Thread: Travel Channel & Sovereign refurb

Did anybody watch the Travel Channel series on the refurbishment that the Sovereign of the Seas underwent late last year.

It was on yesterday. Nothing else of interest on last night, so while channel surfing found it. Good series. Makes me appreciate all the work that goes into one of these refurb exercises. Also helped explain why complaints are made on the first couple of voyages after.

I think in their desire to get the ship back to the fleet ASAP to start regenerating monies, the cruiseline(s) cut the timeframe to the bare minimum which allows no (absolutely none) room for error. As we all know human beings being what they are, errors will happen.

As it turns out, Sovereign got back to cruising on time, yet not all the work had been accomplished. That is a shame, because passengers on the first couple of cruises will have to put up with the remaining work being done.

Anyhow, it was a superb series. Showed the hard work done by the remaining crew and contractors. Also showed some super shots of this ship in drydock. . . . something you don't get to see too often.

Also put out some interesting facts for the uniformed like myself. Like when Sovereign came on line in 1988 she was the largest cruise ship afloat. Today she is considered mid size. Since her first cruise, she has carried 2 million passengers. That is a lot of revenue. Using an average of $700 per passenger (and that has got to be a lowball figure), she has generated $1.4 billion since the beginning ($82 million per year).

I watched four 1 hour segments and believe there was at least one more, but it was an interesting show.

Doc I saw this as well...........I also saw it when it first came on the Discovery Channel several months ago............of course we love RC and just made us more anxious than ever to get our our cruise in 4 weeks.........

Great series...........

We also watched it when it first aired.

Very interesting.

Enjoyed minute of it.

I saw just a portion of it last night. Lot of hard work I thought. Hope all goes well for our girls that are going this week.

[QUOTE=usnretdocb]

As it turns out, Sovereign got back to cruising on time, yet not all the work had been accomplished. That is a shame, because passengers on the first couple of cruises will have to put up with the remaining work being done.
QUOTE]

Of course, renenue is everything, but why can't they schedule enough time to get the work done before passengers board? It's not like they havn't done this before.

I once took a cruise immediately after a dry-docking. Equipment and workmen were still on board and work being done when passengers were boarding. When the ship departed, there still was work to be done, and equipment was still scattered on some very untidy decks. The passengers get short-changed by having to deal with this.

We also watched this the first time it aired, there were things I liked but I thought they went to fast on things I really wanted to see like the adding of the new cabins and really seeing what they did thru out the ship. It wa like the camera just barely scanned over things I really wanted to see. Yet would repeat the talking to somw of the worker over and over.

[QUOTE=stowaway2k]

Originally Posted by usnretdocb

Of course, renenue is everything, but why can't they schedule enough time to get the work done before passengers board? It's not like they havn't done this before.

Absolutely. One would think as a manager/planner, one would add a fudge factor. I like the good old 10%. In this case that would have meant 2 days (I believe the total time frame was 21 days). Had they finished in the 21 days, the crew could have been rewarded with a small period to decompress from the rigors of the yard period. It appears that 2 more days would have been just about right on this refit.

Yeah, well I have my OWN opioion on how they could have shaved two days off the time needed...

Originally Posted by canarymoon

Yeah, well I have my OWN opioion on how they could have shaved two days off the time needed...

Care to share! Having gone through refits while on Navy ships, seeing what these people did in 3 weeks is sort of amazing.

Originally Posted by canarymoon

Yeah, well I have my OWN opioion on how they could have shaved two days off the time needed...

I think they needed to add two days, not lose two days.