The cruise was great until the boat caught on fire...

2009-06-29T09:51:07-04:00

As many of you are aware, Debbie and I were aboard the Royal Princess cruise boat when it caught fire just off the coast of Port Said, Egypt. While it was happening, I twittered what we saw and experienced…many of you have asked me to elaborate a little more on the story, and so I will.

I will apologize in advance for this post…it will be a bit long. I will try to do two things:

1. Be relatively brief. Relatively is the key word. As an observer and analyzer of human nature, it is my habit to wax painfully long at times. I will attempt to stick to the details. I’d love to get behind the scenes a bit, but we’ll save that, perhaps, for a chapter or two in a book I’m currently writing. I’ve highlighted sections in this post, so, for example, if all you are interested in is the fire, you can easily jump to that section.

2. Avoid spiritualization. Again, as a nature of what I do, I like to take spiritual lessons from everyday situations…and, trust me, we observed several of them. I’ll save that for a sermon I’m sure I’ll preach sometime this summer. If you don’t attend Seacoast and so desire, you can probably catch that bit of profound pontificating in a podcast at Seacoast.org.

So, let’s jump in…

Background

About a year ago, the church gave us a 12 day cruise in appreciation for 20 years of service. We were humbled and excited at the same time. This cruise represented the dream of a lifetime for us. We would be flying to Rome, then boarding a ship that would make stops at various points in the Mediterranean, including several in the Holy Land. Having never been to that area, it had great appeal to us. We would be porting in Italy, Egypt, and Israel…as well as tracing some of Paul and John’s journeys to Ephesus in Turkey, Isle of Patmos in Greece, and finally ending in Athens before a flight home.

We haven’t traveled much together. In fact, we’ve only been overseas one other time together in our 30+ years of marriage…a teaching trip that Debbie agreed to accompany me on in Germany a few years ago. She is reluctant to fly and has been very involved with the raising of our children as well as working at the church. So, when this opportunity came, we were like kids on the night before Christmas. It couldn’t come soon enough.

Rome

The travel agent arranged for us to fly to Rome and spend a few days exploring the city before we embarked on the cruise. Lots of cool stuff to see in Rome: the Forum, the Coliseum, the Vatican (honestly, mixed emotions on my part with that one…maybe another post). And, one of my favorite things to do, eat. They definitely know how to do that in Rome. We were a quick study…after a few rounds with the fork, I think we did fine! We also walked more in 3 days than I have in the last year…a great time.

On Saturday, June 12^th, we boarded a bus and headed for the coast to embark on the adventure. The first day was a time of discovery as we roamed the ship and keep saying to each other that we couldn’t believe we were actually doing this. At dinner we were introduced to four couples that we would share evening meals with. I’d love to unpack that, but I’ve promised to be brief. I’ll just say that we had a great bonding experience, not unlike a small group, that became especially intense later because of what we experienced together.

Sorrento

The first stop after “cruising” through the night was in Sorrento. It’s a beautiful city, perched on the edge of a cliff over looking the Mediterranean Sea in southern Italy. Debbie and I did a little shopping then boarded a non air-conditioned, graffiti covered train toward the ruins of Pompeii. We could have taken an official “excursion”, but we didn’t for two reasons:

1. I’m basically cheap. We arrived at the ruins, hired an English speaking (kind of) guide and paid entry fees for less than half of what those who took the cruise sponsored trip paid. Did I mention I am cheap (and kind of proud of it)?

2. We love an adventure. I maintain that you never really see behind the curtain of a place until you take public transportation. I love riding the subway in New York City and the “El” train in Chicago. Down and dirty and real. You see things you would never see from the safety of the highway.

It was a great day, followed by tales of adventure with our small group at dinner.

At Sea

The next two days were at sea as we headed for Egypt. That was a whole nother level of relaxation. Sleep in, leisurely breakfast on the deck, ½ hour workout in a great gym, a couple of hours alternating between a salt water hot tub (no kids allowed!) and laying on a deck chair in the sun. Afternoon writing in a beautifully decorated library, a quick shower, then dinner with our group. I could get used to this. In fact, I think I could do it professionally.

At night, before we went to sleep, we would talk about how blessed we felt, and how we hoped this wasn’t a dream. We were enjoying our days, but really looking forward to the meat of the trip for us, the Holy Land.

