Disney Fantasy -- Mechanical Problems

[Billinaz]

delete

 

[Savikins]

If you read the cruise contract, you're basically signing your life away. Disney isn't really required to do anything. Stuff way worse than this happens on a surprisingly regular basis on other cruise lines, like fires at sea!! In this case, nobody was in danger, nobody was pooping in bags, there was plenty of food... I think what DCL offered was great. Comparing this engine failure to an airplane having an engine failure is just not a good analogy. Everyone was safe.

Missing CC is lame, yeah, but lots of people miss it and don't get anything in return. I've missed CC twice, once due to weather and once because I hurt myself. Neither time did I let it ruin my cruise, and I got no compensation. The time we missed it due to weather we were still able to dock, it was just torrential rain ALL day (Oct 18-25 2014 Fantasy), so we didn't even get our port fees reimbursed.

 

[allears]

AKK,

Again, just my opinion and maybe it was subliminal, I do not believe we were full speed anytime after the announcement was made. I am only basing this on my observations throughout the week. Especially when looking off the back of the ship from the Meridian deck. Propulsion was only coming out of one side of the ship.

The more I think about it, I want to say the bridge report was showing 7 or 8 knots. Hoping someon else can confirm.

I checked the bridge report a lot, especially Friday during the day, we were usually going between 17 and 18 knots. I do think that early in the day Friday we were going slower, for one they didn't have to go full speed to reach port Canaveral on time, two, it kept us in the sun for longer.

A couple of ship experts already gave some great explanations as to what happened. My response to some who have posted such increased fear over their safety, while subjective, wasn't really much of an issue. The ship's services were fully functional, we had power, AC, flushing toilets and all of the venues were operating at full capacity. The "danger" was in not being able to safely dock or undock from Castaway Cay and the possibility of not getting back to Port Canaveral within a reasonable time. Arriving back even a couple of hours late could have been a major problem for out bound travelers.

All in all we were never afraid and found the last day to be quite enjoyable.

 

[Simba One]

Indeed, we varied between 15.5 and 17 knots from Thursday till Friday. At no point did I ever feel in danger.

 

[RedM94]

I checked the bridge report a lot, especially Friday during the day, we were usually going between 17 and 18 knots. I do think that early in the day Friday we were going slower, for one they didn't have to go full speed to reach port Canaveral on time, two, it kept us in the sun for longer.

A couple of ship experts already gave some great explanations as to what happened. My response to some who have posted such increased fear over their safety, while subjective, wasn't really much of an issue. The ship's services were fully functional, we had power, AC, flushing toilets and all of the venues were operating at full capacity. The "danger" was in not being able to safely dock or undock from Castaway Cay and the possibility of not getting back to Port Canaveral within a reasonable time. Arriving back even a couple of hours late could have been a major problem for out bound travelers.

All in all we were never afraid and found the last day to be quite enjoyable.

Thank you for clarifying our speeds on Friday. For my own reference, do you recall how many knots we were traveling at prior to the mechanical issues. As I mentioned, it sure seemed like we were going much slower than earlier in the cruise.

 

[Simba One]

Thank you for clarifying our speeds on Friday. For my own reference, do you recall how many knots we were traveling at prior to the mechanical issues. As I mentioned, it sure seemed like we were going much slower than earlier in the cruise.

Unfortunately I paid no attention until we had the problem.

 

[allears]

One other point regarding keeping a ship in working order, it has already been stated that stuff breaks, I've gotten into my car the morning after driving it and have it not start. Stuff happens, I don't know when the captain first became aware of the problem, but I believe as soon as they did, they started trying to work on it and waited until the last possible minute to pull the plug on CC. At that point they had to decide which would be worse, missing CC or getting to Port Canaveral really late. The latter would have been worse.

I actually marvel at how few passenger impacting mechanical problems ships experience. I don't think we realize that they literally never shut down unless they are in dry dock. They go 24/7 even in port. They are amazing work horses that are incredibly complex.

We can, and obviously do, dicker over how DCL did or should have handled this, and as a customer service professional, I know you can never make everyone happy, or get them to agree on what is fair. To me the bottom line is, DCL was not required to do anything to compensate for missing a scheduled port. However, since this issue was mechanical, which put a greater responsibility on them, they came up with what they did, as well as adding lots of activities.

 

[allears]

Thank you for clarifying our speeds on Friday. For my own reference, do you recall how many knots we were traveling at prior to the mechanical issues. As I mentioned, it sure seemed like we were going much slower than earlier in the cruise.

