Plague ship headed to Cozumel

[cvchief]

I recall someone stating that four divers were on the Magic. I have three questions.

1) How and when did the dive shop learn that the Magic would not dock in Cozumel?

The divers called the OP and told them initially they would be docking late at 1000 hrs. Then they watched the Magic driving around. It was then on the local radio station that the ship was denied permission to dock.

2) Did the "loss" of four divers impact the other divers on the boat? Did the dive boat still go out?

Yes. It is my understanding that ScubawithAlison refunded the divers their money so yes it did. My bad though it was SIX divers. According to the ScubawithAlison Facebook page they did go out:

:
"Dive Log Friday, October 17th

I had 6 divers scheduled to dive with me arriving on the Carnival Magic and I had 2 divers staying at a hotel in town. The Carnival Magic got rerouted back to Texas and missed their Cozumel stop all together so I ended up going out with only 2 divers: Chris and Julie. I asked them where they wanted to dive and they picked the C 53 shipwreck. Fortunately there wasn't much current there and we had a nice, easy dive. I showed them the fields of garden eels and we swam through the big openings designed for divers.

On Chankanaab I showed them several splendid toadfish but none of them would come out of the hole and smile for the camera. Their favorite was the big midnight parrotfish that they kept calling ¨the monster blue parrotfish¨

As for the Belize stop, according to an unverified comment on Cruise Critic, Belize is a tender stop so technically the ship does not dock. Maybe "anchor" is the right boat term.

Maybe that is it.

 

[Ron Lee]

Thanks. It is good that the two hotel-based divers did not lose a day of diving.

Alison is a good person!

 

[Skittl1321]

I recall someone stating that four divers were on the Magic. I have three questions.

1) How and when did the dive shop learn that the Magic would not dock in Cozumel?

2) Did the "loss" of four divers impact the other divers on the boat? Did the dive boat still go out?

As for the Belize stop, according to an unverified comment on Cruise Critic, Belize is a tender stop so technically the ship does not dock. Maybe "anchor" is the right boat term.

The cruise ship likely impacted the others on the boat in that their departure was likely delayed quite a bit. Since they first waited to see if the Magic would just dock late. Are there other ops who you think would cancel on the remaining land based divers if there were too few left on the boat?


As a cruiser- cruise lines will often tell you situations like this are why you should never ever book an independent excursion. But in my experience, nearly any operator who caters towards cruise ships will refund if your ship does not dock/anchor. I actually just went through my emails and found this from Alison "We are happy to refund 100% of your payment with 2 weeks written notice or more or if your ship does not make it in to port as planned or if the dive trip is cancelled due to bad weather." I have a very similar statement from various excursion operators all around the Carribean

 

[DandyDon]

The cruise ship likely impacted the others on the boat in that their departure was likely delayed quite a bit. Since they first waited to see if the Magic would just dock late. Are there other ops who you think would cancel on the remaining land based divers if there were too few left on the boat?

Well, an operator will certainly be going out at a loss with just two divers. It was nice of her to try waiting on the late barge & divers even tho an imposition to the two, and of course it was nice of her to take the two wherever they wanted to go even when it became a losing trip.

I think most Ops would try to accommodate the two divers as needed. It's more customary to put divers on another trusted Op than just cancel or go out at a loss, but after first waiting on a boat expected to dock at 10am, then getting the cancellation notice later, I guess it was too late in the morning for such.

 

[Ron Lee]

I agree with Don's assessment but I do not manage a dive op there.

Had Alison known the night before that the Magic would not dock in Cozumel, transferring them to another dive op might have been possible.

 

[gopbroek]

Well, an operator will certainly be going out at a loss with just two divers. It was nice of her to try waiting on the late barge & divers even tho an imposition to the two, and of course it was nice of her to take the two wherever they wanted to go even when it became a losing trip.

It was a very nice gesture by Alison. Even a short run to Chunchacaab (C-53) uses fuel, it runs about $3.75 a gallon (including Pemex’s water), plus DM and Captain cost’s plus tank fills and overhead. She did not profit from the trip other than sleeping sound as a nice person.

But what the hell that’s how the ‘US Ex-pat operators’ operate on Cozumel, as a group they are an incredibly nice group of people who in most cases put the customers first over profit. They seem to have all started coming to Cozumel as vacation travelers, before becoming hooked on the island like crack addicts, they still seem to remember their roots and show a lot of patience to the vacation traveler.

 

[cvchief]

Correcting it a bit, apparently Alison took the 2 out for a first dive with the plan of coming back for the other six if they got in. Then they saw the Magic and then they saw the navy surround it (like a plague ship) and escort it AWAY.

