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Engine Failure
We had heard at the end of the previous week we were due to join the Thomson Celebration in Barbados that she had experienced some sort of engine failure and that she had stayed at Basseterre, St Kitts for an extra day, missing out the visit to the island of Antigua. For many that was a great disappointment.
The moment we boarded her at Bridgetown, I began asking questions.
It seems that there had been a failure to one of the engine linings and it needed to be replaced. Even though the engine was malfunctioning the ship still used both of its deisel engines to get this. The ship we were told, does not run on a single engine alone.
Although an engine lining component was always carried on board as a spare, the repair was not successful.
A temporary fix was implemented but this meant that the ship could not travel at its maximum speed.
It was during our first evening on board we hard the Captian say that we would be missing our first port of call at St Georges on the Isle of Grenada and would be making straight for the next port of call at Kralendijk, Bonaire.
The stop off at Grenada was planned to only be 4 hours which meant that there would be much less than 3 hours spent ashore, so it wasn't much of a disappointment. We had not liked Grenada on our last cruise anyway.
After our stop on Day 4 at Curacao, the Captain explained that a new part had been delivered while she was in port at Wilemstad, it had been fitted and tested and the repair had been successful. The ship was now able to achieve maximum speed so there should be no more absences of planned island visits.
But really though, she is an old ship of some 30 years or more and needs to be replaced by a more modern ship. It is said that all Thomson ships will be balcony ships for 2016 so this may mean that soon she will be replaced.
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