So, After This, Muster Drills?????

[kitty9]

I've been reading a lot of stories from various news agencies about the horrible incident with Costa Concordia, and from what has been said, it was pure chaos with respect to the muster drills. From all reports, it appears that people were totally out of control, lots of pushing and shoving and people injured because they were trampled. I've always said that if there was a real emergency, in all likelihood things would be totally insane with panic and people out of control. So, can anything change that? While it's a good idea to know where your lifeboat is, in all reality, does that knowledge do any good? People in panic mode aren't going to think rationally and frightened passengers are going to behave badly without any thought of where their muster point is located.

[CruisingChick]

Agree. Most likely if there is a real emergency you won't be in your cabin. While practicing to get to your Muster Station from your cabin is mandatory, how much good does that do if there is a real emergency and you are in the theater, dining room, etc. etc. You will definitely have mass confusion as most people will panic and not know where to go. I guess you could go back to your stateroom but what if that puts you in more danger?

 

Not sure what the answer is to this dilema.

[jackdiamond]

Sadly, I must agree.

[blueboro]

What made this worse is that the way the ship was listing rendered the lifeboats useless. That would probably create panic on any ship.

[The Big Booper]

Anybody ever notice that, even after being on a cruise ship for days, many people still don't know which way to turn after getting off the elevator to go to their cabin? Now imagine at night in a real emergency with only emergency lighting working and the ship tilting and making noises.......

[kitty9]

What made this worse is that the way the ship was listing rendered the lifeboats useless. That would probably create panic on any ship.

 

Yes, that is true. But it's the panic mode that the drills cannot cover. This situation is totally and completely sad.

[CruisingChick]

Now imagine at night in a real emergency with only emergency lighting working and the ship tilting and making noises.......

 

I can't imagine it. When I first heard this news and saw the photos I started to cry. For people that love to cruise, it's just really hard to see.

[DavidYYC]

On the Eclipse 2 weeks ago - Muster Drill was a farce. 75% of the passengers were talking the WHOLE TIME (mostly in Spanish I might add). The officer in charge tried to hush them to no avail. I did feel a qualm of anxiety as to what would happen if there was actually an emergency - not only because they would have no idea of what to do, but also because I would imagine that there would be a lot of the behaviour that supposedly occurred on the Concordia - pushing, shoving etc.

 

I think the crew does their best. (Some of) The passengers are fools!

[grayjay]

This catastrophe renders everybody who loves cruising speechless and makes us sad. I had the worst moment today when I opened up the newspaper and found a whole page advertising the "Concordia" as the place where people have the time of their lives. How terrible and how sad.

But when reading about the accident on the Internet this morning the first thing that came to my mind was that accidents happen but the only chance that the natural and initial panic can subside is when a well-schooled crew knows exactly what to do, where to be and have exercised this as often as possible.

[jgnova]

On our last few Celebrity sailings, the muster stations have been in places like the theater and casino. Some of the articles on the Concordia have quotations from passengers about how they had to crawl on the corridor walls of the listing ship. How would they ever expect to use interior spaces as muster stations in that scenario?

 

Also, we're booked on our first S-class in a few weeks and I recall reading that the life vests are stored in a basket under the bed. Do they enforce some safety reg to be sure they're not blocked by our luggage?

 

I think this accident may lead to several changes in safety procedures. Like the decision to delay evacuation until they got closer to land, which seemed to have prevented the use of the ship's boats because of the increased listing.

 

j

[hulamoon]

We had a muster drill the second day on a HAL med cruise, I know selling drinks is important and everyone is tired from travel but does this make any sense to wait? I have been wondering since that cruise how they get away with waiting.

 

I am pretty sure muster drills do not cover what to do when the life boats are not usable. I am waiting for that question to be answered.

[TeaBag]

I agree that there will be some changes made to the muster drill procedure. These people on the Concordia hadn't even had their drill. Every sailing we have been on has had the muster drill before the ship sailed, but I know that does not always happen.

[DivasDare]

I am so sorry to read about the demise of the ship this morning, and feel that any necessary changes for stricter, controlled muster practices will come from this. And with a cruise coming up this year will welcome it.

[Nonna and Papa]

As I had posted on the thread about the disaster, what would be do if we couldn't get to our life vests and to the life boats? We always think that we'll have time to do what we need to do (the above) to be ready to evacuate in an emergency. But what if we can't, such as what these poor people had to endure? The Concordia seems to floundered too quickly for passengers to be able to get vests and lifeboats.

 

Perhaps muster drill instructions need to consider emergencies where "being prepared" isn't a possibility for panicked passengers.

 

Mary

[Fixit2010]

I think a lot of people have lost sight of how rare an emergency is, let alone an abandon ship.

