Balcony Chairs Zip-tied to Recline Only

[luv2sail]

That .05 piece of plastic is a deal breaker for me. Life has gotten in the way of my cruise planning obsession. I am 4 balcony nights away from diamond. I was popping in to catch up before "shopping" for a cruise. The balcony is my #1 reason for loving to cruise. Listening to the water while looking out on the beautiful ocean brings such peace to my crazy life. But I need to sit up to see it.

[barjpoe]

Just got off Icon; Yes the balcony chair are zip tied in the semi-recline. Asked the Hotel director and he said someone was very seriously hurt. He also mentioned that fleet wide the chairs will be replaced.

[smokeybandit]

Zip ties have already been added to the cruise go bag for this situation.

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

Ughhh I so hope the chairs on Freedom balconies are not tied!  I was definitely planning to spend some reading time relaxing out there but if the chair is tied…

I will be dragging the vanity chair out there!

[WAAAYTOOO]

For the record.  On SY today (JS) and our balcony chairs are zip tied in the half-reclining position.  I haven’t sat down in one yet so I have no idea if it’s an issue or not.  

[twangster]

Serenade balcony chairs are just that, chairs that can't recline.  

Yet they have been labeled with stickers.

[Southern Waters]

My one and only cruise for 2025 is coming up in 6 weeks and this asinine situation is still not resolved. I can't believe there isn't someone at RCL with some brains and common sense who can put an end to this. They have to be getting loads of complaints. 

[Southern Waters]

29 minutes ago, twangster said:

Serenade balcony chairs are just that, chairs that can't recline.  

Yet they have been labeled with stickers.

I certainly hope whoever decided to put stickers like those on chairs that don't recline isn't in charge of anything crucial.

[twangster]

2 hours ago, Southern Waters said:

My one and only cruise for 2025 is coming up in 6 weeks and this asinine situation is still not resolved. I can't believe there isn't someone at RCL with some brains and common sense who can put an end to this. They have to be getting loads of complaints. 

There has to be attorneys involved, and a plaintiff.  

[teddy]

9 hours ago, twangster said:

Serenade balcony chairs are just that, chairs that can't recline.  

Yet they have been labeled with stickers.

You can’t make stuff like this up. 

[Southern Waters]

As was posted above, someone was seriously hurt; it could be that the chair fell into the flat position while someone was sitting in it. Fine, secure the chairs so that they don't do that again but put them upright. For me, the position is the issue, not that they're zip-tied. 

[RCDM-123]

Buddy of mine just got off Independence. Zip tied balcony chairs, in a position that makes them useless. He was told that somebody was very drunk, layed on the chair flat, and DIED by asphyxiation. No idea if that's true, but even if it is, there are many questions.

1) Why are the chairs zip tied to reclined, and not upright? 

2) Why just balcony chairs? Couldn't the same thing happen with pool recliners? Or the beds?

3) Why doesn’t anybody in RC public relations positions know this is fleet-wide and is now company policy?

4) Are the zip ties all they are going to do, or will the chairs be replaced? When? If just zip tied, are they checking and replacing the ones people are cutting off?

Please RC ... somebody MUST be monitoring this blog. Everybody is getting different stories. What's really going on and what are your plans?

[cmdrfrag]

2 hours ago, Southern Waters said:

As was posted above, someone was seriously hurt; it could be that the chair fell into the flat position while someone was sitting in it. Fine, secure the chairs so that they don't do that again but put them upright. For me, the position is the issue, not that they're zip-tied. 

Agreed, this was my problem. 
And this may seem like a real 1st world problem but I am old, I'm fat and I have a bad back. Give me back support on my chairs lol

[smokeybandit]

Just remember, there's a warning label on strollers to not have a kid in the strollers when it's folded up.

Common sense people pay the price for those spastic people out there who lack it.

