The "Pacific Princess" is being scrapped. It is too small for the modern cruise business where they pefer to strand 5,000 at a time on defective ships.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100953188
Had any of you ever sailed on Pacific Princess?
How would you compare it to the modern concept?
Personally I have never sailed, but have delivered various relatives to and from their cruises.
Paul in PA
I have zero interest in being cooped up on a giant floating Yugo with 5,000 other people.
I do find the idea of sailing to Europe on one of the liners interesting.
> I have zero interest in being cooped up on a giant floating Yugo with 5,000 other people.
Same here, plus cruise ships scare me for some reason...although I would cave and take the Hawaiian cruise around the islands. :-$
I have no desire to sail on a modern cruise ship. I can get drunk, embarrass myself, puke and fall to my death out of a six story window at any number of Native American Casinos around here. Last time I checked none had hit an iceberg and sank either.
The only euphemism that comes to mind concerning cruise ships is possibly "super-sized petri dish". +o(
Should I ever partake of a cruise ship adventure, Mrs. Cow will not be along. She can hardly stand to be on a bridge over water. Water terrifies her. Considering she came from an area that receives less than 15 inches of total precipitation per year, I can sort of understand this. A small creek, maybe 15 feet wide, flowed intermittently only a couple hundred feet or less from her childhood home. That level of water is OK. Ponds, swimming pools, lakes and larger bodies of water are of zero interest to her.
You guys don't like fishing?
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Would never go aboard one of those things even it were sitting on blocks in a dry dock.
I have been to sea in ships with trained and experienced crews and know what can happen afloat at sea.
Can you imagine, thousands of undisciplined people in a panic, with hotel staff attempting to manage the crowd.
Wasn't that long ago when a Caption of a Cruse Ship made the news for being the first off his ship after running her aground.
jud
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I think that was the Costa Concordia wasn't it? Off the coast of Italy.
The last ship I was on was the USS Luce DDG-38 guided missile destroyer. High up in the CIC was good for some vertigo while the ship pitches in the waves. You get used to it after a while.
Be warned Long, some memorys from the Helena, CA 75
Secured for sea, ha. Stabilizers must have been working hard.
Aboard the ships I rode, if it wasn't secured for sea, a lot of the loose stuff took flight. On a Heavy Cruiser I once saw a 5"38 case we were using for a Butt Kit, "ash tray" take flight, it started from the 6th division berthing space on the Port side, flew across the ship about 70 feet to the Starboard bulkhead. It traveled about 5 to 6 feet high through an athwart ships passageway between bunks into 7th divisions spaces on the Starboard side and fell back to the deck, " of interest maybe to some, that was an armored deck 4" thick". That case was starting to roll its way back and might have made it, but one of us retrieved it and secured it for sea by lashing it to a stanchion. Rogue Wave, couldn't have been, this was about 1961 and the experts claimed such things didn't exist.
Same ship, some of the 8" shells in the shell deck of turret 2 somehow unlatched themselves, 'they were secured with cables with a cam past center device to hold the securing cable under tension', and slide around the shell deck knocking others loose. The officers in officers country sounded the warning and us Gunners Mates from turret 2 needed to go catch those projectiles and secure them. I was the Petty Officer in charge of that little detail so I got to be first in the shell deck because you could hear those loose projectiles sliding around on the shell deck that could only be entered by making a hole in the deck they were sliding on, can't tell someone else to do what you won't do and to keep respect, you needed to lead from the front and it was to rough to come in through the top by using the weather decks and entering the turret from the tail hatch. The way in was up a vertical ladder, through an armored hatch, that opened down with a hinged deck segment about a foot and a half above that, that segment opened up and when closed would support several projectiles so the armored hatch could be left open. Take a deep breath, wait for the ship to take a good roll to Starboard and get up through the hatch and through the deck segment, closing it before the ship rolled back to Port. We did learn and lashed those projectiles with what seemed miles of 1/2" line, occasionally we would get a loose one, but never again like the first time. The one we couldn't get solved was the projectile trolley with chain fall between the Barbette and the bulkhead for the non rotating outer ring of the shell deck. That thing would work loose and start running around the track, weighed about 200 pounds so you didn't grab it through a small man and projectile door as it went by, what we did was to pick up a 2 X 4 from a damage control locker on the way to the turret and let the trolley and its attached chain hoist crash into that, while it was stopped we could grab the thing, secure it and clean up the wood splinters.
jud
Be warned Long, some memorys from the Helena, CA 75
Those big cruise ships look top heavy to me and they present a lot of side to the wind.
They must be over reliant on technology to avoid big storms.
You won't find me on one of those things.
An ocean liner with a reasonable profile and a professional crew would be OK though.
Does The Poseidon Come To Mind?
Paul in PA
Be warned Long, some memorys from the Helena, CA 75
Paragraphs, Goatrope.
Can you dig it?
Don
> > I have zero interest in being cooped up on a giant floating Yugo with 5,000 other people.
>
> Same here, plus cruise ships scare me for some reason...although I would cave and take the Hawaiian cruise around the islands. :-$
Aloha, Angel: You'll love the islands!
Be warned Long, some memorys from the Helena, CA 75
Don't like how I write, don't read it.
jud
I'm with Paden...friggen petri dishes.... I utilize the overnight ferries in Europe which I suppose are similar in nature but I'm only restricted to them for 24 hours at most. prefer my blue water cruising in smaller sailboat craft...your petri dish is much smaller. Presently watching my wife (and fellow surveyor) racing in the Rolex Fastnet race in England...she tells me they are sharing sleeping bags and toothpaste to lighten the boats weight.... I laugh but I wish I was with them
Be warned Long, some memorys from the Helena, CA 75
I was a Gunners Mate in the Navy as well, I knew I wasn't the only Gunner who became a Surveyor. I keep trying to tell other Gunners there are other jobs after the Navy then cleaning guns, or law enforcement.
> Should I ever partake of a cruise ship adventure, Mrs. Cow will not be along. She can hardly stand to be on a bridge over water. Water terrifies her. Considering she came from an area that receives less than 15 inches of total precipitation per year, I can sort of understand this. A small creek, maybe 15 feet wide, flowed intermittently only a couple hundred feet or less from her childhood home. That level of water is OK. Ponds, swimming pools, lakes and larger bodies of water are of zero interest to her.
Sounds like she grew up within "spittin' distance" of where I did. Avg rainfall 12" - 17" a year.
B-)
I didn't learn to swim until I was 12 and I still don't go fishing.
