Princess Chatter

"Costa Concordia skipper Francesco Schettino was a self-confessed playboy who strutted round the ship with stunning women on his arm, his crew claimed last night.

They said he treated the £390million cruise liner as if it was his own personal super-yacht and hosted lavish dinners for glamorous guests at his table.

He apparently loved being treated like a celebrity on the 13-storey liner, which capsized off the coast of Italy last Friday killing 11 passengers.

On the fateful night, passengers said Schettino strolled into the restaurant with two young beauties on his arm – one of them Moldovan ballerina Domnica Cemortan, 25. She has denied they were romantically linked.

Another Filipino worker added: “He had women dining at his table with the other officers most nights. I never saw him drinking alcohol but it seemed like just being a captain gave him more of a buzz than getting drunk.”

Friends were used to seeing him sail the world’s 15th biggest cruise liner – capable of carrying 4,300 passengers and crew – “like a Ferrari” and upsetting harbour masters with reckless manoeuvres.

At the beginning of each cruise, Schettino would parade on the stage of the ship’s auditorium along with his fellow officers. He gave a speech, praising his crew and promising a cruise to remember, before toasting his colleagues with a glass of champagne.

He would then walk off the stage and back on to the bridge of the liner. Staff said they were used to seeing Schettino, 52, wining and dining beautiful women most nights of the cruise.

On the night of the disaster off Giglio, Schettino was in high spirits. He was joined in the Concordia Club by his two female companions around 9pm, drawing envious glances from passengers and crew.

Italian prosecutors have no clue who the mystery brunette was and are keen to interview her.

Costa bosses confirmed the blonde companion was Ms Cemortan – who later admitted being on the bridge of the ship when Schettino desperately tried to save it from disaster.

A senior source said: “To be honest, nobody quite knows what Captain Schettino was up to in those last few hours.”

Schettino also held court in the Concordia’s cognac bar – one of 13 bars on the boat.

British passenger Ricky Muir, from Glasgow, said: “He was treated like a star and clearly loved it. ”

A senior Costa official added: “It’s clear the captain did a lot of socialising, he was well known for it.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2012/01/21/costa-concordia-crew-members-claim-captain-was-playboy-who-treated-liner-as-his-own-yacht-115875-23709988/

The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy's coast, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station.

In an interview with GMA Network, cook Rogelio Barista said Capt. Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident.

"We wondered what was going on. ... At that time, we really felt something was wrong. ... The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was," Barista told GMA.

Schettino ordered dinner around 10:30 p.m. Friday, Barista said. Authorities say the ship struck the rocks at 9:41 p.m.

"I have had 12 years of experience as a cook on a cruise ship. ... I have even witnessed fires, so I wasn't that scared," Barista said. "But I did wonder, though, what the captain was doing ... why was he still there."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/europe/italy-cruise-cook/index.html

"The captain has also denied Italian newspaper reports that he was joined on the bridge at one point by Domnica Cemortan, a 25-year-old Moldovan ballerina."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jt_Q9ihv6Uv6U1eEczqEi9CjjlPg?docId=CNG.b02498835d57a2cde70252bf1fb47b37.1d1

The mother of a two-year-old daughter is now wanted for questioning by investigators looking for more details about the run-up to the accident. Investigators are looking closely at her after father-of-one Schettino is said to have told them the former dancer was onboard with her husband - a blatant lie.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2089650/Costa-Concordia-cruise-ship-worker-Domnica-Cemortan-denies-shes-Francesco-Schettinos-lover.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

"It has only been days since the ship hit land on the western cost of Italy, but Hollywood already has big plans to expose the truth behind the Costa Concordia disaster.

Perhaps there will even be a movie made based off of this disaster, which seems to be following in Titanic’s footsteps."

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/hollywoods-plans-costa-concordia-01-20-2012

"It didn’t take long for Hollywood to pick up on the dramatic elements of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster.

Setting: Giglio Island off of the beautiful Italian coast.

Plot: Cruise ship captain seen drinking with a beautiful lady, cruise ship hits rocks, passengers flee in lifeboats, while some have seemingly vanished for good.

The real-life shipwreck that left 11 dead and 23 missing was a tragedy, and the powers that be in Hollywood are ready to cash in on the chaos, E! reports.