[Southern Waters]

1 hour ago, cmdrfrag said:

Agreed, this was my problem. 
And this may seem like a real 1st world problem but I am old, I'm fat and I have a bad back. Give me back support on my chairs lol

My problem isn't my back but an old tailbone injury from my youth. It flares up when I sit for more than a few minutes in a reclining position on a non-padded chair like the ones here.

ETA: @Matt , weren't you just on a cruise? What did you experience in regard to the chair situation?

[Gilley]

Just got off Utopia today.  No zip ties on my own view balcony.

[smokeybandit]

10 hours ago, Southern Waters said:

ETA: @Matt , weren't you just on a cruise? What did you experience in regard to the chair situation?

They probably had to zip tie him to the chair

[FionaMG]

On Freedom now. Our chairs are zip-tied in the upright position and also have the "Do not lay flat" stickers on them.

 

[Peter D]

2 hours ago, Gilley said:

Just got off Utopia today.  No zip ties on my own view balcony.

We had a Jr Suite during mid November cruise on Utopia and the chairs were not zip tied, but the following Thanksgiving cruise on Freedom did have zip ties.  I wonder it if also depends on the balcony sizes.  The Jr suite balcony was much larger than the Freedom balcony.

[Southern Waters]

I did a search online for "balcony chairs zip-tied Royal Caribbean" and found threads on 2 other cruise message boards, one of them 7 pages that started in August. One of the posts had a link to a 2023 lawsuit filed by someone who ended up with a broken neck after the chair back suddenly dropped and she hit her head on the glass door. It might be the reason all this is going on, but if so it seems like a lot of time passed before they made this change.

[smokeybandit]

7 hours ago, Southern Waters said:

I did a search online for "balcony chairs zip-tied Royal Caribbean" and found threads on 2 other cruise message boards, one of them 7 pages that started in August. One of the posts had a link to a 2023 lawsuit filed by someone who ended up with a broken neck after the chair back suddenly dropped and she hit her head on the glass door. It might be the reason all this is going on, but if so it seems like a lot of time passed before they made this change.

I'm trying to figure out the physics of how someone could hit their head on the glass from the chair reclining. Wouldn't the chair stop any recline because it hit the glass?

[InmyElement]

We just got off Odyssey out of NJ, both zip tied in lounge mode. 3 out of the 8 days were too cold to be out there, so we made it work, but I did bring zip ties just in case.

 

[Southern Waters]

18 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm trying to figure out the physics of how someone could hit their head on the glass from the chair reclining. Wouldn't the chair stop any recline because it hit the glass?

These chairs aren't all the same, since some recline and some don't. Maybe she was sitting in one with a shorter back that ends at about her shoulder. The chair could've been positioned just far enough away from the glass that her head was the first thing to hit the glass. Here's a link to the lawsuit filing. The incident happened on Freedom in Nov '22, lawsuit filed March '23.  

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/florida/flsdce/1:2023cv21171/640961/161/

[Traveler]

Well , I guess Royal need also to lock the balconies since people can fail from the rail , (even infinity balcony has its risks as people can lean on the open window).
They should also closed all the open decks as people can fail from the decks .
They should also stop serving people food with sugar as some people might have hidden diabetes.
Stop putting salt in the food as it might impact blood pressure.
Stop serving hot coffee from the same reason.
All food should be gluten free 
And so on and so on , 
Why people should take any responsibilities ?  

[WAAAYTOOO]

9 hours ago, FionaMG said:

On Freedom now. Our chairs are zip-tied in the upright position

Finally !  Some sanity.

[smokeybandit]

1 hour ago, Southern Waters said:

These chairs aren't all the same, since some recline and some don't. Maybe she was sitting in one with a shorter back that ends at about her shoulder. The chair could've been positioned just far enough away from the glass that her head was the first thing to hit the glass. Here's a link to the lawsuit filing. The incident happened on Freedom in Nov '22, lawsuit filed March '23.  

