Sewer smell on ships?

[WVURunner]

Ive noticed it on the ships several times, and not all the times in the rooms. It took a while, and I think I know where its coming from, since we have the same problem where I work on occasion. On the floors of the bathrooms, are drains. Under the floor they are designed to hold a certain amount of water, to keep gasses etc. from backing up. If the traps, dry out for any number of reasons,(normal evaporation, wave action etc) the smell will start to come out into what ever room the trap is in. All you really need to do, is to take 2 or 3 glasses of water, and pour it down the drains in the floors. Not the 1 in the bathtub, the one on the floor. It should solve the problem. It kind of came to me after talking to a room steward who said they had solved the problem in 1 room by taping off the floor vent/drain, and here at work where in a brand new bldg, the water that is supposed to go in to the drain, everytime you turn on the sink, didnt work because debris got into the lines. Simple fix, pour a couple of glasses of water into the floor drain and see what happens.

As a Buried Infrastructure Engineer, I can tell you that this is the BEST advice and will solve the issue. I am always asking/telling people who have a sewer smell in their laundry room, do you have a floor drain? When was the last time it had water poured down it? The trap in the floor drain needs to be wet to stop the smells.

 

[Paigeanne]

We had a major plumbing issue that caused our room to smell like sewer. The bathtub leaked thru the wall into the carpet all the way under the bed. It didn't start till day 4, so we dealt with it, but apparently the cabin next to ours was way worse so they moved. I got an OBC for the hassle. So whoever get 7024 and 7026 this trip on the magic just got a free upgrade!!

 

[lilpooh108]

I mentioned the smell also on the other thread.

On the Wonder June 2012, our toilet was backed up and black debris (so gross) kept washing back into the toilet after it was flushed. Looked like parts of the plumbing or debris already caked in there. It also smelled really bad.

Snaked it twice and still didn't fix. We let GS know at the end of the cruise to take care of it before the next family moved in.

On the Wonder in 2010, the main bathroom near the lobby bar smelled really bad. It was very noticeable.

Maybe that ship has plumbing issues? We LOVE the ship and the experience, but now we know not to be surprised by it.

 

[lilpooh108]

Ive noticed it on the ships several times, and not all the times in the rooms. It took a while, and I think I know where its coming from, since we have the same problem where I work on occasion. On the floors of the bathrooms, are drains. Under the floor they are designed to hold a certain amount of water, to keep gasses etc. from backing up. If the traps, dry out for any number of reasons,(normal evaporation, wave action etc) the smell will start to come out into what ever room the trap is in. All you really need to do, is to take 2 or 3 glasses of water, and pour it down the drains in the floors. Not the 1 in the bathtub, the one on the floor. It should solve the problem. It kind of came to me after talking to a room steward who said they had solved the problem in 1 room by taping off the floor vent/drain, and here at work where in a brand new bldg, the water that is supposed to go in to the drain, everytime you turn on the sink, didnt work because debris got into the lines. Simple fix, pour a couple of glasses of water into the floor drain and see what happens.

GREAT ADVICE! Thanks. This always happens to us (twice on the Wonder, on top of a backed up toilet). I'll try this next time if it happens again.

 

[darkwing818]

After 9 cruises on DCL never any bad smells or odors in any of our cabins. We've sailed on all 4 ships, & trust me if there were any off smells, I'd be the 1st to complain.

 

[truck1]

I never saw them pour water down there. I wonder why they didn't do that?

So would some locations on the ship be more prone to this or does it not matter where you are?

Truck 1 has a very good point there..........the reason it may only effect some rooms and not others has to do with the many many many pipes, engles, directions, and connections in the system. during use sometimes a vaccum developing in the pipe, drawing the water out of the trap and thereby letting the smell back up.

AKK

I dont think any 1 section/deck is any more prone then another. It all depends on how fast the trap dries out.

It really doesn't smell in 99.9% of staterooms!

And if it does, tell your SR host and they will either get someone to fix it or move you.

No need to bring air fresheners or baking soda for anything other than you and yours making a smell in the BR!!!!
And even then there is the vacuum of the toilet to help suck the smelly air away!

But remember ships move up/down, side to side, and front to back so plumbing issues can happen, and if they do, ask someone else to sort it out or demand to be moved if they fail to!

