Grand Princess - boarding delay in Civitavecchia 22/11/08

**Ally** · 11-22-2008

As reported elsewhere, Grand Princess has been delayed by overnight poor weather and will not be arriving in Civitavecchia until at least 1430 today.

Ed Rudd · 11-23-2008

The Grand Princess went dead in the water on its way to Civitavecchia. It was several hours without power.

No explanation was given to the passengers. Princess provided complimentary transfers to the airport.

All passengers depating that day to the US missed their flights.

**Ally** · 11-24-2008

Welcome to the family Ed

Unfortunately power loss is quite common, it could be caused by a multitude of things and can often take several hours to rectify. It also tends to happen without warning.

Missing flight connections isn't good although in circumstances like this the airlines are usually reasonable and will get people onto later flights home. Granted it is not an ideal situation to have to contact the airline and explain the delay and then get onto a later flight, but with full genset outtage, there isn't alot anyone can do.

Genset failures are not just on Princess ships, they can happen at anytime to any ship of any line and since most passengers wouldn't know or understand what had occurred, it is unlikely that any explanation would be given, especially if the breakdown happened overnight when people were asleep.

Just one of those many annoyances that happen sometimes when cruising. It's a case of suck it up and get hold of the airlines as and when and get things sorted.

**Ally** · 11-25-2008

From an email received from Ross at Cruise Junkie...

Quote:

Grand Princess accident

At around 9pm during dinner, there was a sharp lurch and then a hard drop and the ship shuddered noticeably. Several hours later, the ship lurched again and then came down hard and shuddered again and the power to the entire ship went out. The ship seemed to drop again, and vibrated very hard. about 5 minutes later power was restored only briefly, and then went out again. Power was out for about another 5-10 min and then came back on, but not to propulsion. We drifted for about 30 min before limited propulsion was restored. There was VERY limited notification as to what happened, just the usual all is well and we are working on restoring power and propulsion. The ship was to arrive at 6am, but we were proceeding only at about 5 knots and on only one screw. We finally limped ashore and arrived at 1230pm. We had to be assisted by 2 tugs to get us docked- something I NEVER saw on any other port call for this ship. The scene ashore was totally anarchy with little comment from Princess. I heard from an engineer when i questioned him that we lost a generator as well as damaged a stabilizer- but again nothing from Princess in terms of compensation, assistance or comment. Overall a very bad situation on their part. What I want to know is how seas of only 4-8 feet could take out a modern mega-ship like Grand Princess? Yes winds were like 40MPH but that should be nothing for a ship this large and modern.

Sent to Ross by a passenger on board at the time that the incident occurred.

raymy65 · 11-26-2008

I was on the Grand the last night of November 21st in a balcony stateroom on the 11th floor. The seas were terrible and the Ship, full steam ahead. The lurching and the thrusting from side to side was a direct result of the watch on duty that evening not slowing down for the current weather conditions. What we were told was that a wave and subsequent dip in the sea thrusted the bow downard raising the the stern above sea level. The Engines stalled as a result and when the ship slammed back into the sea, it blew a generator, one stabilizer and the propulsion sysmtem. The power was out on the ship for 5 minutes, then back on, then shuddered again, vibrated and came to a dead halt in the sea. Power out this time for 45 minutes. Having been on over 30 cruises myself, I have been in bad seas before, and this was not the result of bad weather but poor choice to go full steam ahead in conditions that warranted otherwise. We were at the mercy of the Sea for almost an hour just drifting and being thrown around like a can, with no propulsion system in place at all! They annouced we all had to stay in our staterooms and not to venture out during this time of uncertainty. One engine finally resumed and we, according to the Stateroom TV, moved at 6 knotts up to 8 Knotts until we arrived in port 8 hours late at 1230pm. How the ship left that evenin is beyond me, there is no reason other than greed above safety.