RCL Anthem in rough storm yesterday

[ilovetexas]

She is off of Dominica, and she is heading home for NY. Working on her past course hx.

I found that, I just couldn't figure out where she was before the 8th. But I just found a thread on CC that she's in the middle of a 14 day.

Well, there are about 4,000 threads on the Royal board on CC about this. Regardless of who was/wasn't at fault, it's scary. I'm just glad nobody was seriously injured and everyone is alive to type about it!

 

[cmarsh31]

She is off of Dominica, and she is heading home for NY. Working on her past course hx.

Yes - We have friends on this ship - waiting to hear from them how the weather was coming back!

 

[truck1]

It seems they are down in the Caribbean. Not sure if they were scheduled for that this week. I think they usually stop at Port Canaveral and the Bahamas.

Never mind. They are doing a 14 day so they were already gone when this hit.

Marinetraffic is showing her next port is NYC. She was roughly off of Dominica, and way out. doing 21 kts. Prob a good 30-40 miles out and about to swing more nnw to head for NYC on a straight course. Shes due in at 0945 on Valentines day according to Marine traffic.

 

[truck1]

I found that, I just couldn't figure out where she was before the 8th. But I just found a thread on CC that she's in the middle of a 14 day.

Well, there are about 4,000 threads on the Royal board on CC about this. Regardless of who was/wasn't at fault, it's scary. I'm just glad nobody was seriously injured and everyone is alive to type about it!

1 of 2 things happened and I didn't play with it that long. Either shes been out of range of a receiver, which would account for the blank space, or Marinetraffic is only keeping a certain length of time in the hx. Ill play with it more in a few minutes. I'm trying to fix my daughters laptop at the same time.

 

[ilovetexas]

1 of 2 things happened and I didn't play with it that long. Either shes been out of range of a receiver, which would account for the blank space, or Marinetraffic is only keeping a certain length of time in the hx. Ill play with it more in a few minutes. I'm trying to fix my daughters laptop at the same time.

Don't worry about it, it really isn't important. I was just trying to figure out if she was sailing roughly the same time/place as Anthem which I realize she wasn't. All this cruise talk is reminding me I'm supposed to be booking one for myself right now and need to get it done!

 

[truck1]

Don't worry about it, it really isn't important. I was just trying to figure out if she was sailing roughly the same time/place as Anthem which I realize she wasn't. All this cruise talk is reminding me I'm supposed to be booking one for myself right now and need to get it done!

I'm kinda curios myself since you mentioned it.

Anyway I am not so patiently waiting on DCL to get there act together and post the remaining 17 dates.

 

[ilovetexas]

I'm going solo this time (Christmas present from my husband) so DCL, CCL, Celebrity and Royal are all off the list. None of them are giving any kind of solo breaks right now. I've found a couple of Princess that are affordable and Norwegian has several with no or low solo supplements right now. I've never been on either of those lines so I guess it's time to try something new. I want to go this month...I'm cold!

 

[linetbo]

I was mentioning only Anthem., and I also commented it looked by weather map she had no place to run and hide.

Actually is sound just the same as Sandy..........this storm and Sandy both moved different and was much stronger then forecast.



AKK

I have a question, Anthem of the Seas is a huge cruise, what can happened if was a smaller cruise like the Wonder? Can the cruise capsize?

 

[piccolopat]

Look, we can't rely on the weather reports on land. The last storm was supposed to have more snow in NYC and less further north. I sat in my office in Manhattan all day wondering when it would start to stick and it never did. I had more snow and ice at home up north. Look how quickly a storm like Sandy changed and caused such devastation. I'll wait until the investigation results are in to judge.

 

[Uncleromulus]

Well--no mater how thin you slice it and no matter how high you pile it--you still have cheese if you started with cheese.

Seems quite clear they were bound and determined to get this cruise into the Caribbean and they ignored several sets of bad weather predictions from several weather services.

I have no clue as to what maritime law has to say about this sort of thing (legal liability etc) but I have heard in several news sources that the lawyers are already flocking to this situation.

A formal inquiry is certainly in order and I am sure RCL wants no part of that. For it to be shown that they rely on Skippy's Weather Service won't look too good---

Forecasting isn't an exact science to be sure but when REALLY bad weather is predicted most sensible people adopt the worst case scenario and plan accordingly.

 

[anna08]

I agree, and it goes back to the DCL trip during Sandy, the FOS the year before that, the list goes on. I wasn't on the bridge and I didn't get a phone call asking my opinion and I doubt anyone on this board did either. Well never know what went back and forth between corporate and any of the other players in this case, and I'm not going to 2nd guess what his intentions were. Al and his friends might be really good at predicting weather on land but at sea, its a totally different animal. Theres probably only a handful of people that can do that, and even fewer that are really good at it.

They are honestly really not good a predicting the land forecasts IMHO, at least when storms and precipitation are concerned. So I can imagine that it's even harder over oceans. That why I asked if there is not some way of sharing that information between ships - I would bet that the Dream's captain would have given some concerning data to anyone who was tackling the storm head on. He obviously had some awareness, in that we docked at CC 8 hours early and left 2 hours late (and we still had a return trip night to PC with big swells - the waves were hitting the side of the ship we were on and they sounded like thunder crashing all night.) We were docked for 19 hours at CC total to ride out that storm. The last time we were on a cruise that couldn't dock at CC we could at least headed out to sea and found better weather. It's notable that he felt the ship was safest to be docked for that long time period, given the weather. Lesson learned - no Bahamas cruises in Jan/Feb for us.