Dr. Phil already locked up interviews with two American passengers aboard the cruise ship.

“It’s just unbelievable,” survivor Georgia Ananias said in a clip set to air Friday on Dr. Phil’s talk show. “At that point, we didn’t know. One thing that we did know, though, it wasn’t just the captain that wasn’t there. None of the officers were there.”

The Discovery Channel is set to air a special that will “piece together” elements of the disaster."

http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/20/hollywood-doesnt-waste-any-time-capitalizing-on-cruise-ship-disaster/

Editor: Please tell me that Princess will never ever play a movie about this tragedy on the MUTS.

"The chief executive of the company that owns the Costa Concordia cruise ship says the captain who grounded it off the coast of Tuscany did not relay correct information to the company or the crew after the vessel hit rocks.

CEO Pierluigi Foschi told Italian state TV Friday his company spoke to the captain at 10:05 p.m., some 20 minutes after the ship was grounded but could not offer proper assistance because the captain's description "did not correspond to the truth."

Capt. Francesco Schettino only said he had "problems" aboard but did not mention hitting rocks.

Foschi said crew members were not informed of the gravity of the situation either."

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/ceo-costa-captain-misled-company-crew-15406446#.TxniPIHCaSo

"Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia vessel that ran aground a week ago, told magistrates that he spoke to Costa Crociere SpA 10 times to tell the Carnival Corp. (CCL) unit what had happened, Corriere della Sera reported.

Schettino said he spoke to the person responsible for the crisis unit and asked for helicopters and tugboats because he thought the damage could be repaired, according to the Italian newspaper. He said he started to prepare for an evacuation and didn’t want to cause panic, according to Corriere. Schettino also told magistrates he thought the vessel would be pushed closer to the shore where it would have been easier to disembark, the daily newspaper reported.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-21/concordia-captain-told-costa-ship-was-in-trouble-corriere-says.html

Mr Foschi defended the company’s safety record on Monday and said “all our crew members behaved like heroes. All of them.’’

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f2e9e1e0-4385-11e1-adda-00144feab49a.html#axzz1k2GPxikM

"There are several remaining mysteries.

** A major criticism of rescued passengers was that they were not told what to do and the crew was noticeably absent during the crisis.  While a few crew members helped evacuate people, most passengers report that they didn’t see crew or the crew didn’t know what to do.  Seven bodies were found at muster stations (where passengers meet to board lifeboats) in life jackets.  This is the procedure passengers are told to follow during lifeboat drills, although crew weren’t present to tell them how to proceed.

** Costa Cruises CEO said Concordia made a close pass of Giglio Island last August although not closer than 500 meters.  However several days ago the British shipping journal Lloyd’s List Intelligence said that its satellite tracking information indicated that Costa Concordia sailed within 230 meters in August, even closer than it did last Friday.

** Costa Concordia is on a fixed itinerary, sailing each week to ports in France, Spain and Italy and passengers embark and disembark in each port.  The ship’s lifeboat drill was scheduled the following morning and roughly 600 passengers who boarded that day in Rome didn’t know how to proceed in an emergency.  At present maritime law stipulates cruise ships must schedule lifeboat drills within 24 hours of leaving home port.  Should laws be changed so than drill must take place before the ship leaves the port of embarkation?

** When Costa Concordia listed and sank into the water, most lifeboats couldn’t be launched.  Should cruise lines be required to build ship with lifeboats sitting on deck instead of hanging over the side on davits?

** Why did the crew tell passengers to return to their cabins or walk in the hall, that it was an electrical problem — after water began pouring into the vessel?

** There was a 45 minute wait between the accident, when passengers were told it was an electrical problem, and the order to abandon ship was given.    During that time the situation deteriorated rapidly.  Why weren’t passengers immediately told to return to their cabins, get life vests and proceed to muster stations?"

http://travel.usatoday.com/alliance/cruises/shipcriticblog/post/2012/01/Costa-Concordia--Unanswered-Questions-Remain/608734/1

"The owners of the sinking Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi told a newspaper on Friday.

Costa has suspended Schettino and declared itself an injured party in the case, in which the captain is accused by prosecutors of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship before all the passengers were evacuated."

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0120/Costa-Concordia-owners-deny-knowing-about-captain-s-near-shore-salutes