Alexandria

On the fourth morning we found ourselves ported at the Egyptian city of Alexandria, founded by the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great, and later evangelized (according to tradition) by St. Mark, the writer of the Gospel. Alexandria was one of the strong centers of Christianity in the early years of the church. It is now a sprawling port city, mostly Islamic with a scattering of Coptic Christian churches.

We boarded buses for a 3 ½ hour trip through the desert toward Cairo to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the Egyptian museum. Lots of interesting stuff. Amazing ingenuity in building the things they built 4500 years ago. The King Tut exhibit was very cool. Dude had some bling, now!

After lunch in a nice hotel and a trip to the museum, we boarded buses for the ride back. About 20 million people live in Cairo, and most of them seemed to be on our road. I can now see why Jesus family only spent a short time there.

Many of us agreed that we were glad we went once, but probably wouldn’t want to go again anytime soon. We didn’t realize that we would reluctantly be back in less than 72 hours, most of us on our way home from the aborted cruise.

Port Said

That night we cruised down the coast a bit to Port Said, Egypt, a dusty shipping port at the mouth of the Suez Canal. Not much to do in Port Said if you are a tourist. The main reason for the stop was to pick up a few passengers who had paid extra for an overnight excursion in Egypt. We stayed on the ship, repeated our routine from the two days at sea and watched a TV show 2 or 3 times on what we could expect at our stop in Jerusalem the next day. To say we were pumped is an understatement.

We showered, watched the ship pull away from the port, and started to head out the door to meet our group for the 8:15pm dinner that never happened.

The Fire

A few minutes before we left our cabin, we heard the captain, over the loudspeaker, summon the “assessment team” to a planning station. We didn’t think anything of it, other than maybe they had a team to assess the plan for tomorrows excursions in Jerusalem (that’s all we were thinking about, so we figured they were consumed too).

Just before we opened our door, we heard another announcement, asking certain other personnel to join the “assessment team” immediately, followed by the sound of people running through the hallway. Debbie opened our cabin door and heard a child screaming for her parents. I walked out into the hallway in time to see some ship personnel moving quickly toward the stairway halfway down the hall. I asked the people entering the cabin next door what was going on? They said they had been told by dining room servers to go to their cabin immediately and wait for further instruction. Soon after that, we all got an announcement over the loud speakers saying the same thing. I then heard someone say they thought there might be a fire.

We went immediately back into our cabin and I went out onto the private balcony to see if I could see anything. We were on the 7^th floor and I saw smoke pouring out of one of the upper decks toward the front of the boat. Later I found that there was a fire in the engine room on the 1^st floor and the smoke was going up through a stack to the top. It looked as though there was a red glow from possible flames, but my angle was such that I couldn’t be certain of that.

The next thing we heard was a loud series of blasts from the alarm horn, followed by the Captain asking everyone to grab their life jackets, warm clothes, a hat, and any necessary medications, and head to the 5^th floor muster station. We had had a drill in the same location before the cruise began, but this seemed a bit more urgent. I grabbed my camera and went back onto the balcony to get a few shots before leaving the room. They were starting to lower the lifeboats. Not a good sign.

The Muster Station

By the time we got to the muster station (actually the show lounge), all of the seats were taken, so Debbie and I stood with a few others, leaning on the bar in the back of the room. One of the crew was on the stage, barking out orders through a megaphone and trying desperately to keep order. There was an obviously concerned group of people in the room and occasionally children were crying, not knowing what was happening. I could tell by the look on the crew’s faces that this was serious.

Shortly after we arrived we lost power, the room went completely dark, and then the emergency lighting came on. About three hours into the ordeal the emergency lights went out, leaving it completely dark, until some crew members shined flashlights on the ceiling to give some light.

Every 20 minutes or so the Captain would come on the loudspeaker to give an update as to what was happening. There had been a fire in the engine room, they were working hard to put it out, stay calm, etc. Between announcements, the man on the bull horn, speaking with a decidedly British accent, would implore passengers to be “completely silent, no talking”. There was an eerie silence, interspersed by whispers, then this voice coming thru the bull horn scolding us again. Honestly, it felt a little like I was back in elementary school and the teacher was monitoring naptime. He had his job to do, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be him at that moment, but it got on your nerves after 4 hours of the same back and forth.