We tried that on the Magic. We were on the Magics first cruise out of drydock, on our wedding cruise, when we noticed the smell. We had it in our cabin and noticed it in the public passageways on different decks. It seemed worse at night. During the day we didnt notice it. When we called gs, they sent a plummer up and the manager for that deck we were on. They looked did different things, and we talked about the issue and at that time it didnt click. The floor manager even mentioned that hed seen the problem once before and they just taped over the drain. A year later a new bldg and the drain issue here, a glass of water and the problem was resolved and everything clicked.

In the end DCL prob wouldnt know about refilling the trap trick.

We had the odor problem another cruise line (on deck 2) and I did the water down the drain trick and that solved the problem.

I will from now on, now that I finally put 2 and 2 together.

As a Buried Infrastructure Engineer, I can tell you that this is the BEST advice and will solve the issue. I am always asking/telling people who have a sewer smell in their laundry room, do you have a floor drain? When was the last time it had water poured down it? The trap in the floor drain needs to be wet to stop the smells.

Sub terraineal engineer?

I mentioned the smell also on the other thread.

On the Wonder June 2012, our toilet was backed up and black debris (so gross) kept washing back into the toilet after it was flushed. Looked like parts of the plumbing or debris already caked in there. It also smelled really bad.

Snaked it twice and still didn't fix. We let GS know at the end of the cruise to take care of it before the next family moved in.

On the Wonder in 2010, the main bathroom near the lobby bar smelled really bad. It was very noticeable.

Maybe that ship has plumbing issues? We LOVE the ship and the experience, but now we know not to be surprised by it.

I dont think the ship has plumbing issues per se.(Ive seen the issue surface (no pun intended) on both of the classics and I wouldnt be surprised at all if it starts to show up on the Dream class.) If it did, it would fail its health/sanitary inspection and that would cost big money for a line. From talking to the plumber about the issue, (on occasion the toilet didnt flush at random times, then would flush for however many time you pressed the button) he was saying that sometimes theyll service the system, and that will cause an inadvertant issue if someone does something while they have the vaccuum off. I did see where on the Freedom of the Seas, during her sea trials, they put an artificial list on the ship, and too many crew took a shower at the same time and grey water backed up in the system into some of the cabins. Its not a design flaw, the system is designed for certain parameters, and those parameters were exceeded.

 

[truck1]

Well that is a bummer! Could we bring baking soda on board to put in the bathroom? What type of air fresheners fight stinky sewer?

If I were going to do anything, it would be
A. Refill the floor drains as soon as I got onboard.
b. Bring some cheap dryer sheets. They work better at absorbing smell then any aerosol or other product I have tried. I made the mistake of leaving a gas pressure washer in the back of my explorer for 2 days in the Florida summer. My truck smelled like gas to the point of making me sick for at least 3 days afterwards. No matter how long I left the windows open, the smell never dissapated. When I stopped at my Ford dealer and was talking to the service tech on what they had to clear the smell, he told me about the dryer sheets. Ran to a big box store, got a cheap box, spread a bunch around my truck, and less the 3 hours later the smell was gone. I still spread a few out to keep my truck smelling fresh and clean.

Just close your bathroom doors. It's not that bad. I stayed in the same room for 2 weeks and didn't ask to move. I bring a travel air fresher spray on vacation so if you normally bring that use it. It's really not that big of a deal.

Depends. On some nights, it wasnt bad, and there was 1 or 2 that almost made my wife throw up.

 

[camarks1234]

My Mom & Dad had a smelly room on the Wonder a couple years ago.

 

[Time4disney]

Been on 6 cruises.....3 on the Wonder and 3 on the Dream. Our bathroom on the Dream had a sewer smell on our last cruise in June. Pouring water down the drain helped. This was the only cruise where we smelled it.

 

[tvguy]

. If you notice they 'empty' brown stuff (don't know what that is) under water from one side of the ship (we were starboard side) every morning when the ship docks. That kind of stank too.

Boy, that would be illegal if they did that. I think what you saw during docking was dirt from the ocean bottom, or the shore stirred up by the side thrusters on the ship during docking.

 

[kcashner]

MANY DCL cruises, smells maybe twice. For the longest time, I wondered what people were talking and posting about. Just mention it to your stateroom host--he'll take care of it.

 

[luv2sleep]

Boy, that would be illegal if they did that. I think what you saw during docking was dirt from the ocean bottom, or the shore stirred up by the side thrusters on the ship during docking.

Oh ok! I have no idea. All I know is that it happened every time and the brown spread seemed to pumped out from 2 areas on the side and would get larger and larger as it spread out to sea. We were aft. Maybe it was the thrusters and ports are just stinky, lol.

