I wonder what a better strategery would have been for Carnical (whose PR people must be having strokes the past couple of years). Seems to me they could have used the two diverted ships that dropped off supplies to take on 1/2 of the passengers each and head immediately to a port and fly the folks from this cruise home. Would have had three ships´ worth of unhappy passengers, BUT most people would have understood, considering it a mercy mission. They could have comped them all, etc. Seems to me that would have been WAY YONDER cheaper than the bad PR they´re getting for this.

A ship to ship transfer of 3,000 passengers was probably deemed logistically unworkable. No suitable boats available. Life boats aren´t designed for that purpose. How to safely transfer inexperienced and probably apprehensive people from ship, to boat, to ship? What was the condition of the sea? Calm or not? Even slightly rough seas would increase chances of injuries in a transfer boat if one was available. How long would the transfer take, moving that many people 20 or 30 at a time? As bad as conditions were, it was exponentially safer to do it the way it was done.

I´m not a big believer of suing people but this cruise line needs to be sued big time. No telling how many people will pick up diseases from the filth they had to live in for days.

This incident, along with all those occurring in both the distant and recent past, have convinced me that this is no way to spend a vacation.

Carnival should be forced to pay these people for the extreme stress and trauma this has caused them and their families, even if they must go out of business to do it. This crap happens WAY too often on these cruise ships of today.

From what I understand these ships are owned by foreign countries and are not subject to the laws of the United States. Congress needs to pass laws not allowing these ships to dock in this country unless they abide by our laws for those boarding anywhere in the U.S. I would guess most passengers are American.

Why anyone would whizzz away good $$ on such a ´vacation´ boggles the mind.

Rent an SUV, head for the National Parks of southern Utah, the San Juans in CO, or Yellowstone, or Glacier, and you´ll have more scenery and fun in a week than you´d have in a month on one of those floating tourist traps.

Even Death Valley is preferable (and an amazing place, go see for yourself).

Talk about PR! They got that down perfectly with pictures of the passengers all wearing pristine white terry robes. Whoever thought that one up deserves a seat in the oval office. Brilliant.

Back in the 70´s I was caught in a hurricane in Martinique at a Club Med. They evacuated us to a municipal hall in Port O´Prince to wait out the storm. 72 hours lying on the floor in a packed hall with 500 people and toilets overflowing in the stairwells. I was a single young man at the time and saw it as an adventure(lots of pretty young women lying about). Others not so much. These folks need to chalk this whole experience up as something to tell their grand kids about someday. This was a teaching experience concerning the breakdown of societal order and the importance of civility. Some say if food and water become in short supply you have three days before it turns to Road Warrior scenarios. Best be prepared.

I´m with #6, a weekend camping in the mountains/woods/lakeside is better than any cruise.

I also agree with #8, seems we have effectively bred the grit out of folks. Nowadays, any little inconveinance is labeled an unsufferable nightmare and folks go running for the lawyers to "sue for justice" or some other such nonsense.

Well, #6 and 8, There is no disagreement as to the beauty of our National Parks and our great outdoors. In my younger years I took the family to most of our parks, I have backpacked from Yosemite over the mountains to Mammoth and I have hiked most of the John Muir trail. Now, with my body not enjoying that type of exercise as much, I am very happy to kick back on cruise ships and allow others to wait on me. To each their own but if you haven´t tried it, don´t knock it.

Reply 10 should have said "6 and 9".

Smart people take cargo ships. Dumb ones take cruises.

Those poor people. Bless them.

I would LOVE to know who is responsible for their contingency planning.....

A few notes on ship design.

The second greatest danger to a ship is fire, the first is collision.

Ships I am familiar with have a fire main running the length and breadth of the ship, constantly provided with sea water pressurized by electric pumps (100-125 PSI) located in the lowest deck of the vessel. A ship of this size and passenger capacity should have at least six of these pumping stations, automatically controlled and alarmed to the bridge and engineering control.

Electricity is absolutely essential to a modern vessel, large capacity emergency generators are normally provided in spaces located away from the main propulsion engine room(s), so that a major calamity in propulsion will not take out all electrical power. The fire main pumps will have top priority on the electrical power.

All the flushing water (not drinking water) is provided by the fire mains.

There was no valid reason to my mind for the Carnival cruise ship to have lost its ability to provide emergency lighting and constant flushing toilet facilities aboard, during this main engine room explosion.