While the crew did their best to keep us comfortable, you could tell they were a little unsettled as well. Some passengers were higher maintenance than others, if you know what I mean. At one point someone had a medical emergency and had to be carried out on a stretcher. The air conditioning stopped working when we lost power. It was hot and stuffy. People were shedding the “warm clothing” they had been instructed to bring. Half the boat had not eaten dinner yet. It was definitely tense at times. The crew managed to throw together a few sandwiches and some bottled water and passed them through the crowd. That seemed to calm unruly spirits for a while.

About 3 ½ hours into the adventure, the voice behind the bull horn decided to line the “smokers” up and take them 20 at a time out on the deck for a quick cigarette. I thought seriously about bumming a smoke from someone and getting into line…anything for some fresh air. Shortly after that, some in the nicotine free crowd were grumbling that “you had to be a smoker to catch a break around here”, so a plan was devised to take everyone out, in single groups of 20 for about 10 minutes each. With about 500 passengers in the room, I quickly did the math in my head, and decided I’d be better off to stay seated on the floor and hopefully catch a breeze from those walking by to get into line. (By that time Debbie and I were leaning against the bar, sitting on the floor on our life jackets for a little added cushioning.)

Fortunately the Captain came back on the speaker about 20 minutes later, announcing that they were gaining on the fire, and that they were going to allow us to move to the 9^th and 10^th floor, which were open decks around the pool, so we could get some fresh air. Since it was now after midnight, most passengers made makeshift beds out of the deckchairs, benches and patches of floor.

I began to get a faint signal on my phone from Port Said, located about 7 miles away at that point. The signal would come and go, but I had just enough to begin to text our kids, and let them know what was happening. I also decided to use Twitter so I wouldn’t have to send out so many individual texts to friends and family. Little did I know that that decision would gain me hundreds of new twitter friends, including quite an assortment of cruise industry lawyers J. The twitters were retweeted and became the source of information for not just my family, but families of others on the boat. Cruise industry blogs started following the tweets and posting the information on their sites. Not as earth shattering a use of social media as what is going on in Iran, but effective at getting the story out, none the less.

As you can imagine, we were quickly approaching a sanitation nightmare. The toilets operate on electricity on a cruise boat, so there was no such thing as flushing when the power is off. With just a few public toilets on the floors we were confined too…this was not going to be pretty. Toilets were already starting to over flow. Fortunately the Captain announced that we could go to our cabins at about 2am. There was no air conditioning and the toilets in the cabins didn’t work either, but at least there were fewer people there…if you know what I mean.

Can you give a brother a lift?

About mid morning the next day the Captain announced that we would be given a tow to Port Said by a team of tug boats. He said that they were flying a group of engineers and inspectors in to see what they needed to do to get the ship running again and find out what caused the fire.

As I stood on the deck and watched the tugs work I had two prevailing thoughts:

1. We are very fortunate that this happened just 7 miles from shore. I’ll leave it at that…
2. We are not going to the Holy Land anytime soon…and probably not anywhere else for that matter. The chances of them working a miracle on a disabled ship in the next few hours were slim and none. We were just 100 miles from the Israeli port, but we aren’t getting there. I felt a bit like Moses, getting a peak at the promised land, but knowing it’s not to be.

At dinner that night, at around 9:30pm, we heard the Captain make the dreaded announcement. Even though we had our suspicions that it would end like this, it came as an abrupt shock to the system: “Damage worse than we thought, cruise is over, we will be disembarking tomorrow. Have your bags packed and outside your room by 7am. We are sending you back to Cairo and we will fly everyone home tomorrow.”

Bummer.

The next morning we quickly told our new found friends goodbye and made the 3 ½ hour bus ride back to Cairo (the trip that we said, just a few hours earlier, we’d rather not make again). We were actually closer to Jerusalem, but things are complicated by the fact that the Israelis and Egyptians don’t play well together. You can’t even catch a plane from Cairo to Tel Aviv. The route doesn’t exist.

Princess Cruises

All in all, I think Princess did an admirable job of handling an extremely adverse situation.

