WHAT A week. Last week, in three separate incidents involving three different cruise lines, in three different places, mooring lines failed, causing docked cruise ships to move away from the dock. In all instances, the movement resulted in the gangway(s) falling into the water. In two of the cases there were people on the gangways at the time (who fell into the water)! That is shocking enough news.
BUT WHAT about Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL)? Once again, they have demonstrated their total lack of awareness. As I read about this incident, I couldn't help but have a sense of deju vu. Readers he may remember my less than complimentary coverage of another NCL incident in South Africa just over a year ago, in "Somebody Missed The Boat." In that case, I reported on an incident where a group of cruise passengers missed the deadline to be back at the port for re-boarding after a port day. We all realize that it is on the passenger to get back on time unless they are with an official cruise-line operated excursion. They weren't. But they also didn't really "miss" the boat. A tender port, the passengers arrived while the ship was still at anchor in the port, and had been shuttled back out to the boat by port authorities.,In a rather heavy-handed response by the crew, they were refused boarding. I acknowledged in my blog post that there could have been legitimate reason for that action, but there was never any indication by any NCL officials that that was the case (I say in the post why I don't think there was any legitimate reason for NCL's actions). It makes and interesting read and you might want to go back and read it before reading on here.
THIS TIME, in an even more eggregious circumstance, NCL has apparently upped their (horrible) game, though there are certainly some inconsistent reports about the incident. At 1:00 p.m., on May 30, the NCL Epic was moored in Catania, Sicily for its penultimate stop, scheduled to depart that afternoon for their final stop the next day in Naples. It has been reported that a "sudden and unexpected" 60 mile and hour wind gust caused all 4 mooring lines to snap, pushing the boat rapidly away from the pier. Return time for passengers was to be 5:30 p.m. There were passengers returning to the ship and reboarding at the time of the incident (and on woman actually went into the water - presumably as a result of the gangway being pulled off the pier and going into the water herself. The report states that her husband immediately jumped into the water after her. The really, really good news here is that it appears also that any injuries were not serious and though taken to a local hospital, the two returned to the ship before it ultimately left the port.
WHILE REPORTS are not completely consistent, it is - once again - the conduct of NCL in response to this incident (based on the reports of passengers, and the "official" response of the cruise line) that blows my mind. The incident lasted from 1:00 p.m. until about 7:00 p.m. before passengers were allowed to reboard. The Epic has a passenger capacity of about 4,100 and a crew of 1,700. Since it was well before boarding time, we can be sure that the passengers (and off duty crew) that were off the ship at the time numbered in the 1,000s. Reports of the incident indicate that there was essentially zero communication from the ship to its 4,000 plus passengers during the entire ordeal. There may have been some employees on shore directing passengers that they could not re-board at that time. But otherwise, no useful communication from the ship. You can only imagine the small boarding area at the port filled with all these people and no information or plan.
Imagine being on shore, knowing you were hours away from all aboard time, and seeing your ship pulling out of the port!
LETS TRY to break this down:
The Incident
I FIRST saw this on one of the many cruise You-Tube video sites. This one is one that I give some credibility to, though in my view they all have succumbed at least partly to the news media approach of sensational headlines to hook viewers. When I first watched, I had a visceral reaction, remembering the incident in South Africa (and later Alaska) last year. But then I took a breath. And realized that I was going to have to dig into a number of sources if I was going to have even a chance of getting the straight up facts. Sure enough, I learned that my original source hadn't reported the full story, and had engaged in just enough hyperbole to make it a "racy" episode. Other sources were reporting different information.
THE FACTS I have been able to glean follow. It was a windy day (and as people don't always appreciate, these very large, very tall cruise ships act as a huge sail in windy conditions). I have read reports of maximum wind gusts (one source quoted Accuweather as 45 mph) of anywhere from 45 - 60 miles per hour. In this case, it was not the actual mooring lines that failed, but the concrete bollards in the pier that apparently snapped off. From the cruise website, Cruise Hive: “All of a sudden, we heard this loud bang. One by one, the concrete nubs in the ground that hold the ropes were pulling out of the ground and went flying into the ship,” said one passenger. There are always multiple mooring lines on these ships at angles that are designed to keep the boat from moving away from the pier, but also from moving forward or backward along the pier. Once one of these gives way, it allows unintended movement of the ship, which in turn, puts additional stresses in play. It appears that multiple bollards failed.
