cruise-ships

Cruise Ship Disaster Rescue Efforts May End Soon
The death toll in last week's Italian Costa Concordia cruise ship crash had climbed to 11 as of Thursday night, and officials say they're considering when to call off rescue operations. There are 21 people still missing. More »

T-Mobile Charges $5 For Every Failed Call From Cruise Ship
Kayla left her phone off and safely stowed away during her Caribbean cruise, where it couldn't run up roaming charges high enough to ruin any vacation. When she learned that there had been a minor earthquake and a hurricane back home, she decided to eat the roaming charges and pay the high per-minute prices to check in with her loved ones. Everyone else on the ship evidently had the same idea, and it was difficult to get a call through. When her bill came, Kayla learned the hard way that T-Mobile, at least, imposes that $4.99 per minute roaming charge on calls that don't complete. More »

Cruise Ship Passenger Who Drunkenly Dropped Ship's Anchor "Guilty Of Felony Stupidity"
If you were lurking around the Consumerist pages last November, you may remember the tale of a drunken cruise line passenger who thought it would be hilarious to release the anchor (it wasn't). Now that the issue has come before the courts, the passenger's lawyer is pulling the honesty card and calling his client out for being a rich moron. More »

Cruise Ship Passengers Mutiny After Being Stranded For 3 Days
After the electricity failed, passengers on the MSC Opera luxury cruise ship found themselves stranded at sea for three days, reports The Daily Mail. The toilets stopped working, there were blackouts, water was in short supply and at one point, passengers were only given rolls to eat. Then they rebelled. More »

Cruise Ship Crashes Into Ice In Alaska, Keeps On Cruising
An obstacle described as a "large piece of ice" wasn't enough to send a Holland America cruise ship in Alaska the way of the Titanic. After the ship barreled into the ice, it just kept chugging along on its schedule with only a small indentation in the hull. More »

Getting Drunk And Releasing The Anchor On Your Cruise Ship Is Not Hilarious
Drunken antics aboard a cruise ship are nothing new. But some intoxicated chicanery goes beyond trashing your stateroom after a few too many tequila sunrises on the Lido deck. Take for example the moron aboard a Holland Cruise ship who thought it would be all laugh-tastic to release the ship's anchor while the vessel was cruising in international waters. More »

Carnival Cruise Ship Stranded Off Mexico Coast After Fire
Like something from a '70s disaster movie, 3,300 passengers on board the Carnival Splendor found themselves stuck out to sea off the coast of Mexico after a fire in the engine room. More »

For Your Next Vacation, Try Norwegian's Exciting All-Upsell Cruise
Jarrod tells Consumerist that his father-in-law recently traveled to Alaska with Norwegian Cruise Line. His biggest gripe was that everything a passenger could do on board, including purchases in the gift shop, carried an automatic 18% gratuity. This would be acceptable if the service were good enough to justify a tip at all. But Jarrod notes, "[Room stewards] knew they were getting an automatic 18%, so why work for it?" More »

Passengers Tossed Like Ragdolls Inside Storm-Stricken Cruise Ship
CCTV video has recently resurfaced showing what happened inside a Pacific Sun cruise ship during a severe storm. Passengers smack to the floor and locomote from port to sideboard and back again like ragdolls on ice, cling desperately to anything they can get a hand on, and try to dodge the piles of furniture caroming around. Cruise ships can be fun, but out there on the open seas Mother Nature can have her own ideas about what constitutes a good time. More »

Cruise Line Employee Used Reservation List To Determine When To Rob Vacationers
I guess you could try to prepare your robbery schedule based on Foursquare and Twitter updates, but a former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee found a much easier way: she accessed the cruise line's reservations list, wrote down the addresses of passengers and the dates they'd be on the cruise, and handed the list off to her husband. She's being charged with 24 counts of burglary, while her husband will be charged soon. More »

