Can you imagine anything worse?

By Stewart Maclean

NEARLY 1,500 passengers on a luxury [sic] cruise have been stranded for three days without toilets.

Hundreds staged a protest meeting on the liner Destiny last night after a series of plumbing breakdowns caused "mayhem".

Sources on the Thomson operated ship said a problem with the vacuum system caused all the toilets to stop working on Saturday and later left the 1,450 passengers and 540 crew without hot water.

Thomson chiefs last night hired a team of "super-engineers" to try to fix the system. A spokesman said: "The 10 experts will be working through the night to ensure the problem will be sorted by 6am."

Trouble struck as the liner began a seven day voyage to the Canary Islands and Morocco. Derek Twigg, from West Yorks, on the trip with wife Lorraine, said his 60th birthday celebration had been ruined.

A source said: "The cruise started well and everyone was impressed with the boat - it's a beautiful ship. But suddenly everyone was reporting problems with the toilets and it quickly became clear the whole system was broken.

"For the last three days passengers have had to use toilet facilities in the ports we've visited but a lot of people are starting to lose patience. Then the hot water was cut off too. After that the crew arranged for a team of plumbers to come and try to sort it all out."

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Originally posted by greybeard:
As reported in today's Daily Mirror

Can you imagine anything worse?

By Stewart Maclean

NEARLY 1,500 passengers on a luxury [sic] cruise have been stranded for three days without toilets.

...

A description of the 16-year-old ship on the firm's website highlights its "superb accommodation and facilities".

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A "luxury liner", as usual...

"16 years old ship"... Was the former Song of America stranded in a sort of temporal distortion during 8 years ?

"No toilets for Brit holidaymakers!"
(or earthier versions - you get my drift, I'm sure.)

Cannot be very pleasant at all... but I do wish the inevitable tear jerker attempts of x birthday, anniversary, holiday of life time stuff was omitted from these reports. Can we not just have facts; I don't care and I am sure half the cruisers aboard don't, about Mr Twiggs 60th, they just want working toilets.

A spokeswoman for Thomson said the cause of the problem had been fixed. She said: "The Thomson Destiny has had some problems with its plumbing system which as a result has affected some of the passenger cabins.

"In an effort to resolve the problems the ship owners have had extra technicians on board. We believe the cause of the problem has now been fixed, and Monday was spent unblocking those toilets that were affected whilst the system was out of action.

"The ship was delayed in Madeira by six hours for this work to be carried out and at 10pm yesterday there were only two remaining cabins left to fix. The ship will arrive in its next schedule port as planned. Thomson apologise to any of its customers that have been affected by this."

A Thomson spokeswoman said today that Destiny had set sail from Funchal in Madeira at 6am today. She added: "The technicians who came on board are happy that all the systems are working well.

"The passengers we have spoken to are happy and do not share the view that there was 'mayhem' on board."

"Jennifer"... so what is for the likes of Thomson Customers?

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They say you get what you pay for. Take a cheap cruise and you get cheap facilities. Cruising wasn't meant to be for the likes of Thomson customers. ------ [/QB]

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Originally posted by mec1:
My favourite lavatory sign ever was on Canberra where all the public toilets had a sign saying "Please do not place cigarettes, sanitary towels or orange peel in the lavatories". My sister and I often wondered what people got up to in the loos!!!!

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My favourite was in the washrooms at a place I used to work many years ago. It said: "Please do not put cigarette butts in the urinals. They are difficult to retrieve and almost impossible to smoke afterwards."

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Originally posted by Ernst:
Let's keep this in context - having NO toilets aboard a ship is not a minor but a major problem. This is certainly something to complain about.
I am very surprised that they continued the cruise.

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Agreed. It's a sanitary hazard. The cruise should have been stopped, the passengers fully refunded and sent back home.

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Originally posted by Brian_O:

My favourite was in the washrooms at a place I used to work many years ago. It said: "Please do not put cigarette butts in the urinals. They are difficult to retrieve and almost impossible to smoke afterwards."

Brian

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Ah, but my favorite was in a fast-food restaurant:

"The same fingers used to remove foreign objects from these urinals also make your sandwiches."

[ 10-26-2006: Message edited by: mrblanche ]