It's been a bad week for cruise ship passengers. First, on Wednesday, March 22, a bus went off a mountain road in Chile, killing 12 passengers who had stopped in the port aboard the Celebrity cruise ship Millennium. Most of the dead were members of a 64-member B'nai B'rith group spending their retirement together.
The very next day, Thursday, a Star Princess ship caught fire in Jamaica, killing one man, injuring 11 others and damaging 150 cabins. A total of 2600 passengers had to be flown home with full refunds.
Another day passed, another cruise ship accident. On Friday, the Empress of the North, a sternwheeler carrying 180 passengers up the Oregon River, ran aground. Passengers offloaded to a sister ship. It was not the first time the ship had run aground.
Three cruise ship accidents in three days? What's going on?
Business as usual. Cruise ship accidents happen.
My family and I have taken about a dozen cruises. On one trip to Cabo San Lucas, we toured the Arches, a unique natural formation which lays where the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortes meet. We climbed aboard a boat that seemed particularly old and rickety. The old toothless captain added to the ambiance but not to our feeling of safety. One of the girls looked at me and we immediately searched our area and located the lifevests. I don't think anyone else did.
As we rounded the southern point of the Arches, where the currents of the Pacific crossed the currents of the Sea of Cortez, the boat rocked jerkily. The voiceover tour told us that if we drifted south and got caught in the southern current, the next land would be Antarctica.
Article comments
1 - Howard Dratch
Some time ago I wrote an article, Cruising: The Cruise Ship Journey here on Blogcritics.
One comment I made was "Would I take such a cruise for fun? I think if I worked in an office or factory or was otherwise trapped most of the year, wanted warm (hot) weather and some beach time, liked to eat and drink a LOT, or perhaps was a honeymooner; it would be fun for a break from routine. If I wanted a little taste of a foreign country without fear, an adventurous trip in a glass and steel bubble; it would fit the bill."
I did not address safety in that article as you have done. It is quite safe but, I think, too many people (as you imply) think that all the corners will be rounded and all the risks eliminated. As you point out: they are not. Life continues to be risky.
Here on the "Costa Maya"and in our nearby village of Bacalar the cruise passengers are coming in droves. One "shore excursion" on Laguna Bacalar is a speedboat "adventure" with a line of 11 small, high powered boats touring the lake at high speed. For us, they are contaminating, noisy, incredibly dangerous and are dominating a once peaceful lagoon. For the "adventurers" they are a dangerous voyage led by guides of varying competence in overpowered boats in varying states of repair. They probably believe that they are made safe by the cruise line.
Another tour to the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich ,which are wonderful, stops in Bacalar at a restaurant on the Costera (coast road) which caters to them (and is also the hang-out for an anti-American group).
I have been impressed with Carnival's ships and crews and feel safe on board. Which doesn't mean I don't check to see where the muster station is, the state of life preservers,and keep my medication and a flashlight nearby.
Vacationers should remember that merely because they are on vacation; the robbers, crazies, terrorists and possibility of accidents are not.
Last week I heard of a tourist van on the Costa Maya having a fatal accident. Last year a young singer was killed while diving off Cozumel because there were not enough enforced rules keeping boats away from dive sites.
Carnival(and, likely, other lines) works hard to protect its passengers. But the glass and steel bubble is just not impregnable.
You gave a good warning to potential cruisers. Bravo.
2 - welsh
actually, a british columbia ferry sank so thats 4