Going on a cruise the end of this month, looking forward to it!
Was the crew singing: “Valhala, I am coming!”?
When I was a kid, we called these “monster storms”, WINTER.
That’s because the family has no sea expertise nor engineering reports about how strong the ship in in which conditions.
Sounds more like an adventure to me.
It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.
Some people pay more for these kinds of adventure.
“This ride is the same as an elevator dropping 20 stories”. Why would I want to pay for that?
I’d hate to see how these folks would handle a real sea emergency.
Yes I understand you paid for “luxury” vacation, and you had to deal with less than an ideal situation, but you made it home safe.
First world problems.
now they have a grand tale to tell their grandbrats..I wish I had been there...
She should ride a destroyer through a typhoon sometime.
Aren’t these winter cruises really repositioning for the ships with low-cost berths available? I think often these are less expensive than a comparable time in a mediocre hotel, but with meals, etc... It’s certainly a bargain way to take a cruise but most likely cheap for a reason.
Give em a taste of the lash!
Get back to your cabins you scurvy dogs!
The water is supposed to be coming down the elevator shaft! We call it our new Aqua-Elevator Ride! We should be charging you extra for it!
Sure.
Now everyone is going to sign up for the special Storm Cruises.
They’ll charge an extra $500 for it.
My family went on a similar cruise in August of 1995 to celebrate my father's 75th birthday and my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. The NCL Dreamward, captained by one Captain Odd Strom, left New York for Bermuda and took us and 1200 other passengers into the path of Hurricane Edwardo. Attempting to outrun the storm by cruising east past Cape Cod, the good captain determined that the Dreamward was capable of ‘rounding’ the NE quadrant of the storm and sailing into clearer waters to the south. His error in judgment resulted in 3 days of hurricane conditions, the total disruption of anything resembling normal services and numerous injuries to passengers and crew including my father suffering a broken neck in a fall in his cabin. Fortunately, he survived to live another 12 years, albeit in a significantly diminished capacity.
We sadly refer to that voyage as The Spa Cruise, in which everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE lost weight. We arrived in Bermuda 2 days behind schedule with the incredulous Bermudians amazed that we were not all lost at sea. Believe me when I tell you, there were many moments when I thought that this was our likely fate as well.
Thank you, NCL.
Imagine being out in this on one of their Longships. Like stated, some people would pay bigtime for the adventure (if they survived)...!
My Father served in the Navy in WWII in the South Pacific.
He rode out the Typhoon that sank some of our Ships.
He said that even the old timers were puking their guts out. Everybody was green.
I have fond memories as a kid crossing the North Atlantic in October. I can’t say how big the waves were other than to say YUGE!
A bunch of us kids went to a long corridor (passageway) and walked back and forth. The ship must have been heading right into the waves. It was a blast!
When the ship dove into the troughs you would become almost weightless. When it started to rise on the waves your knees would buckle under you. It was AMAZING! Seasick? What is that?
I was a kid coming across to N.Y. on the Ile de France in early February, 1952. That was one big ship but we hit a storm and it would throw a friend I had made onboard and myself up in the air when we crested a wave, and we then
couldn’t lift a foot off the floor when we went downward each time. The only two kids on that ship running loose in the corridors were myself and the French girl, both 11 at the time, having such fun while everyone else was tossing their cookies. It was a big adventure.
Going on a cruise the end of this month, looking forward to it!
Since it has been occurring long enough (oh, say, for the last few thousand years or so) that it may be considered common knowledge, the North Atlantic during winter has been known from time to time to be the host to really big storms and really big waves.
For you cruise ship denizens out there, "waves" are those big rolling blue-gray-white things outside that make a ship move uncomfortably (which, for passengers, means "even a little") and make you lock yourself in your cabin puking your pampered guts out while the deck gang laughs at you.
There are 3 classes of people who go out into the North Atlantic during winter:
1: Sea warriors aboard ships designed to go in harm's way;
2: Merchant seamen (such as I was in my post-Army reckless youth) who sail aboard ships designed to plow through rough waters for their trade;
3: Idiots who spend tons of money to pretend to be either category 1 or 2 but tend to forget that ships can move around an awful lot- especially when sailing the North Atlantic in Winter.
Sorry, matey-O. The sea is no place for people who can't take it when shit gets real.
”Adventure is the result of poor planning.” Roald Amundsen