The crew was great. Many of them operated on little or no sleep for 36-48 hours. They were gracious and understanding of the needs of the passengers. For the most part the passengers went with the flow. We were all extremely disappointed. Some chose to verbalize their frustration in less than constructive ways, and often times the target was a crew member who probably had never been in this situation before, and was doing the best they could, under the circumstances. I heard very few curt responses. Mostly just a reminder that we were very fortunate to have endured such an event without a single injury.

The company made a generous offer of reimbursing the cost of the cruise. In our case, it is my understanding that it will include airfare, since it was all a part of the package. They also offered a 25% discount on a future cruise. We will see if they follow thru on their promise. I have no reason to believe that they won’t.

If there is a learning for the company, at least from a passengers perspective, it’s that they could improve communication just a bit. That’s always a challenge during crisis mode but, communication is golden to those are craving information. Early on, my children in the USA knew more about what was happening than I did, by monitoring the Princess website. My son texted me that the fire was out several minutes before we got that information from the Captain. It was reassuring to know. There were other pieces of information that were available on the web that we weren’t immediately privy too. They knew that we would be staying in Port Said while specialists examined the boat, for instance. After a while though, the Princess website quit updating and, unfortunately, my twitters became the only source of info. Perhaps the company should take a look at how they could leverage similar social networks in situations like this. It may be a lawyer thing, I don’t know…but I would suggest taking a look at it.

I’ve been asked, “Would I sail on Princess again?” My answer? “Yes, I think I would.” The service was great, even after the crisis. They flew in people from all over to answer our questions and help us make travel arrangements. They booked us into hotels in Cairo, escorted us to the airport, held our hand thru the entire process. Their ability to disperse that many people so quickly from a bit of an obscure port in Egypt was nothing short of amazing to me.

If this can be proven to be a fluke malfunction, not a systemic problem, I’d have no problem sailing on Princess again.

I’m not sure we’ll personally get a do over on this particular cruise…and that’s kind of sad, but life is full of disappointments. You just adjust your big boy panties and move on.

Epilog

As I mentioned before, the sudden end of the cruise and the thought of flying straight home the next day came as a shock for Debbie and I. We discussed our options thru the night and decided if we couldn’t go to the Holy Land, at least we could go to Athens, spend a few days, maybe even catch a boat to Santorini (one of the cruise destinations). Some of our kids are staying in our house back home and aren’t expecting us for 6 more days. Princess is giving the money back…we can find a cheap flight from Cairo to Athens…with our travel history, we may never get back this way. Might as well take advantage of being this close. Sounded good at the time.

So we flew to Athens.

On the first night in this wonderful, romantic city we had a major meltdown. The quickness and severity hit us as unexpectedly as the termination of the cruise. Debbie seemed a little off…so I lovingly and sensitively called her a grouch. The tears started to flow…I’m not good with that…don’t quite know what to say. As we processed it later, we found that we were both feeling the same things. We were grieving what we’d lost:

1. The dream of seeing the Holy Land

2. The abrupt end to the cruise

3. The sudden disruption of a small group of people whose company we were beginning to really enjoy

4. We didn’t want to be in Athens…we wanted to be in Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and the Jordon River, and the Temple Mount, and Ephesus, and Patmos. That’s what we signed on for. That’s what we dreamed about. Not five days in Athens…in a hotel room…with the only station on TV that we could understand being CNN International…giving cricket scores…and playing the Iranian crisis over and over. And taxi drivers demanding more and more Euro’s. What’s a Euro? How much is it worth? How much am I being cheated because I don’t speak the language and don’t know the customs?

And we felt guilty that we felt bad.

We’d had a wonderful trip…even if it didn’t include the Holy Land. After all lots of people never get to go anywhere nearly as nice as this. Truthfully, a lot of people wonder where their next meal is coming from. We should be more grateful. Grief? What about the Jewish family on the boat that were going to have a Bar mitzvah at the Western wall in Jerusalem? They’d planned it for months, maybe even years. They’d purchased tickets, rearranged schedules, dreamed of going to Jerusalem. And now they are on their way home. Lots of people were worse off than us.

But we felt bad anyway.

Athens was nice…but now we just wanted to go home.

And so we did…the next day.

I am writing this on an airplane.

Tomorrow I’ll go to Target…pick up a pair of big boy pants.

I hope they have them in size 36 J.

Greg Surratt

The cruise was great until the boat caught on fire...