 

The chances are that most people will cruise their entire lives without incident. Yes another catastrophe will happen but it is statistically low.

 

Unlike an aircraft when the engines fail, where you are subject to the laws of gravity pretty rapidly, ships will still float in most emergencies.

 

The only way to learn to control panic situations is to practice them where hundreds of volunteers are instructed to act like a nutter and the staff have to control the situation.

[Nonna and Papa]

Of course we all never consider than an emergency situation couldn't happen to us, but emergencies do happen, albeit rarely. And we're always taught to proceed to our cabin for our life vest, etc... These people didn't have that opportunity. Nothing was calm...they were panic stricken. That was my point.

 

Mary

[ariawoman]

The drill had not yet happened for this sailing, it was set to occur after they were in Savona. Apparently the cruise actually started in savona (seems like they sell in different waves - rome was one and savona another). So they were having the drill after savona, apparently, when passengers got on.

 

There were folks disembarking in savona, i believe, so those folks would have already had a drill, but the ones that got on in rome didn't yet.

 

Despite the fact that there was no drill I think this was handled pretty well considering the death toll so far....

[cruise kitty]

The thing that has bothered me about Celebrity's drills the last few years, is that you don't know which lifeboat is yours... if a real emergency like yesterday's had occurred on my last cruise I have to honestly say, I would not have gone to my assigned muster station, as it was inside the MDR, which would not have been a safe location on a sinking/listing ship. In fact, it probably would have been underwater, due to it's location....I found HAL's muster drills to be more realistic, you actually take alternate stairways & are shown which lifeboat you're assigned to. I'm all for not taking the lifejackets, because I know people were getting hurt tripping on them, but realistically, in a situation where the ship is taking on water, do you really want to be inside the ship??

[ariawoman]

The thing that has bothered me about Celebrity's drills the last few years, is that you don't know which lifeboat is yours... if a real emergency like yesterday's had occurred on my last cruise I have to honestly say, I would not have gone to my assigned muster station, as it was inside the MDR, which would not have been a safe location on a sinking/listing ship. In fact, it probably would have been underwater, due to it's location....I found HAL's muster drills to be more realistic, you actually take alternate stairways & are shown which lifeboat you're assigned to. I'm all for not taking the lifejackets, because I know people were getting hurt tripping on them, but realistically, in a situation where the ship is taking on water, do you really want to be inside the ship??

 

I felt it odd last year when my muster was inside the MDR on Celebrity as well. I much preferred the one I had on HAL where we were literally at our life boat. This makes sense to me. Gathering in 1 place, to wait there to form a group, then be taken to our lifeboat seems chaotic to me.

 

I dont remember did the cabin door only state our muster station or did it also state our exact lifeboat? If it tells the exact lifeboat, it would behoove us all to go look for it on our own.

[CruisingChick]

I'm all for not taking the lifejackets, because I know people were getting hurt tripping on them,

 

You had to get me stated........That's because people DID NOT LISTEN and took their life jackets off before they got back to their staterooms. They always announced to leave them on, but no people had to take them off and therefore the straps were always dragging behind them creating problems.

[jgnova]

I'll defer to the expertise and experience of others, but I suspect the idea of going to "your" assigned lifeboat could be hazardous and confusing in situations such as this, when the boat is listing so much as to render the boats one side useless. So meeting at central points might be more sensible.

 

As I said earlier, I think this accident will force all of the lines to revise their disaster planning.

 

j

[LAH718]

I agree that there will be some changes made to the muster drill procedure. These people on the Concordia hadn't even had their drill. Every sailing we have been on has had the muster drill before the ship sailed, but I know that does not always happen.

 

Another point made in the articles is passengers were told there was no emergency for about 45 minutes after the accident. If action was taken immediately, maybe more life boats could have been used.

 

The media also reported passengers had to plead with crew to deploy life boats early on in the emergency.

 

There were first time cruisers that never received muster drill instructions.

[mferranti]

I dont remember did the cabin door only state our muster station or did it also state our exact lifeboat? If it tells the exact lifeboat, it would behoove us all to go look for it on our own.

There is no specific lifeboat assignment. It would depend on conditions in the actual emergency.

[AGGSBAGGS]

We have sailed celebrity, p and o and Cunard, the best lifeboat drill was on Cunard where we had to actually put on our lifejackets, the others did not do this. I would suspect after this awful tragedy, things may change. My prayers are with everyone tonight :(

[TRadle]

In all the years I’ve been cruising I’ve never understood going to a muster station in an emergency. I think it would be better to educate passengers on how to find the nearest muster station. It is also my understanding that Celebrity now has a full supply of life vests on every lifeboat so there is no need to go back to the cabin. Is this correct?