On our cruise July 25th, 2010 on the Emerald Princess from Fort Lauderdale we had a TOTAL power failure for 5 or 6 hours the first night out. After that, well, things just got worse. Oh, and I had made a 7:30 appointment to have my very first acupuncture treatment ever that night. I went through with it, but imagine this; I'm lying there on the treatment table with pins stuck in me and NO LIGHTS ARE ON, NO AIR CONDITIONING, NO SHIP ENGINE, NO MEANS OF NAVIGATION AND NO LUCK!

I learned later that we had drifted almost 24 miles north. Given the winds that night, we were lucky! Had the wind been from the East we COULD HAVE been driven onto the beach North of Lauderdale.

Princess had flown an expert into St. Maarten to take a look at the computer/engine problems. We weren't sure we'd leave St. Maarten and if we did we weren't certain we wouldn't have engine trouble again. That first night engine failure took at least four days to get over, what with food spoilage and overworked staff to begin with and all of the passengers just plain exhausted from the excessive heat. Read more