Where do cruise ships dock during the hiatus?

[ahain]

I was just wondering...with so many cruise lines cancelling departures for the next few weeks, where will they all dock during the period of inactivity??

 

[lanejudy]

They may or may not dock. The crew isn't necessarily disembarking. I suspect most ships will head out to sea and circle. Some may dock at their "home" ports, but there aren't enough piers for all to do that.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Many crew don't have somewhere else to go right now if the ship docks.

 

[lorimay]

I was wondering if they keep the crew onboard or not.

 

[JM_97]

I had assumed they could all just stay at the disembarkation port of their current trip, but that might not work

 

[Kennywood]

The crews will be just as busy...if not more so. I imagine that DCL will use this hiatus to do a lot of repairs, maintenance, and cleaning on all of the ships. This will definitely be the time to get those things done.

 

[Love2Cruise2015]

I would assume that they may take this time to thoroughly clean the ships and maybe do repairs, etc.

 

[Marc D]

I don’t think something similar ever happened before. Staying at sea involves using fuel, which is certainly something the cruise lines will try to avoid. However, ports usually charge for ships to dock. There are probably not enough docks around the world to allow all the offline ships to dock once RCCL and Carnival follow the others. DCL can always use CC for one of the ships, but their PC dock is supposed to be unavailable for the entire summer. They will not be able to dock there as long as the Wish-related work can still go on.

I guess we will just have to follow them on CruiseMapper to see where they end up after the suspension of activities begins starting tomorrow.

 

[Giraffe Lounge]

I don’t think something similar ever happened before.

Not for passenger lines but there have been cargo stoppages many times before where the ships anchor off the harbor and wait it out. Just a few years ago there was a strike at the busiest port in the world (LA/LB) and the ships outside the port were seemingly endless.

 

[ahain]

Anchoring offshore does make sense. Good point

 

[g_ppetto]

I had the same thoughts last night regarding where are they going to put the ships. Also about the crews as I imagine a lot of them would not be able to get home due to distance and flight restrictions. I don't have any answer, just the questions.

Here is another site we can use to track the ships -
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-79.9/centery:25.7/zoom:10

It is currently focused on / near Miami as that is the last place I looked. You can zoom in, out and move the map around. Placing your pointer over a ship will / may reveal the name of the ship and it's destination. This site is probably going to see an increase in traffic over the next few weeks.

 

[dclpluto]

The crews will be just as busy...if not more so. I imagine that DCL will use this hiatus to do a lot of repairs, maintenance, and cleaning on all of the ships. This will definitely be the time to get those things done.

they will be busy but not as busy.
there will be parties on the open decks just like they do for a hurricane. Lots more sex also. Servers will be helping out painting and other jobs. The ones that are paid mostly by the guests on tips will feel it the worse in lost of pay. Disney of course will pay them more but not nearly as much as they would of got.

 

[SL6827]

Ya, any employee of Disney whether DCL or at the parks who make good money on tips will get hit harder.

 

[yargrnhoj]

I assume this will be a lot like during Hurricane Maria. The ships stayed out to sea. My future daughter-in-law was on board the Fantasy and they spent the time deep cleaning the kids' clubs and practicing their scripts. So I expect they will all be at work cleaning during this time too, same as they did during dry dock.

 

[DIS_MIKE]

I was wondering about this myself. My first thought was that they would simply dock and stay put at their past debarkation port but of course there is only so much room and so many ships. It's not like they have a garage someplace to park at.

Someone mentioned dropping anchor offshore which makes sense. I can't see why Disney would burn up fuel and circle places with just the crew on board but I do agree that they will be cleaning the ships and once we can start boarding again...they will be as clean as when they were new.

 

[ps17]

We once sailed the Magic out of Port Canaveral while the Fantasy was about to be staged. The Fantasy was docked at a pier maybe halfway between the terminal and the ocean. I am thinking that there is a commercial pier in either the same port area or Miami or similar that the ships could dock in. Well there is also castaway....

 

[bbel]

Most will probably just float, sail slowly around.
I was on a ship that finished dry dock early and it was cheaper for the company to have extra days at sea (hardly moving) than dock anywhere.

Also, if there's chance of infection, ports don't want/ wont allow the ships in.

And then there's the issue of crew visas...

 

[BartmanLA]

At this point aside from the Magic which shares berthing in Miami, they could potentially tie up both the Dream and Fantasy side by side, lashing one ship to the other using a gang way to go between the two ships, they have their own pier in Port Canaveral so it wouldn't be using other spaces that other cruise lines use. It would facilitate them getting supplies and materials on board for the duration for cleaning and repairs, as well as saving a significant amount of fuel.

 

[planecrazy63]

I have confirmed with a crew member on the wonder they are supposed to go out to sea. They will be cleaning, painting, etc

 

[LewCruisers]

One docked at Castaway Cay, maybe ... that would be fun for crew.