Knives on Cruise Ship???

R

robert33usa

Joined
Mar 11, 2002
Messages
29
Hello all! Yeah... I'm the new guy to the forum, been lurking around for a LONG time, but now I have a question that I need answered! Hopefully I can contribute something useful in the future. Now to my question: I am leaving in about a month for a Caribean Cruise with Carnival. I have been on similar cruises in the past and have always carried a spyderco delica with no problems. I always packed it in stow away luggage and then took it out when I reached the boat. I even carried it when I left the boat to go on different islands. Never had any problems.

Since the whole 9-11 thing, have Cruise ships changed thier policies with knives? I have recently switched to a spyderco native as my every day carry knife, but really don't want to have it confiscated on some caribean island. What do you guys think? Should I take the native & not worry about it? I have also debated on leaving the native home and taking a cheap folder (smith & wesson "cuttin horse") and figure it's no big loss if I lose it. Also thinking of taking a SAK tinkerer... also no big loss it's taken away. Any advice would be appreciated!

(Please... no flames about the "cuttin horse" it was a gift from someone with good intentions!)
 
Call the cruise company or travel agent and get a satisfactory answer from a reliable source. That said, I would bet you would not have much hassles bringing a knife on the ship.
 
Celebrity Cruises has metal detectors where you enter and exit the ship at ports. I dont know if this is new because of 9/11 or not. Id expect all self respecting cruise lines to have the same....of course with Carnival, who knows:p
 
One2gofst had it. Contact the cruise line ahead of time. Many things have changed since 9/11.

BTW, Welcome to the Forums! And enjoy the cruise.:)
 
On an airplane, metal detectors and x-ray of hand baggage makes sense. Your checked baggage goes down in the cargo hold and is not accessible to you during the flight. (Yes, it is possible on some passenger planes to get into the cargo hold from the passenger compartment. But, once you're there, you'll find it cold, cramped, dark, and very disorganized. Finding your bag amist it all would be very time consuming. Furthermore, on many planes the bags are put into containers before they're put on the plane. This makes loading and unloading the plane faster. But, it would further confound someone trying to find a specific bag inflight. Also, opening most of the containers is simply mechanically not possible because of the way they're packed in.)

But, on a cruise ship, once you are aboard, you go to your cabin and there's your luggage waiting for you. What good does it do to run you through a metal detector as you board?

I doubt very much that they search the passenger baggage. It's just practical. The cruises I've been on only open the ship for passenger boarding a few hours before departure. They can't. They arrive in port at about 3am. Passengers on the past cruise must depart by 10am. The next cruise sails into the sunset at 6pm. So, they don't open the ship for the passenges on the next cruise until 4pm. This gives them 10am-4pm, six hours, to scrub every stateroom and clean every public area and get everything ready. So, between 4pm and 6pm, they've got to board 2000 passengers AND, nominally, 4000 bags. They haven't got time to be searching bags. Between when you arrive and present your tickets and when you get to your stateroom, they've got maybe 15 minutes to get that bag from the terminal all the way to your stateroom.

And what about locks? Oh, I know. There are like three keys that open every Samsonite ever made. The locks on most suitcase are not for security. They're there to reduce the chance of the bag coming open accidentally if, for example, it gets caught on some mechanism. But my ATA suitcases have real locks on them. They're not unpickable, but even someone who knows how would need five minutes. I've never been asked on a cruise ship or an airplane to open my checked bag. So, obviously, they're not searching checked luggage.

On an airplane, it's fine since I'm separated from my checked luggage. But, on a cruise ship I'm reunited with my unsearched checked luggage within minuites of boarding. So, what good does it do to search me as I board?
 
Chuck,

Interesting run-down of the security situation. I agree it sounds pointless to screen passengers in that scenario. Maybe they are doing it to create the illusion of security to make the passengers FEEL safe. To be honest, I think that most of the changes in Airline security have been motivated by the same desire (to create a perception more than a reality).

I wouldn't think a cruise ship would be as attractive of a target as an airliner, but I do recall that at least one cruise ship was hijacked in my memory (a Greek one?).