CDC And Celebrity Cruises Can't Figure Out Why Passengers Keep Getting Sick
Remember the diarrhea nightmare vessel that sickened 450 passengers a few weeks back? Once it got back home, Celebrity Cruises delayed the next trip by a day so that it could perform a "full cleaning." It didn't help much, though: CNN says that about 10% of passengers on the next sailing got sick, and about 19% of passengers on the current sailing are now sick. More »

Caribbean Cruise Ship Turns Into Diarrhea Nightmare Vessel
When gastrointestinal illness hits a cruise ship, there's nowhere to run or hide, as nearly 450 passengers and crewmembers aboard the Celebrity Cruises ship Mercury have discovered. Celebrity Cruises says they they're still investigating what caused the outbreak, but the symptoms include "upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhea," according to their spokeswoman. More »

Royal Caribbean Sees No Problem With Twin Beds For Anniversary Trip

—>Wes and his girlfriend took a Royal Caribbean Cruise for their anniversary, but the experience was more stressful than blissful. Apparently, according to the cruise line, an appropriate stateroom for a couple is an L-shaped room with twin beds. Where the beds are bolted to opposite walls. While appropriate for a '50s sitcom, this was not what Wes had in mind for a romantic vacation.  More »

If Everyone Is Broke, Is There Still A Class System?

Will The Great Recession dissolve our system of symbols and affluence and remake America into a classless society? Nah, not only would that be boring, but it's impossible. A river with less water is still a river. Speaking of conspicuous consumption and water, here's what Paul Fussel, snarky author of Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, says about cruise ships:  More »

On Costa Cruises, Your "Waiter" Will Take Your Bread Basket Away And Give It To Another Table

—>There were lots of problems on the recent Costa Cruise vacation that Krista and her friends took, including lukewarm hot tubs, closed buffets, and missing towels. But the biggest surprise was when their waiter was replaced on the second day with a newly promoted, untrained busboy who abandoned them nightly. Well, when he wasn't taking their sugar or stealing their basket of bread.  More »

Royal Caribbean Scuttles Crown & Anchor Society

—>Royal Caribbean is gutting the Crown & Anchor society that lavishes loyal cruisers with perks like discounts, priority boarding, and a concierge lounge stocked with complimentary cocktails. The free booze will now be available only to cruisers who have sailed more than 25 times with Royal Caribbean. Many loyal passengers who don't spend their lives on Royal Caribbean ships are understandably pissed.  More »

Contractually speaking, a cruise doesn't even have to go to where you paid it to go. The Kings paid $2000 and drove from New York to Florida to find this out, and all the got was a $25 "we're so sorry but not really" on-board credit for their troubles. [elliott] (Photo: jemsweb)  More »

Royal Caribbean To Levy Late-Night Room Service Charge

—>Royal Caribbean's odd "steak fee" proved to be such a success that the bleed-'em-dry cruise line has decided to add yet another extraneous charge to their "all-inclusive" service: a late night room service fee! Gone are the days of waking up from a seasick-induced nightmare at 3 a.m. to the comforting thought of, "well at least I can order a cheeseburger." Now, seasickness cures ordered between midnight and 5 a.m. cost $3.95.  More »

Celebrity Cruises Won't Let Passenger Leave Ship And Go Home

—>Hank went on a cruise with his family to celebrate his grandmother's 75th birthday. Because of a change in his work schedule, Hank had to leave early to return home to California. But when you're a guest of Celebrity Cruises, YOU ARE A GUEST OF CELEBRITY CRUISES. There is no "return home" for you! Be quiet! Eat waffles!  More »

Solve Problems On Cruise Ships By Staging A Mutiny!

—>When storms force your cruise to skip ports of call, don't sit idly in your cabin watching the whitecaps break menacingly against the ship. Go find your fellow passengers and stage a mutiny! At least that is what passengers onboard the Sapphire Princess did when two typhoons kept the ship from planned port calls in Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan.

At one point, with passengers assembled in the ship's theater, she said, "the attorney jumped up and grabbed the microphone away from the assistant cruise director and said: 'We're taking over the stage! We have a petition!'"  More »