I HAVE little doubt that the incident caught the powers that be by surprise. But as I read about the other incidents - within days of each other, I began to wonder why these failures were happening. In other cases, the actual mooring lines failed and snapped. And I began to wonder about the standards for mooring line tensile strength, the inspection and testing process as the lines aged, and what other "failsafe" measure are taken for this important part of the cruise experience. It also surprised me that it seems to have taken the ship crew and the cruise line so much by surprise. Surely if you are in the business of boats and secure moorings, you know that wind, waves, weather and deterioration all play a significant role. Yet they appear to have had no clue, and no contingency plan for the passenger disruption aspect of things.
FOLLOWING THE incident, it was determined by (or perhaps jointly) the shore personnel that the ship could not remain safely moored in the harbor and the harbormaster ordered the ship out to sea - to remain there until the winds died down. USA Today quoted NCL officials with saying: “After this incident, the Harbor Master ordered us to leave the port to wait offshore until the wind had calmed down.” Imagine being on shore, knowing you were hours away from all aboard time, and seeing your ship pulling out of the port!
The NCL Response
WHILE I have criticised some of the online reports as engaging in everything from hyperbole to downright misinformation, one thing seems to be consistent to me in everything I have read or watched. The response by NCL was (not shocking to me) awful.
IN SPITE of NCL "official" comments, I base my conclusion on the remarks of many of the passengers that contradict the official response. Obviously, passenger and bystander safety is first and foremost and in the aftermath, it appears that NCL took swift action to get the ship under control and to deal with the safety aspects of getting the ship out of the mooring until the wind died down. It also appears that they took quick action to assist with the passengers who went into the water, including transport to (and presumably back from - though I don't have any information on that. Nor do I have any information regarding who paid for the emergency medical care). The are to be commended for these actions.
RATHER, I take issue (once again) with the company's customer relations stance. From my (perhaps biased) point of view, they seem incapable of just owning up to the part they play in the problem. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying they are at fault for the incident itself. Indeed it was pretty obviously a mix of bad weather, and bad maintenance (or engineering, though that one seems difficult, given that they have been mooring cruise ships there for years and this cannot be the first time they faced strong winds). But common sense tells us that at least some of the responsibility falls squarely on NCL. It seems like they should have some process in place for judgements on the safety of mooring in certain windy conditions, and perhaps even inspecting the facilities where they moor their multi-million dollar, 4,000 plus passenger ships. And interestingly, there is some precedent for this issue, making their "caught with our pants down" reaction more perplexing. In 2023, an even larger, newer, NCL ship (The NCL Norwegian Prima), broke free of her moorings in Zeebrugge, Belgium. I saw some video footage of that one. It was clearly the mooring lines breaking and snapping that was the issue there, rather than problems with the infrastructure of the pier. That's 2 years, NCL, to think about that, and to put a plan in place to handle that. And maybe to come up with a backup or failsafe mooring solution?
ONCE MORE, I am not trying to lay all the blame for the occurrence on NCL. Nor am I unappreciative of the fact that somebody has to pay for all the engineering and maintenance. And they do pay port charges - maybe those charges have to be increased or an assessment made for safety and maintenance issues like this (I am also fully aware that such costs would be passed on to us as consumers - but I guess I am willing to entertain that for my own safety). No. My complaint still goes back to the NCL response to their customer.
EVEN THOUGH the official rejoinder by NCL continued to be: “During this interruption, our crew were actively attending to our guests until they were able to re-embark the ship," the overwhelming commentary of observers and passengers was 180 degrees the opposite. They nearly uniformly reported that they were more of less ignored while NCL dealt with the ship and the harbor master issues. Fropm a passenger interviewed by USA Today: "Everyone is stuck at the port, very little information from NCL, some of us have been waiting here since noon. Very little water, older folks are hot, there is not enough water or seats,” shared one guest. Many passengers expressed astonishment that there was no announcement or communication of any nature on the NCL app (encouraged to be used by the cruise line and freely downloadable by all passengers). One NCL source told ABC News: "The disembarkation and embarkation process was paused until weather conditions improved and the ship was able to safely dock again." Information that was apparently never passed along to the several thousand NCL passengers stranded on shore. At best, they were given word of mouth information by somebody on shore that the area was closed and would be for a period of time. No signage. No set time. In other words, a huge, out of control mess.
