When one contracts for a cruise we expect, at a minimum, two important things. First we expect a reasonable level of safety be provided throughout the cruise, and second we expect professionally run tours to enhance the experience of visiting new places. My wife and I recently returned from two back to back cruises on Royal Caribbean, around Australia and New Zealand and we experienced neither.
My entire professional life was spent in the area of public safety, 45 years in the fire service, fifteen of these with the New York State Fire Marshall’s Office of the Fire Protection and the final 7 years as Director of Building Codes and Enforcement for the State of New York. I believe my experience quantifies me to comment on the lack of safety of the tenders, small boats, contracted for passenger shuttle in Bali, Indonesia. Our ship, Radiance of the Seas, did not dock in Bali, these tenders were used to ferry us to the dock and back to the ship, on what should have been a thirty minute trip.
These enclosed boats held 90 passengers, had one exit, were powered by up to eight 300 Hp. Gasoline powered out board engines, they reeked of gasoline fumes. Some of us spent an hour circling waiting to get back on the ship, one spark and we would have been incinerated. Indonesia has one of the worst records in the third world countries. I considered this to be one of the most dangerous environments have ever been in.
Cabin was surface clean and was well cared for every day of our cruise