From on the Magic: they started to wonder was was wrong when the Belizean Police boats were swarming around it and they were 5 hours late leaving. Waking up Friday with no land in sight, they knew something was wrong. Then the announcements started on what was going on and that a girl was quarantined with no symptoms and they were working on getting into Cozumel. Apparently no one believed they were going to get off the boat. Some people freaked and quarantined themselves. Others made merry with $200 ship board vouchers.

Apparently they were going to let them dock in TX EITHER. (Picture that classic sight of Carnival Plague Ship never being allowed to port) Apparently the Saturday negative testing from helicopter got them in. But now, even with a CDC clearance and NO ONE with ebola on the boat, some passengers are not being allowed to come back to work and their kids kept out of school. Wild.

 

[DandyDon]

Correcting it a bit, apparently Alison took the 2 out for a first dive with the plan of coming back for the other six if they got in. Then they saw the Magic and then they saw the navy surround it (like a plague ship) and escort it AWAY.

That would have been a hoot to see. Like a radio message of "No" wouldn't be enough. Surely someone got that on video?

From on the Magic: they started to wonder was was wrong when the Belizean Police boats were swarming around it and they were 5 hours late leaving. Waking up Friday with no land in sight, they knew something was wrong. Then the announcements started on what was going on and that a girl was quarantined with no symptoms and they were working on getting into Cozumel. Apparently no one believed they were going to get off the boat. Some people freaked and quarantined themselves. Others made merry with $200 ship board vouchers.

Wonder why they were late leaving Belize? I'm sure the ship vouchers helped, and didn't cost the company much at all - but it'd still be a drag to spend most of the week at sea.

Apparently they were going to let them dock in TX EITHER. (Picture that classic sight of Carnival Plague Ship never being allowed to port) Apparently the Saturday negative testing from helicopter got them in. But now, even with a CDC clearance and NO ONE with ebola on the boat, some passengers are not being allowed to come back to work and their kids kept out of school. Wild.

I don't want to get into transmission, conspiracies, or any politics, but I did wonder if they'd be allowed to return given stated opinions at upper levels in the state along with a poor record. Not allowing passengers to return to work or school is silly. Texas has never been known for progressive thinking - or a desire for it, New Mexico is worse - where else to stage the "Breaking Bad" story, but the only news stories I see about being barred to return to work or school are coming out of Oklahoma - and I can't tell you what we think of Okies. Pretty lame.

It's been 13 years but I still remember the feelings of being stuck on Roatan when the US skies were closed. I was ok at a nice dive resort, but at the end of the week we still had no idea how and when we'd get to come home? It was interesting, spending a night in El Salvador - at a 5 star hotel totally afraid to leave the building, then getting to Houston on TACA, then going to the Continental desk to see what they would do for us after all this. The airline was going thru rough times already and I knew the employees were worried about their jobs. I remember expressing my sympathies to the nice counter agent. Today I reread the story published by one of the Delta crew aboard one of the 38 planes that got stuck in Newfoundland for a few days, and how nice the locals were.

What were school staff & students doing on that barge for a week in the middle of October tho?!

 

[cvchief]

Wonder why they were late leaving Belize?

I am guessing that was the time the US was trying to get Belize to allow them to take the lab girl to the airport and fly her home?

What were school staff & students doing on that barge for a week in the middle of October tho?!

I don't know they were school staff. I heard it and thought when they went home, the kids weren't allowed in school because of the parents and not that the kid were on the cruise. Like hey, you might have caught ebloa from the lab girl that didn't have it, so maybe you gave it to your kids so just keep home.

 

[Skittl1321]

Wonder why they were late leaving Belize? I'm sure the ship vouchers helped, and didn't cost the company much at all - but it'd still be a drag to spend most of the week at sea.

The ship vouchers were really generous, and cruisecritic is reporting they are also getting 50% off a future cruise.

Cruise contracts say they can skip any port for any reason, and usually all you get back are port fees (so between 7 and 30 dollars). Carnival went above and beyond in giving the passengers something for the loss of ports.

I figure that dive ops who accept cruisers realize that it is a cost of doing business when they miss them. I think it sounds reasonable to move land based divers to other boats if there are spaces, but I think it is better to lose money on the day and still take them out than to cancel entirely- because if word spreads that that happens, then people stop booking with them, "just in case". It would probably cost more to cancel, in the long run.

We went out with just 4 of us due to bad weather one day (I don't think it was missed cruisers though, just some people canceled, because they thought there would be a norte, but then the port didn't close). Alison had actually brought an EXTRA crew member for safety. We tipped more that day, but I still wonder if she lost money on it.