Not being allowed to use surge-protectors on cruise liner mains supplies

I've been on a few cruses but never encountered this restriction. Is it something in the booking terms, or a notice when you get on board. My experience is luggage is not routinely searched, that would be a truly mammoth task.

Perhaps your cruise line had an issue with MOVs in a power bar catching fire and take the stance once bitten, twice shy.

Probably too many surges and the MOVs when they eventually fail catch fire in poorly designed extension blocks!

Don?t know if it is relevant to the surge protector situation but on some of the cruise ships I did a small amount of fit out work on the 220volt supply was 110-0 -110 so there is no neutral pin , I found that the painful way when relying on a thermostat turned to off on a refrigeration device while I replaced a fan motor though in that case it was hard wired. Most of them are 60Hz as well though that doesn?t cause the problems it once did,I suppose the odd person may still take a favourite hair dryer and wonder why it runs fast .

• yes I should have got it disconnected but although the equipment was my firms and I was expected to repair it disconnecting it from the connection box was down to a member of the ship electrical department and they had gone ashore for the day on the turnaround.

GH

Fire is a much bigger risk onboard a ship. Surge protectors do nothing but cause the occasional fire.

NT

I have long had the view they are just snake oil.

It does seem a little odd, I have to say. Still I'd be glad that they even allowed much to be plugged in. Back in the older days the ship supply was not anything like the mains so I guess its progress. Brian

The captain on the cruise I've just been on (Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zeebrugge over Christmas on P&O) makes announcements every morning describing where we are, if there are any anticipated problems with weather or not being able to get into ports or being delayed. He's a real character who has a dry sense of humour and a stock of set phrases: some people count up the number of times he introduces himself as "The CapTAIN" [emphasis on second syllable), how many times he says the phrase "speed of a thousand gazelles" or how many times he manages to refer to his home town of Ticknall in Derbyshire. Never seen him at dinner - the officers may have their own restaurant or they may eat in set dining restaurant (ie everyone sits down at 6 PM or 8:30 PM) rather than the "freedom dining" restaurant.

It was quite a novelty getting in to Amsterdam. The previous three years (we did the first two) Amsterdam was unavailable because high winds made it impossible to get through the sea lock. The first year we got into Rotterdam instead and organised coach tours started earlier and finished later from there. The other two years the ship went and sheltered off the coast of East Anglia (calmer than in the open North Sea) and patrolled up and down - sadly too far from land to be able to pick up mobile internet, but then the UK's mobile internet seems to reach a lot less far than Denmark's, Norway's, Sweden's, The Netherlands' or Belgium's. And you only use maritime mobile or ship's internet (by satellite) if you have a desire to burn money (it is eye-wateringly expensive).

Ditto on not having had any warning regarding surge protection.

It maybe that they think they don?t need to. On the boats we?ve been on nearly all the electrics shut down when you remove your keycard from the wall holder. Took us a day or two to realise why some things weren?t charging when we left the cabin!

Easily overcome with a bit of card shoved in the holder though.

Tim

But you're gouged by just being on a cruise ship in the first place

and then you're gouged again when you take one of their tours

The extra costs a few minutes on the phone is going to be trivial

tim

Until they install one of the Smarter systems when a card doesn't "do the trick"

tim

They will cope with some very minor surges, but one larger one and they are toast. Except you get no indication that they are no longer able to function. Some indeed, do catch fire when they fail.

Read specification numbers on a protector. How many joules does it 'block' or 'absorb'? Hundreds? Thousand? That is near zero. A surge that tiny is routinely converted by electronic appliances into rock stable, low DC voltages to safely power semiconductors. So that power strip protector does nothing useful. And can fail catastrophically on a transient that will not damage anything else.

A thermal fuse blows to only disconnect grossly undersized protector parts. It leaves appliance connected. Disconnects to avert a protector fire. Sometimes that fuse does not trip fast enough. Then this happens:

That fire, that happens in homes, is acceptable. That fire is completely unacceptable aboard ship. That fire is made obvious by specification numbers. How many joules will that five cent protector part absorb? A surge too tiny to damage electronics can destroy that protector. And in rare cases, cause a fire.

APC recently admitted some 15 million protectors must be removed immediately due to hundreds of house fires. This protector is not even on that recall list:

If you?re a couple you?ll have two cabin keycards so you could always use one of those.

Tim

Oh

I never thought of that

Doh!

tim

Bob, did you turn that .sig off?

Not if you're contemplating a move into nursing/sheltered housing (we're not!). Non-stop cruising is cheaper and something that has become quite popular.

True. We always arrange our own.

Is the right answer!

Then just use the Other Half's card.

I don't see how someone who need nursing care can get that provided on a cruise

Surely you can't do that for 365 days a year

You need an address to have a bank account for example

and where do you go if one of your "land one day depart the same day" connections fails

tim