Track the Disney Ships

That's pretty cool. I like like that you added the link to the Who's Going to Walt Disney World post.

Very cool! It's amazing just how many ships are sailing at any given time.

I love these ship tracking sites. Here's another Disney ship site that has great info:

Disney Ships Current Locations

And here's a site that shows live bridge cams for various cruise lines and ships. Except Disney that is...

Live Cruise Ship Bridge Cams

Slow night at work ?

( )

Nice job Mr Hub & Ken ~

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

If people are interested in other modes of transport, I believe Amtrak has something similar where you can track their train position on their routes on the Amtrak website. For flights, FlightAware.com and Flightview.com are the airplane equivalent of flight trackers.

There may have been a problem on the Disney Dream last night.

So, early this morning I was having trouble getting back to sleep (after letting the dog out and back in), so I fired up the laptop and checked some of my favorite websites. One of my favorites is the PortCanaveralwebcam.com, because there's nothing more soothing that watching other people work on the graveyard shift.

Anyway, using the map at the bottom of the webpage I went looking for the Dream and the Fantasy. I couldn't find the Fantasy, but I did find the Dream about 40 miles due west of Castaway Cay. At 2:30 in the morning she should have been moving right along at 20 knots, but instead she was stopped in the middle of no where.

I turned on the "tracking" option and I could see that she'd arrived at Castaway Cay, backed into the berthing area, and then departed normally around 5 yesterday. The track then continued west towards Florida for a couple of hours, then she just stopped and started drifting.

Before going to work I checked on the Dream again, and she was still drifting at 7 this morning. I went to MarineTraffic.com and got a status on what the Dream's transponder was reporting and was surprised to see her status as "Not under command".

When I got to work and checked on her and the status and position were the same. So I asked a co-worker who used to command a coast guard ship and he said that "Not under command" is an official maneuvering status that indicates the ship is either literally not under command, or "not commandable" (i.e. no power).

The good news is that around 9:45 this morning the Dream's transponder status changed to "underway using engine" and since then she's doing around 11 knots and headed towards Florida.

The Dream is not scheduled back in port until 5ish tomorrow (Thursday) morning. It will be interesting to see if she just heads directly to the port and dock later today or keeps her usual schedule.

Wow, that's very interesting BuffaloBill. I wonder what happened? I'm especially interested as The Dream is the only Disney ship I've seen yet in person (saw it at Nassau during our NCL cruise). Sounds like engine troubles perhaps?

Edit: The cruise forums and blogs don't seem to have anything about this at the moment. Very strange.

probably ran out of gas......hard to find a pump open at that hour!

Haha!

Where's an oil rig when you need one?

I don't see how it could be a fuel problem because all of the Disney ships run on combiantion of pixie dust and dilithium crystals.

Seriously, if you really want to know what cruise ships run go to
http://www.shipcruise.org/cruise-ship-engine-propulsion-fuel/

What an excellent article! Extremely interesting. Do the Disney ships use azipods (I'm assuming they do)? It's amazing just how manoeuvrable the ships are being able to spin on the spot with them.

I remember an engineer on our NCL behind the scenes tour telling us that they burn a lower grade (and much cheaper) fuel when out "X" number of miles from land and a cleaner burning fuel near shore.

As of about 5 PM east coast time, the Dream is about 40 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida, heading north at about 10 knots. She is about 125 miles south of Port Canaveral. At her current speed she will reach Port Canaveral in 12 hours (5 AM on Thursday) with is consistent with her usual routine.

Regarding azipods; what I've seen in pictures of the DCL ships in dry-dock or under construction they each have two traditional propellers and multiple side thrusters at the bow and stern. During our cruise on the Dream I saw markings on the side of the ship showing where the side thrusters were located. Also, when the ship moved sideways you could see the water churn up on the opposite side of the ship.

Thanks for the info BuffaloBill. I believe the Norwegian Getaway has a similar design. It has 2 fixed pods and 2 rotating ones. I think it had the side thrusters too as I recall seeing the water churning on the opposite side. When we sailed into the Port of Miami, the ship went down the channel and past the docks, then it did a 180 degree turn on the spot and went sideways to park at the dock. It was quite something to experience.

Here's a really short clip I took of us spinning in Miami port. There was a nice thunderstorm going on too.

And here's the Dream leaving Nassau. I was waiting for the musical horns but they never happened.

Just to close out this mystery...

The Dream docked at the usual time (5 AM) Thursday morning and departed around 4:40 Thursday afternoonn. When I last checked on her late Thursday night, she was doing around 17 knots and headed for Nassau.

Whatever caused the issue Tuesday night has not stopped her from making her appointed rounds.

Thanks for the update BB- I was wondering if anything else transpired...
Good to know all is well!