On a side-note, I took a cruise many years ago to the Bahamas, and before we returned to our home port we were warned that our luggage would be lined up on the dock and sniffed by a dog. Obviously that didn't have anything to do with knives.
 
I took a Carnival cruise this past Christmas. At every port of call as you left the ship you had to scan your room key at the security check point (which by the way is encoded with your picture) and when you returned to the ship your bags/packages were x-rayed and you were personally wanded with one of the hand held metal detectors. I still carried my C.R.K.T. 24K kiss with me and just held it in my hand with the money facing the security officer with no problem.
 
Think I'll chime in to this one. I went on a resort vacation to Jamaica recently and wondered about the same issues. The knives I carry are 20% for utility 80% as a potential self defense weapon. Like most other honest to goodness knifnuts, I'm almost addicted to carrying.

Yes, I did take knives to Jamaica in checked luggage: A Sebenza, Spiderco Viele, Starmate, and a William Henry gents Spearpoint. I carried discreetly in pocket and waistband on the island. I knew of the potential liabilities but chose the potential advantage and equalizerness (oh it's not a word!)it affords me personally. I'm not the bad guy, don't look like one, not looking for incidents or to attract attention, so figured I'd take my chances and carry.

I came and went without incident. If I thought of my knives more as tools, I wonder if I would care as much? To me tools=work, tactical knives=measure of security. While I don't want to be potentially ready to work I want to be potentially ready to defend.

Philosophically, I think WHY you carry would determine how much you want to abide by the myriad of complexities of international national and local "knife carry' regulations... Just my $.002 worth!
 
My two cents: Do <b>not</b> call the cruise line to ask about knife regs. What the heck are they going to tell you other than "no knives allowed!?" Be real - they have NO interest in your love of knives and EVERY interest in keeping their ship "safe." For them, speaking on the phone to some relative stranger, there's simply no middle ground.

Otherwise, I wouldn't take any knife you can't afford to lose (but that's my advice for any trip abroad).

And I would stow your knife/knives in your luggage when you're checking in. In 1987 I had a SAK Tinker confiscated from me while getting onto a cruise ship. As part of the initial check-in procedure, we were going through security like at the airport. I just set the knife into the dish with all my other metal objects like my watch and keys and coins. If the knife had been IN my suitcase, they never would have known, believe me (this was after high school graduation and my fellow travellers brought aboard all SORTS of verboten contraband in their luggage). Instead, I played the good guy and now some swarthy lackie with a white jacket and badge is carrying my pocketknife.
 
Mnblade, when I asked before going to Jamaica someone on the forums said "call the embassy" and someone else said forget that, was it you, Lol? Well, I didn't call.

Common sense told me that no one will want to give you any sort of positive reply about these things, if anything they'll now think that they are "alerted" that someone wants to carry something.

I'd like to hear from someone who called authorities of any type and were told "Oh you are within your rights and welcomed to carry a pocket knife in...We encourage the personal freedoms of decent life loving citizens."

In spite of not really being able to guarantee your safety, many authorities want to to defer to them completely on the issue of personal safety in the minutest ways.

Be a good human being, know the potential consequences, and act with some of your interest in mind too. I doubt that being caught with a Spyderco native in your pocket, in a routine search, in a port in the Bahamas will lead to a "Midnight Express" ordeal. If they insist let them have the souvenier, They're easy enough to get again. Meantime, you get to cut you sandwiches easier, open packages, and put a little bit of a hurting on a local BG who may want your watch or maybe more...it's ultimately only up to us.
 
The first time I saw cruise ships using the metal detector wands was in the early '90s during Desert Storm. At the time, I was working at a harbor with cruise ship piers. A couple of us went down the pier to inspect it. There were a bunch of people boarding the ship so we waited behind them until we could pass. When we got to head of the line the fool with the wand waved it over me. It started beeping so I just stood there and stared at him. After what seemed like a long time, he realized that we were workers and said, "Oh, I guess you guys can go through." Of course, my partner, who was not as nice of a person as I am, called the guy a name I can't put here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top