So what so they do with the waste on a 2 week cruise?

 

[mousemamma]

On the Dream on its 8th voyage I think. Our cabin was near the aft elevators.

When we mentioned it to our cabin attendant she said sometimes it happens when the ship is in port and said she just needed do pour a bunch of water down the drains. Sure enough, the smell was gone when we got back from the life boat drill.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

We've cruised DCL 9 times and have not had any issues with sewage smell.

That being said when we were on the Dream in Nov 2012 in concierge on Deck 11, our neighbors in the 1BR accessible room (11006) reported awful smells in the master bathroom. They were unable to fix it for the short duration of the cruise. Needless to say they were unhappy and stated at the time that they were planning to sail the classics exclusively for the service, space and longer itineraries. No more Dream for them.

The husband and I had that exact room (same room, same ship) for our September 2012 getaway. Yes, we noticed the smell, too. It wasn't so bad at first but by the end of the cruise it was gagging me. I thought maybe it was from the drains in the floor from the roll-in shower. That's a handicap accessible room. There's no bathtub and the shower is a large roll-in. I wouldn't say I'm never sailing the Dream because of it. I'd just hope to not get that experience again. LOL!

 

[truck1]

Oh ok! I have no idea. All I know is that it happened every time and the brown spread seemed to pumped out from 2 areas on the side and would get larger and larger as it spread out to sea. We were aft. Maybe it was the thrusters and ports are just stinky, lol.

So what so they do with the waste on a 2 week cruise?

Basically all ships deal with waste in a similar manner. Human waste is separated with the liquid being filtered to do something like 99 percent drinking water standards and used to clean the ship. Solid waste goes into tanks and enzymes break it down and what's left is either burned or compacted and stored until the ship reaches port and then off loaded. Cardboard glass soda cans things like that are recycled compacted and stored until the ship reaches port where its taken off the ship to be recycled. Waste oil from lubrication, cooking things like that are stored in coolers until the ship reaches port and then offloaded to be recycled and reused. Any bilge water pumped over the side of a ship has to be extremely clean. just about drinking water standards before it can be pumped over the side of a ship. Royal Caribbean got caught by the US Coast Guard dumping oil over the side in international waters and paid something like a 4,000,000 dollar fine. Today they are 1 of the leaders in Green ships.

Eta. Stupid auto correct.

 

[reevesinga]

We reported it, the smell would come & go even after treatment by the maintenance staff, so they offered to move us the last night of the cruise.... a bit late!

 

[truck1]

MANY DCL cruises, smells maybe twice. For the longest time, I wondered what people were talking and posting about. Just mention it to your stateroom host--he'll take care of it.

Not all the time ours did not know how to deal with the smell. Even the plumber was baffeled. There were several unhappy guests that trip complaining about the smell and how the sr hosts didn't know how to deal with it. We were at GS because of a glitch with our Palos dinner( when you get married you get a comp Palos dinner. They accidentally charged us. No big deal they fixed it right away) and while we were clarifying and talking to guest services about how certain cast members did great jobs( making sure they got atta boys/girls) we could hear several people behind us yelling about the smells in different parts of the ship.

 

[postalchick71]

We only did when we were on Deck 2 of the Magic. It was CC Day and everything actually backed up. The stateroom host said it happened a lot. Something about everyone getting back on ship around the same time, showering etc. Everything was cleared up by the time we got back from dinner.

 

[kcashner]

. We were at GS because of a glitch with our Palos dinner( when you get married you get a comp Palos dinner. .

Just to be clear--a Palo dinner is included with a wedding or vow renewal package booked thru DCL. It is not a freebie if you didn't buy one of their packages.

 

[truck1]

Just to be clear--a Palo dinner is included with a wedding or vow renewal package booked thru DCL. It is not a freebie if you didn't buy one of their packages.

Correct. It happened to be our wedding cruise and the first one out of drydock on the Magic. We had checked our onboard statement and realized they had charged us for what should have been a comped Palo. When went to GS and asked they had to call Palos to make sure and while we were waiting and chatting with our onboard wedding planner was when we heard a lot of people upset about the smell. In our case for Palos it was an honest mistake on DCLs part and corrected right then and there to the comped meal we were supposed to get. That's the only reason I knew others were complaining about the smell. I heard at least 3 decks mentioned while we stood there.