Cruise Ship Fire..One Dead

[fasteddie]

Just read on CNN that there was a fire on the Star Princess. What a shame.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/23/ship.fire/index.html

Ed

[LS80]

Wow! All I can say is hope the Coast Guard finds everything in order.......thinking of the people on that cruise.........



Sharon

[Trip]

How sad,that there was a loss of life;( To have had this happen, in the middle of the night, must have been a very scary situation. Prayers going out to all.

[mehawk]

Incredible. The one person who lost his life passed because of a heart attack. A few others had significant smoke inhalation. I have been following the problems that the Grand Princess has been having, since I was on her two years ago, and now to see another ship in the Princess line have a serious mishap like this... Princess is just being hammered. Carnival needs to look at who is running that branch of their empire and make some changes, perhaps beginning at the top!!

[bigjohn461]

I called myself looking but you beat me to it Eddie. I started one but deleted it. This is a sad situation and so was the one the other day.

[KimJack]

A report I read says that the fire was apparently caused by a cigarette in one of the balcony cabins. If that is true, how on earth could 150 cabins be affected on decks 9 through 12? It certainly doesn't say much for fire-fighting capability on the Star Princess!

I realize that the fire struck during the middle of the night, but there is something seriously wrong with this picture regardless of that fact. Perhaps there's simply too much wood and combustible materials on that ship, and no doubt on many others as well. A fire should not be able to spread that far that fast in this day and age.

This is going to cause a rush to judgment that won't be too pretty, I'm afraid. Heads will roll, and it will affect the entire industry. Hopefully, the storm that follows will have a positive effect on our cruising safety. In the meantime, let's thank our lucky stars that there wasn't a high death toll to go along with the physical damage.

Jack

[Lynne&Trevor]

Hi Jack,
Trevor and I were on Deck 11, Baja, on the Star Princess in October. I 've seen the picture of the ship. Pretty scary. We were in an inside cabin so that might have been a worse situation if trapped.
We enjoyed our cruise and are still posting with some wonderful people we met onboard--and emailing, too.
I know there will be many concerns and I feel very sad about the fire. I do hope it doesn't damage the industry very much, but as you said, start steps to stop this from happening again.
And, if it were a cigarette, I hope that passenger learns a valuable lesson from this experience.
Lynne

[caribbean dreams]

i was just on the princess site and The origin of the fire is still unknown, and Princess is cooperating fully with investigators from the U.S. Coast Guard and other regulatory agencies to determine the cause and assess the damage.
all passengers will get a full refund and credit on a future cruise.
I hope this does not scare people away from cruising.
as we have learned lately, can happen anywhere.

[Lynne&Trevor]

Yes, the 3/26 cruise has been cancelled with full refund and credits. The wife of one of the couples we met emailed me and said that one of the cabins involved was the cabin they were in on our cruise. We were actually in that cabin as part of one of our group activitie. (Cabin/Poker Crawl). Creepy!
Lynne

[richstacy]

I'm repeating this from the related thread:

The word "sad" seems strangely out of place here. More appropriate words would be: frightening, unbelievable, and inexcusable. The cruise lines (all of them) spend far to much time on glitz and puff, and far, far to little on basic safety and security for the cruising public. No ship should be allowed to sail that is constructed of materials that are so flammable as to allow a fire to spread like that. Less flammable construction materials are available, but I guess they are a little more expensive. The cruise industry is getting some very bad press of late, and it is very well deserved. Maybe some of the greedy moguls will actually be forced to think of safety and security for a change. Nah, who am I kidding, they subscribe to PT Barnum theory that there are thousands of suckers (read people who are either to naive or too timid to demand better treatment) born every minute. Security and safety will improve on cruise ships when we demand it, and not one minute sooner.

[cruisinforever]

I guess we all assume that part, if not all the furnishings, etc. are inflammable. We will all be following the outcome of this as to the cause. The fire was so ferocious it melted some balconies. Why didn't the individual cabin sprinklers work to keep this in check? It involved 3 or 4 decks (I believe I read 9 thru 12). How everyone got to their muster stations at 3:00 a.m. is a real feat.

Betty

[richstacy]

You prove my point. You assume that because the bedding and some of the furnishings will burn that should explain things. Of course it doesn't. that is precisely the wrong attitude. this fire raged out of control because the walls and basic construction of the staterooms burn too easily. that's because more fire resistant materials were not used in construction. And where the h*** was the sprinkler system? If this were a hotel in the U.S. there would be a major investigation and, if need be, remedial legislation to protect the public. But the cruise industry frequently skates on these things because we (me included) are too dumb to demand better safety and security.

[Lynne&Trevor]

Unfortunate, shocking, scary, eye-opening and maddening are other words that can be added.
Anne Campbell has more information in her article. It's worth reading, as she has talked with cruise officials. She's on the main page.
Lynne

[Chuck Palm]

It wouldn't surprise me if the exposed balconies on the mini-suite D deck are a part of the problem. We were constantly getting cigarette butts dropped on our veranda when we were on the star. It is not good planning having balconies above an exposed deck, similar to the configuration on several of the Princess ships. (This comment doesn't mean I don't love Princess because I do. It's just a statement of concern.)

But it sounds like the D deck may not have been involved??? Hmmmmm!

Some people are so rude and just don't care. Don't they realize there are a lot of highly combustible materials on a cruise ship and that cigarettes can easily cause fires.

Enough ranting!