 

[dmunsil]

I have a question, Anthem of the Seas is a huge cruise, what can happened if was a smaller cruise like the Wonder? Can the cruise capsize?

Cruise ships are built to withstand even worse storms than the Anthem just went through. The passengers and crew wouldn't enjoy it at all, but the ship would be fine, with similar cosmetic damage and things knocked over.

 

[SillyInventor]

Because I have never cruised before and am planning our family's first cruise for next January I have to ask these two questions:
1. Does this happen often/ as in once a season/ every few years/ etc? {Can you tell it freaked me out a little ?!?}
2. If RC really had no idea that this storm was coming why were they the ONLY ship caught in it? I would think that there are quite a few ships out there at the same time. {totally could be wrong here}

Thanks for calming my nerves

Well, going on a cruise means you will be in the open waters and be exposed the elements that be. No question about it you could en up with a lot of wind, rain and waves. So if you really don't like that risk, don't cruise as your journey can be rocky and there's nothing the cruise line or the captain can do about it.

On the other hand: no, incidents like these ar so rare that you will see them passing in the news for days and talked about for months. The chances of ending in a cruise like this are very, very small. A captain is always cautious for safety and all passengers disembarked alive en most of them without any physical damage. Chances that you will be hit by a car are must larger and you don't worry about that, do you?

For your second question: RCL and the captain probably thought that the ship was so big she could sail through and instead of delaying the cruise by a day they took their chances and lost. As stated in previous posts no other ships were there.

So if you want to go on a cruise and like the idea of being on the Big Blue, by all means go! and have a blast.

 

[cmarsh31]

One of the Norwegian ships docked at NYC today. Report of very rough seas and having to stay inside for two full days - they hadn't heard about this story yet but definitely didn't enjoy their trip back.

 

[momof2n2]

Why did it take Anthem so long to get back?

 

[dmunsil]

Why did it take Anthem so long to get back?

They were following the storm back. If they'd gone faster they would have gone right back into the storm they just left.

 

[Jaime815]

They are honestly really not good a predicting the land forecasts IMHO, at least when storms and precipitation are concerned. So I can imagine that it's even harder over oceans. That why I asked if there is not some way of sharing that information between ships - I would bet that the Dream's captain would have given some concerning data to anyone who was tackling the storm head on. He obviously had some awareness, in that we docked at CC 8 hours early and left 2 hours late (and we still had a return trip night to PC with big swells - the waves were hitting the side of the ship we were on and they sounded like thunder crashing all night.) We were docked for 19 hours at CC total to ride out that storm. The last time we were on a cruise that couldn't dock at CC we could at least headed out to sea and found better weather. It's notable that he felt the ship was safest to be docked for that long time period, given the weather. Lesson learned - no Bahamas cruises in Jan/Feb for us.

I agree! We were on the dream this past weekend as well. Deck 7 very very far forward. This was our first cruise, and we weren't sure if we were being wimps about the trip into port Sunday night/Monday morning. It was very uncomfortable, and we were actually kind of frightened. I feel terrible for the passengers on Anthem and can only imagine how terrifying it was for them. We had booked a 7 night cruise for February next year, not sure if we are cut out for winter cruising.

 

[linetbo]

Cruise ships are built to withstand even worse storms than the Anthem just went through. The passengers and crew wouldn't enjoy it at all, but the ship would be fine, with similar cosmetic damage and things knocked over.

Thanks, that's scare me a little.

 

[FutureMrsF]

We are booked on the fantasy for next Christmas and I have to say this has made me nervous enough to think twice. My DD would be terrified and I think I would be too. I hadn't realised winter cruising was such a risk.

Really unsure what to do!

 

[dmunsil]

We are booked on the fantasy for next Christmas and I have to say this has made me nervous enough to think twice. My DD would be terrified and I think I would be too. I hadn't realised winter cruising was such a risk.

Winter cruising is not, in fact, a particularly high risk activity. There are several hundred cruise ships roaming around the globe 365 days a year, and the number of times one of them encounters hurricane-force winds is perhaps once every few years. Your chances of actually experiencing anything like what the Anthem passengers encountered are incredibly low. Most of them time if there's a major storm, the ship can avoid the bulk of it. You might go through the edge of one and have slightly higher wave motion, but that doesn't knock things off ledges or require passengers to stay in their cabins.

I live in Washington, and a few years ago we had a massive wind storm that was knocking down trees and power lines, and I was lying in bed listening to the very loud wind and thinking hard about the big trees right next to our house on our neighbor's property, and about what would happen if one of them fell over. And of course we're expecting a massive earthquake any day now, and Mt. Rainier could erupt at any time. So you basically can't escape.

If you want to ensure you never encounter scary weather, you pretty much have to move to Arizona and stay there. It's one of the least disaster-prone places on earth. No tropical storms, no serious tornadoes, no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no swarms of locusts and very few rains of frogs. Even then, there's occasionally a big lightning storm with a lot of thunder. But the lightning tends to hit radio towers, and even if it hit the ground there's nothing to burn. High rates of skin cancer, though, so maybe lay in a supply of SPF 100.