I only know because I am a little obsessive about checking that report, I like to see if I can guess how fast we're moving and what the sea conditions are like. Though I'm usually wrong!

Sorry I didn't answer the question. The times I looked earlier in the week we didn't do more than 19 knots.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

Thank you for clarifying our speeds on Friday. For my own reference, do you recall how many knots we were traveling at prior to the mechanical issues. As I mentioned, it sure seemed like we were going much slower than earlier in the cruise.

All he DCL vessels are designed to run at normal sea speed of 21 to 22 knots.

AKK

 

[CM Dad]

Hey, when we were on the 1/15 sailing of the Dream we made it to Castaway Cay the night before due to bad weather. The next day the weather was so windy and the water so rough that all excursions were cancelled and beaches were closed. In nine cruises it's the only time the weather has been that bad, but we made the most of it. Since the island was deserted, we walked around and had a great time Oh, and the only compensation we received was a bag of popcorn and two Mickey rice Krispy treats. We didn't even expect that. They had more activities on the ship to make up for the nasty weather. I can't believe that some people have such a sense of entitlement about something that Disney has no control over. I would be over the moon if I was given a stateroom credit and a 20% off discount on a future cruise that I didn't have to book then and there.

My wife and I were on that Dream cruise. Not ALL excursions on CC was cancelled. We still had our cabana on Serenity Bay. Had to close it up for a while to ride our the rain.

How did you get the popcorn and Rice Krispy treats? I hadn't heard about those.

This was actually the second leg of a B2B cruise for us. Both docked at CC around midnight. The previous one docked then to set things up for the once a year runDisney Castaway Cay Challenge race. We were off the ship while it was still dock to run that 5K race.

 

[Old Snipe]

We just returned from a 7 night cruise on the Fantasy. Sadly, the ship suffered an engineering breakdown on one of the shafts and couldn't sail at her normal cruising speed. The captain came on and apologized for the problem and said the stop at Castaway Cay was cancelled due to the need to arrive back in Port Canaveral on time.

Thankfully, Disney stepped up and gave every stateroom a $200 credit for the cruise as well as a 20% discount for a future cruise. That was nice and the lines for booking another cruise were very long. We know, we stood in line too.

Things happen and it wasn't a terrible loss, there was still lots to enjoy on the ship, even if it was cruising slower than normal. Better safe and take it slow rather than having a major problem and being stranded at sea.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

There's already a thread on this: http://disboards.com/threads/disney-fantasy-mechanical-problems.3481298/

 

[diznymom]

The other thread has become a rather heated debate over what I consider greediness.

 

[Aby]

Thanks for having a good attitude about it. Although I'm sure it was a disappointment to miss Castaway Cay, at least you still got to spend the day on that beautiful ship - beats a day at home anytime!

Aby

 

[diznymom]

So happy everyone made it home safe and sound.

I agree that a day on a ship is better than a day at work.

 

[taishartrueblood]

I agree that a day on a ship is better than a day at work.

Aint that the truth!

 

[jlemieu1]

All he DCL vessels are designed to run at normal sea speed of 21 to 22 knots.

AKK

Tonka's Skipper is correct as I know the facts. They may operate lower than 21 knots cruising speed schedule permitting. For example on my last Eastern cruise our 2 day sail into CC from San Juan we were running at 16 knots.

 

[Bella29]

I bet some on the Magic last night received the same aggression as some on the Fantasy received, as they were standing at the muster stations at 10pm last night while the Captain tried to confirm man overboard.

what now? I missed this... do you have a link to more info? Are you saying that there was a possible MOB on the Magic and as a result all passengers were called to muster stations? At 10pm?

 

[Bella29]

They were being vague about what was exactly going on. People on this board knew more than the people on the ship (internet access is expensive!!). Disney isn't perfect. All I knew was that there was a mechanical issue and heard rumors that an engine went out.

This part bothers me, I don't like the idea that Disney was not sharing enough info and that passengers were worried for their safety. It does freak me out a little as disasters do happen and you're out there in the big deep ocean with your family/children who are depending on you to keep them safe. But I will say that the people on this board only had information that was shared by passengers on the ship on twitter; presumably they did get some actual info from Disney rather than just rumors. Still, clearly Disney was not sharing information well or reassuring people if you felt unsafe.

 

[GoofyNewfie]

Has anyone confirmed if the 2nd prop is now running?