The most recent story about The Crown Princess cruise ship, tipping to one side and injuring dozens, makes me wonder if it is wise to tempt fate.
Funny thing is this ship was christened by Martha Stewart last month before embarking on its maiden voyage to the Caribbean. Is this a case of Martha's Revenge? Ready for another strange coincidence? Tuesday night's shipboard movie was supposed to be the "Titanic". Sounds like karma led to catastrophe.
The cruise industry has seen its share of troubles. I know of more than one cruise ship tipping incident. The trip I took in 1991 on Celebrity's "Mercury" with my husband, was a real thrill ride. We hit a tropical storm and the captain rerouted the ship through the Bermuda Triangle. But the storm hit us hard at 3 am with 25 foot waves slamming the side of the ship and disturbing my sleep. The ship tipped at least 20 degrees to the left, port side in nautical lingo. Luckily I managed to remain in my cabin while riding the storm out. The porthole gave me a view of the amazing sky in shades of blue and purple, unlike anything I have ever seen.
It was the last night of our cruise and we were all exhausted from so much fun in the sun. My sister-in-law and her husband were on the opposite side of the ship and fell out of their bed. Meanwhile my other sister-in-law slept right through the entire storm. My adventurous husband left our cabin to get a better view of the storm. He saw deck chairs fly out into the ocean. The ship was tipped to one side and he stood at the top of the ship in an enclosed area. The crew members weren't even brave enough to venture out into the open deck areas.
One frantic passenger went door-to-door in his life jacket knocking on cabin doors. He thought it was his role to warn the passengers of the storm and scare them out of their rooms. Someone should have given that guy a valium.
Luckily there wasn't the dreaded alert to assemble at our muster station. The storm passed minutes later.
Next day we were set to disembark in Fort Lauderdale. As we walked across the flooded ship on our way to breakfast we saw the crew was hard at work cleaning up the mess. Broken glass from the store windows and bottles of booze smashed to bits. I heard first-hand accounts from passengers with balconies that were ordered to evacuate their flooded cabins during the storm. The crew members told us the "Mercury" has sailed through worse tropical storms, we were lucky it happened at night when we were in our cabins.
Since then I have cruised on Carnival's "Legend of the Seas" and would love to partake in a group cruise next March. I guess it all comes down to destiny. If it's my time to go, it's my time to go. Then again - why tempt fate!
I am sorry to hear about the injured people on The Crown Princess. Godspeed and good luck recovering.
