I thought it was interesting to hear that the Orient Queen - formerly NCL's Starward - has been chartered to evacuate people from Beirut. The old cruise ship will sail under protection from U.S. Naval war ships.

Wow, we sailed on her out of Miami (quite a few years ago). This cruise would NOT be one I'd want to be on. Best wishes in their venture.

I thought this was interesting, too. We never sailed Starward, yet she was part of the fleet when we took our first NCL cruises back in the early 1990s. I just took a look at the brochure (yes, I keep these...), and she's a lot smaller than I remember... roughly 13K GRT.

It's sort of using a row boat when you need a ship that's much larger. The ex-Starward probably can accomodiate 1,000 passengers at a time. Maybe they could squeeze another 500 aboard, depending on the capacity of its lifeboats.

There's at least 25,000 American citizens to evacuate, who knows how many others. I hope those that can afford to fly away do.

Dave,

thanks for letting us know. I hope these people will be able to get out of there, soon.

The ship itself received a multi-million dollar refit last year and is probably better than ever. It is owned by a Lebanese entrepreneur.

I've just learned that the evacuation is not free and that the evacuees(???) are being required to sign promissory notes if they can't pay the fare! The normal fare from Lebanon to Cyprus is roughly $150 US-no info as to what the emergency fare is.

Billy