...the fire cruise was march 9-16, 2002. the fire itself was on thursday early morning. they never told us what started it (of course). there was lots of speculation that it started in the incinerator and flew up the stacks as debris, but only
dcl knows for sure.
they had to close off the mickey pool, so they opened up the adult pool to kids and the cast pool to adults only (i didn't hear about that until much later or i would have been there just to say i had!). the stacks were fairly crumpled from the heat, and they had dcl officials fly out to
castaway cay on friday to view the damage. as soon as we hit port canaveral, they had workers up there fixing the damage.
we didn't go up on deck 9 or 10 during the fire. i imagine they had closed it off quickly. rumor had it that a couple teens who'd fallen asleep on deck spotted the fire and called in. there were all sorts of rumors flying including the teens started the fire, that when they tried to reach someone on the phone, they were ignored as playing a prank, etc. but, my dh talked with the father of one of the boys later in the day, and he confirmed that his son did spot it and call it in, but he was not involved in starting it. they did have trouble finding someone who would take them seriously. of course, dcl insisted they spotted the problem on their sensors before the teens called it in, but there's some doubt there.
i know what you mean, ducklite, about the asthma and claustrophobia. i'm only mildly asthmatic and claustrophobic, but i have a big problem wearing those life vests. i've always been able to use having to hold my little one as an excuse not to wear it. i don't think i'll be able to get away with that much longer. i can survive the drill, but that hour on deck with all those people so close and the life vest....well, i was more than happy when they let us go back to our cabins!