WHEN THE ship finally returned to the berth around 7:30 p.m. (now 2 hours beyond original all-aboard time), by all accounts, it was a disorganized mess. I saw a brief video on FB showing all those people pressing to get back on the ship. Another USA Today quote: “And when they got permission to open the gates, it was just a free-for-all, . . . People were just pushing and shoving.” If the next comment is true (though I only heard it from one internet source who cited unidentified passengers of the Epic), it is perhaps the most eggregious of all of NCL's lack of sensibility when it comes to customer relations. There was some commentary suggesting that when they finally opened the gangways for boarding, there were NCL employees at the front holding signs saying first boarding only for Haven Guests! For those who may not know, "The Haven" is NCL's exclusive, elite luxury package on board the ship. Anyone who has been reading her for a while, probably has a feel for my personal view of those "premium" cruise "packages" (see, Are Those Exclusive - Ship Within a Ship - Luxury Areas Worth It?). Keep in mind that at this point most of the passengers had been standing and waiting for hours for the ship to re-open for boarding. If true, one has to wonder what self-absorbed, officiant had that idea? The folks need to figure out that creating an exclusive, extra cost experience can be done withouth the need to treat the non-participant poorly. Oh well. From what I read, I don't think it was successful.
AS EXPERIENCED cruisers know, most of the time cruise ship are at sea at night and stop in ports during the day, when possible. Obviously, it depends on the distance between ports. Having been in these port on several occasions, I know that if they leave in the early evening from Sicily, they can get to Naples by the next morning. That was the plan. Folks had excursions. Having made many stops in the Mediterranean, I would say the of all ports, Naples is not one you want to miss. It is the gateway to some of the best sights there are, including the ancient ruins of Pompei and Herculineum, The Amalfi Coast, and the Isle of Capri. Not to mention that Naples itself is a great city to visit. While I assume many of the seasoned cruisers knew this, it is my understanding that they were not informed that Naples would have to be skipped until the next day, shortly before they would have docked. In short, a customer - relations nightmare.
THROUGH ALL of this, the official response from NCL was, saying it nicely, "lukewarm." They responded to inquiries by news sources repeatedly with "our crew were actively attending to our guests ...." What does that even mean? Then, in the aftermath, their official statement was that it was "An Act of God." That tidal wave that rolled the Ocean Liner in the fictional Poseidon Adventure? That was an act of God.😏 This was a combination of bad maintenance and bad judgement and not wholly unanticipated high winds.
Takeaway
SAFETY FIRST. Not for a nanosecond do I think any of this trumps over safety. This is a serious situation and it troubles me that I have learned of 5 such incidents over a less than 2-year period. Should somebody be paying attention to mooring equipment safety and maintenance? Should somebody be looking at backup/failsafe measures? I think so. Hopefully we don't let my "rant" above cloud the paramount importance of that.
THE CUSTOMER is always right. Look, I know that isn't really true. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes they are unreasonable. Sometimes they are unpleasant. That doesn't change the underlying meaning of that statement. We know it really means we need to take the approach that they are always right. Again, sometimes that just won't work. But mostly it will. I worked in a customer/client relationship business for my entire working career. I can count the number of times I did not follow that maxim on one hand and have the majority of fingers left over. Succesfull providers understand that the underlying reason they are in business is their customer. We all know this kind of behavior is really all about the money. "Act of God" is subterfuge (in this instance) for I found a way I don't have to take the blame and therefore don't have to pay. I think there is middle ground here. I think reasonable customers would agree the incident isn't entirely the fault of the Cruise line. But I also think stepping up and first, admitting we messed up, second, having pro-active and transparent communications with your passengers - in realtime, and giving the customers something of real value - hopefully successfully keeping them as customers - will win the day.