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/florida/flsdce/1:2023cv21171/640961/161/

That indeed seems like the kind of lawsuit that put warning labels on strollers to not fold them up when kids are in the stroller. There's surely more to that story.

[Pooch]

Or that hot coffee is, well, hot!!!

[barjpoe]

10 hours ago, FionaMG said:

On Freedom now. Our chairs are zip-tied in the upright position and also have the "Do not lay flat" stickers on them.

 

I guess some people can not read or understand the English language!

 

[Southern Waters]

10 hours ago, FionaMG said:

On Freedom now. Our chairs are zip-tied in the upright position and also have the "Do not lay flat" stickers on them.

 

This would be fine with me because I never recline my balcony chair. It's funny, on one of those other forums there were several people complaining that their chairs were secured upright and they wanted to be able to recline them. If the chairs must be zip-tied, you should be able to choose upright or reclined.

[Matt]

22 hours ago, Southern Waters said:

ETA: @Matt , weren't you just on a cruise? What did you experience in regard to the chair situation?

I was on the same ship as @twangster, but I was in an inside. No zip ties when you have no balcony!

[Southern Waters]

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

There's surely more to that story.

I agree with you, especially considering it was over a year between the lawsuit being filed and this action being taken. It may not even be the reason they did it. One of the posters said this but didn't provide a link or source:

 

[smokeybandit]

Millions of people cruised with those deck chairs and had no issues.

This seems like this person was doing something inappropriate on the balcony which led to the accident.

[twangster]

9 hours ago, Matt said:

I was on the same ship as @twangster, but I was in an inside. No zip ties when you have no balcony!

Is you true you had to cancel a live because it was so dark?

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

I got off Freedom last week…had an Aft JS…No zip ties but the chairs were straight chairs that did not recline at all.  There were 2 loungers as well and they could be moved to any position.

[Matt]

14 hours ago, twangster said:

Is you true you had to cancel a live because it was so dark?

[Cakemeister]

On 12/10/2024 at 6:51 AM, smokeybandit said:

That indeed seems like the kind of lawsuit that put warning labels on strollers to not fold them up when kids are in the stroller. There's surely more to that story.

I read some of that link. To my non-lawyer eyes, it appears that Royal bought the cheaper model chair that doesn't have a lie-flat mode instead of the more expensive one that does. 

[Crown&AnchorEsq]

RCL seemed to feel that the chairs were safe as is prior to the Summary judgment decision, they tried to argue as much.  Problem seems to be that the chair manufacturer specifically advises against laying the chair flat for anything other than shipping.  Plaintiff was purportedly injured when she lay the chair flat and RCL's own team apparently testify that they knew the chairs were not supposed to recline all the way but did not specifically do anything about it. 

The more expensive chair issue just relates to RCL's duty to warn.  RCL tried to argue that the lack of locking mechanism was open and obvious but the more expensive chair apparently did have a locking mechanism.  As a result, the court concluded that a jury should get to hear about whether the chair was dangerous in a way that RCL should have warned about.  

The timing of the Summary Judgment decision and the addition of the zip-ties/warnings would suggest that RCL was pretty confident the court would agree that the chairs were safe.  Once the court disagreed they added warnings /zip ties to avoid future "failure to warn" arguments. Law suits, even those that do not seem meritorious, tend to be very expensive.  The first part of that linked decision included references to six different experts, three on each side.  RCL as defendant is not only paying for their attorneys but they are also paying for those doctors amongst a myriad of other costs.   

darn lawyers, ruining everyone's fun

[smokeybandit]

No zip ties on brilliance,  at least for my cabin

[Southern Waters]

If our balcony chairs on Harmony are zip-tied in the reclining position, I've decided that I'll politely ask that they be zip-tied in the upright position instead. Hopefully they won't be unreasonable and refuse. 

[Southern Waters]

I'm happy to report that our balcony chairs on Harmony aren't zip-tied.  They're in the most upright position possible; although it looks a little reclined, it's upright enough for me.