lightweight "we're good
because we're in regulatory compliance" piece, with the aforementioned
techniques helping to pad it to be exactly 100 pages long (including
front & back covers).

Above and beyond what we’ve communicated there, you also may be
interested to know that the leader of Celebrity Cruises’ Captains is a
highly experienced former officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, Greg Purdy.
As the head of our Marine Operations Department, Greg’s highest priority
is to guide and monitor the safety of our fleet. His own experience at
sea, including serving as Captain of a Coast Guard vessel, combined with
his depth of knowledge of cruise ship safety, ensures that he and the
entire Celebrity Marine team continue to build on our strong safety culture.

Our Captains across the Celebrity fleet hold degrees from some of the
world’s finest maritime institutions. You also may be surprised to know
that, along with the Captain, every one of our ships has at least two
other officers who hold the level of license required to serve as
Captain of a cruise ship. Essentially, we have three people onboard
every Celebrity ship who qualify as a Captain.

Only 3? On a ship that operates around the clock on duty shifts?

On average, each of Celebrity Cruises’ Captains has 25 years of seagoing
experience. Besides the training and drills we conduct onboard, our
Captains and their bridge teams also participate in navigation simulator
courses and other training. One of the cornerstones of our training is
that everyone is expected to speak up if they detect something wrong,
regardless of their rank. Our shipboard officers and our shoreside team
spend a considerable amount of time focused on how we can continually
improve our safety procedures.

Officers, okay...but isn't 95% of the crew not officers? When one
casually looks at the Concordia videos, in many cases the crew appear
to be utterly leaderless ... and that's before their Captain 'fell'
overboard into a lifeboat.

Along with our vast in-house expertise, we also rely on a group of
experts known as our Maritime Safety Advisory Board. The group was
established in 2006 to help guide our safety program and provide
critical thinking from the world’s leading marine safety experts. The
group includes former senior officials from the US and UK Coast Guards,
as well as leadership from the academic world.

Said "Maritime Safety Advisory Board" is never mentioned in their 2010
Stewardship Report. There was a mention of items such as railing
heights done to comply with US Law (page 7; 59). ISM and SOLAS are
mentioned (on page 57, but nowhere else).

Our Chairman Richard Fain has said there’s no such thing as perfect
safety, but there is such a thing as perfect dedication to safety. And
that’s what we strive for daily.

Whether you’re a longtime cruiser, or have yet to sail with Celebrity, I
hope you’ll help us reinforce the fact that cruising continues to
maintain the best safety record of any industry in the travel business.

Our highly skilled and dedicated crew members look forward to welcoming
you onboard soon to provide you with an outstanding vacation experience.
Meanwhile, I thank you for your continued support of our brand and our
business.

Sincerely,

Dan Hanrahan President & CEO

YMMV. Given that this wasn't the first large cruise ship to sink
within the past decade, what's IMO conspicuously absent from any of
the responses is any discussion of the consequences of a list
(lifeboat deployment failure modes).

-hh

In article
,
-hh wrote:

I've read the below ... I'd not call it "brave" as much as quite
"business savvy".

I certainly was not brave. More like fear...

--
Charles

YMMV. Given that this wasn't the first large cruise ship to sink
within the past decade, what's IMO conspicuously absent from any of
the responses is any discussion of the consequences of a list
(lifeboat deployment failure modes).

-hh

Please, name me even ONE large cruise ship that has "sunk" in the last
decade. There was one small cruise ship off South Africa several years ago
but, other than that, I don't think there has even been a total evacuation
of any ship.

Tobieon an Island in the Pacific

On Jan 30, 12:46*pm, "Island Grampa" wrote:
YMMV. *Given that this wasn't the first large cruise ship to sink
within the past decade, what's IMO conspicuously absent from any of
the responses is any discussion of the consequences of a list
(lifeboat deployment failure modes).

-hh

Please, name me even ONE large cruise ship that has "sunk" in the last
decade. *There was one small cruise ship off South Africa several years ago
but, other than that, I don't think there has even been a total evacuation
of any ship.

The South African one was the one I was primarily thinking of, but
there was also the MS Explorer which sank off of Antartica in November
2007.

Here's a website that has a list:

http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Sunk.html

Plus there's been other adverse events on smaller cruiseships too that
aren't on this list that I've personally been aware of:

2008 - CruiseWest "Spirit of Glacier Bay" - grounding in AK (no
casualties)
2007 - CruiseWest "Spirit of Nantucket" - grounding in VA (no
casualties)

and this one in particular, as I know one of the three survivors:

Oct 2001 - Peter Hughes "Wave Dancer" - capsize/sink: 71% onboard
died

FYI, the distribution of the deaths were 85% of the customers (17 of
20) and 37% of the crew (3 of 8).

-hh

On 1/30/12 11:46 AM, in article ,
"[OLDSARGE]" jabbered:

Personally I cannot recall any large cruise ship sinking in the past decade.
There was the freak wave that hit one ship and did some damage. There have
been other ships that hit other ships, but never to the extent of
evacuation. Therefore the statement 'first large cruise ship to sink within
the past decade" needs research.

The major problem with the Concordia is one that is plagued by all ships,
not necessarily cruise ships. When a ship lists to one side, the degree has
an effect on lifeboat deployment and in this case the list went quickly and
the lifeboats were stuck on board. HOWEVER, even if they had had a drill
prior to departure, I doubt it would have helped as there was mass
confusion.

As for having a drill itself, that depends on the country of departure. Of
course the U.S. Requires one to be done prior to departure while the Coast
Guard is on board. Other countries have their own policies which I think
such and you take chances with them.

YMMV. Given that this wasn't the first large cruise ship to sink
within the past decade, what's IMO conspicuously absent from any of
the responses is any discussion of the consequences of a list
(lifeboat deployment failure modes).

-hh

Please, name me even ONE large cruise ship that has "sunk" in the last
decade. There was one small cruise ship off South Africa several years ago
but, other than that, I don't think there has even been a total evacuation
of any ship.

Tobieon an Island in the Pacific

--

In article , Island Grampa
wrote:

Please, name me even ONE large cruise ship that has "sunk" in the last
decade. There was one small cruise ship off South Africa several years ago
but, other than that, I don't think there has even been a total evacuation
of any ship.

This is the only large cruise ship to have sunk in the last decade but
it is one too many. Hopefully lessons will be learned and changes made.

--
Charles