Cruise Bruise Blog
May 27, 2009
May 27, 2009
Woman Wakes Up In Cabin To Find Child Standing On Balcony Table
When I read this story, it sent shivers down my spine and ruined my entire day.
A woman sailing aboard Norwegian Sky on the April 18th sailing for 3-nights from Miami, Florida to the Bahamas and back, the same cruise that had a male passenger, 39, missing, described an incident with her four-year-old son.
The woman, Sandra Watts says she awoke in the morning to find her small child standing on the table on her cabin balcony.
Watts says that there were no locks on the balcony doors to prevent children from getting outside.
Apparently the small child awoke before his mother. She indicated she had to fight with the cruise ship crew for ten hours to get them to put a lock on the balcony door.
With a gust of wind... we were so close to having our first, heart-wrenching, small child overboard. His parents likely would never know what happened to the child, a case to be unsolved. Was it a kidnapping from the cabin in the middle of the night? Did the child somehow get out of the cabin into the hallway and meet up with a stranger? Did he fall overboard?
One thing we can be sure of, murder by the parents would have been suspected.
This is something that all passengers who intend to cruise with children must know.
Why is this very important fact not common knowledge? Why is NCL giving cabins with balconies to families with small children, knowing they have no locks on the balcony doors?
May 27, 2009
Naked Man Tasered At Frigid Juneau Alaska Cruise Ship Dock
An unidentified naked man was zapped with a Taser by a Juneau police officer on May 6 at the Juneau, Alaska dock Norwegian Sun was tied at.
Sgt. Steve Hernandez said the Juneau Police Department received a report around 1000 hours that a slim, white male was running around naked near the city cruise ship dock downtown.
The naked man had no identification on him, obviously and none of the officers responding knew him by sight.
"He was completely naked," Hernandez said. "Completely meaning no shoes neither, and the weather being the way it was ... that kind of perked our ears up even further due to the fact that we're dealing with an individual who is acting very irrationally and also because of the hypothermia considerations."
Officers tried to talk to the man but he seemed to be incoherent. The officer tried to get a hold of the individual by the arm. The subject actually responded to that by aggressively pulling away and continued to run past."
The temperature had been warmer than usual from April 29 through May 04, and a record of 75°F was recorded on May 2, 2009. The temperature had dropped to a chilly 51°F on May 6th.
Once in custody the man was transferred to Bartlett Regional Hospital for medical evaluation, as it did not seem the incident was a prank. Police say they were worried he would get hypothermia.
May 27, 2009
Holland America Line Amsterdam Takes Germ To Eight Countries
While the entire world was fearing the Swine Flu and cruise ships were becoming infected with Norovirus, Holland America Line was busy taking a germ cruise ships had not seen before, right into eight nations.
From April 2 to April 24, 2009 as the ship sailed from South America to Antarctica, onto Central America nations, into Mexico, stopping in California, Washington and British Columbia, Canada, Amsterdam was silently racking up 160 cases of Cyclospora Cayetanensis within her crew and passengers on a repositioning cruise that would bring the germ to all three North American nations.
Read the story here
May 27, 2009
Cruise Bruise For Mobile Is Back
Over this weekend, I came up with a new plan for the mobile site, that would allow me to update it every time I updated the main site blog, using only a couple minutes a day, instead of the hour or more it was taking in the past. The new method is allowing me to keep both the mobile and main site updated with little extra effort.
Instead of the cases being added, it will be almost exclusively the blog. From time to time, I will incorporate a full case story within the blog, where it will not make the page too long.
Images within the blog on the main site, will not be added to the mobile site, so that the pages will load more quickly and make for smaller download sizes, for those who pay for the downloads by the megabyte. Maps, images and videos related to the case will be on the main site blog, when you have a laptop or desktop you can access.
This means that why you are are hung up in traffic on the interstate, waiting at the doctor's office, stand in long lines at stores, you can quickly get updated on what is new in the cruise industry through a totally user friendly website, designed for mobile. No tiny print, no scrolling back and forth, nice, easy read to print and quick loading pages. If you have mobile, check it out here
May 27, 2009
Two Medevacs Bring Weekend Incident Total To Six
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) medevaced a male and female passenger off cruise ships in Alaska over the weekend.
Saturday, Spirit of Columbia requested a USCG medevac for a 60-year-old woman who was suffering from a possible heart attack. The cruise ship was in the vicinity of Whittier, Alaska when the Coast Guard received the request.
Monday, Silver Shadow notified the USCG that a 58-year-old man was bleeding internally and in need of medical treatment.
A Coast Guard helicopter launched from Air Station Kodiak at 1510 hours and located the ship south of Cold Bay, Alaska. The man was safely hoisted into the helicopter and delivered the survivor to emergency life flight services in Sand Point, Alaska at 2012 hours
Also this weekend there a medevac in the Gulf Of Mexico, a medevac off Virginia, a man missing in the Gulf Of Mexico and a collision between a ship and a buoy.
It was the busiest holiday weekend for maritime emergencies in recent memory.
