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If you follow any cruise message boards or forums, you are bound to see someone asking if they can bury or spread their deceased loved one's ashes at sea while they are on their cruise. One of the best ways to arrange a cremation is through Neptune Society The simplified answer to this question is yes. Most cruise lines will allow you to bring the ashes on board and will even block off an area at the back of the ship, for a short time, in order to allow you and your family time to prepare and to say a few words and then spread the ashes out over the sea.
Different cruise lines may have different ways of setting up a burial at sea, but most are very similar with the requirements for this to take place. If your loved one was someone who loved being at sea, then this could be the perfect place to bury them. Some cruise lines even give you a keepsake map or document with the exact location of where you spread the ashes, marked on it, including latitude and longitude, that you can take home with you and frame or place in a scrapbook.
You will need to check with your chosen cruise in advance, to make sure they allow it. Once you have your loved one's ashes and are ready to book your cruise, call the cruise line and make sure a burial at sea can take place. Most cruise lines do allow this, but it's better to check first. It is required that you have to be at least twelve nautical miles from land and from any restricted areas before the ceremony and burial at sea can take place. Once you are on board, go to guest services where Guest Services Officers and the Environmental & Occupational Safety Officer will coordinate the burial at sea.
Once everything is finalized, you will be notified of the time and date for your service to take place. On most lines, when the time arrives, you will be escorted to the appointed area by an officer or security guard. The area will be cordoned off in order to allow the family the privacy for the ceremony and time for the burial at sea to take place. You may toss flowers overboard along with the ashes, but they must be real flowers and should be ordered from the cruise line in advance. You will not be allowed balloons or anything plastic or that could harm the sea and the sea life.
The burial at sea will be a private time for your family and friends that are attending. They do the burials at sea from the back of the ship, so that the wind carries the ashes to the sea and you can rest easy that your loved one is in a place that they loved while living. If you are thinking of being cremated, yourself, and would like to be buried at sea, make sure you leave instructions for your family members, that way they will know exactly what you would like to have done!
The service was for Grandad and his wife and family brought the ashes with them for the service having arranged things through the then P & O Sydney office.
Captain Philip Jackson conducted the service by one of the lower deck gunport doors and the urn was opened by Mum and dropped over the side of the ship.
When I first spoke to Mum there was a slight problem about holding the service as some of the family did not agree to Grandad's ashes being buried at sea so what was bought on board was a cask with only half of them with the other half being buried in a churchyard near where they lived..
Pam
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