Costa Concordia - I survived

[yankeedee]

Thank you for taking the time to post. Prayers for you abd yiurs fir a safe jkurney home

[Orator]

Michele:

I wish to add my thoughts and prayers for your family's safe return to your home. Your message has touched so many who follow Cruise Critic.

[BenMurphy]

so glad that you're safe aand well. Costa appear to have safety issues we were on Classica a couple years back it had a 16 ft hole in the side.They also lost two crew members in Port Said. Have a safe journey home.

regards Josie.

[nbp]

Michelle! Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us!!Thoughts and prayers are with you and your family and also for all those that were on this ship!!

[Dayenu]

Hugs, and best wishes to your family!

[curcurt]

I agree. I have been on three cruises. I know I barely paid attention. Many people did not go, pay attention or listen. There is/was approximately 1000 cremembers for 4000 passengers. So if you assume that 1/4 (250) of those cremembers are fluent in the majority passenger language, and of those 250 how many are 100% certified to abandon ship?

 

Before you cry 'foul' look it like this. How many of the 4000 made any effort to make themselves responsible for their own safety? Im willing to bet on the cruises I went on at least 1/2 of the passengers paid any attention to the life jacket drill. So 2000 people, would need little to no help, getting life jackets. The boats? Who knows.

 

You end up with 2000 people being totally helpless hoping to find 250 totally squared away employees.

 

I base this on my experience as a former marine, former police officer, current husband and father.

 

My children can't find their clothes for school every morning. Let a tree fall in their room in a storm and all bets are off. And they have lived here for 11 years and know where everything is.

 

To the OP, I am glad you are ok and I hope you and those that read your story can take something from this and keep the lessons learned.

 

We are all creatures of habit. We need to make a habit out of preparing for accidents.

 

Very well stated. I am sure all these crew members were trained for their assigned safety responsibilities. But did this training have all these events happening, major hull breach, power failure, very little communication through chain of command, weather, tilting of ship, and most all 5,000 people to save. I doubt their training included most of this, but was taught as a presentation as something that may happen. Logistics will also come into play with 5,000 people all of sudden needing some sort of help. Everything from shelter, medical, clothing, water, food, transportation, documentation of people, communications, personnel to do these tasks, etc., will need to be provided for 5,000 very quickly. I am sure there is a written plan for this, but getting these resources in place, will take hours, if not days.

 

I would assume some of these crew members were sent to do damage control or damage assessment. How many crew members were just as confused as the passengers, due to the language barrier. I am sure a certain number of them panic, as they are just human as the rest of us.

 

When we did the muster drills on our cruises, there is no major event going on somewhere on the ship. The muster drills where calm and very well done. Now throw in a major event somewhere on the ship and all bets are off that this muster drill will go well. Can this even be taught to the crew, without having 4,000 passengers on the training ship that was used. Real time events are hard, very hard to train for, when dealing with these large groups of people.

 

Everybody must take control of some part of their own safety, as the help we assume will be there, may not be there to help us when something like this happens.

 

Been through Hurricane Katrina and had the displeasure of what our leaders can do for us, in the RESPONSE mode. Took the responsibility upon ourselves and we took control of the post event problems. I believe the Italians did the best they could, with the limited resources available at the time of the event. The number of people saved or rescued speaks for itself, as far as what the crew and the Italian government did.

 

Michelle thanks for your story and hope your trip home is a safe one.

[BudgieGirl]

Thanks Michelle for giving us your version of what happened to you and your daughter. Glad you are both safe but still so far from home. Best wishes. xx

 

Chrissy

[sailoruk]

Michelle

thank you for having the courage in such awful and difficult circumstances to post your harrowing story.

You will get home and will soon be in the comfort of loved ones.

Have been watching the news , it is like seeing movie, only this time it is for real

[Seago2]

Thank you so much for taking the time to update us on your nightmare. IIRC you were the person who posted something about bad luck in your roll call. I'm sure you never imagined this. Hope you get home very soon- and that your daughter is ok.

[sunshine002]

Michelle;

 

So glad to hear your story and that you and that you and your family are ok!

[mla1962]

What a shambles. It is not just Costa, one has to remember that ORGANIZATIONAL skills are NOT an Italian strength .

 

Tragically as in this instance when something goes wrong in Italy, there is a lot of screaming and arm waving and chaos . Sadly typically Italian .

 

Really not the time nor the place to be judging an entire nation, don't you think? I believe the people who came to the rescue of these passengers, the police, the firemen, the helicopter pilots, the rescue boat pilots, were also all Italian and they seemed very well organized. The shop keepers, the residents of the small town all organized themselves for this emergency and helped out. So let's not clump all Italians into the same basket. Especially in this day and age, we need to stop this habit of stereotyping people based on their nationality.:mad:

[Shar27]

Michelle,

 

I am so thankful that you and your family have survived this horrible ordeal. Please know that we are all praying for your quick and safe return home.

[Cruiseship16]

Glad you are well. Thank you for sharing your story. It is good if can read feedback from survivor from cruise ship accident.

Wish safe journey to home for you and your family!

 

Best wishes

Anneli

[CFamilyWales]

Thank You for sharing your horror story, it seems so frightening an experience, we send our Best Wishes to You and Your Family.

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

Michelle, I am so very thankful that you and your daughter are now safe and warm. I hope you are both able to get some rest and that you can travel home soon and safely.

 

I add to the others in thanking you for sharing your story. We are very experienced cruisers, but we will definitely, definitely be making some changes to the things we do on future cruises as a result this incident and more specifically, your experience shared here. For a long time, we have stored electronic copies of passports and other items. But, from now on, I will be keeping a bag containing a bit of money, credit card, smartphone/charger and a few supplies on the shelf with our life jackets. We can't prepare for every eventuality, but we can do better than we're doing now.

[kazu]

Michelle - like the others, I am grateful that you are well and thank you for sharing your experiences. I am surprised that more has not been done for you and believe that it should have. How wonderful that at least your Embassy has given some help.

 

I do hope that help comes to you to get you home sooner and safely.

[flag fan]

A common thread to all these incidents of problems are sea are the frustrations with lack of information. I think the failure to provide for blankets, clothes, food, etc. by a cruise line when a ship founders between ports of call is understandable, but failing to let passengers and crew know the state of things and giving no information or clearly incorrect information is the biggest problem in this case (apart from whatever mistakes were made that led to the accident itself).

 

I wonder how much of the information gap is due to the actions of the captain and the senior officers. It sounds like the crew were as misinformed as the passengers. It must have been very hard on them. I hope we eventually learn why there was such chaos and why the emergency evacation plans were not handled correctly.

[Fury1995]

Only on page 4, but want to answer to this. The poster is perfectly correct. People now a days expect rescues "yesterday", as if every thing was in place with expectations this was going to happen. No one is on call 24/7 at every port already in their rescue boats, helicopters, reserved hotel rooms, busses to get them there, a new set of clothing to change into, a hot meal waiting, new passports and credit cards waiting etc.

Those rescued first should be grateful they are even on land, but the complaints of lack of conveniences has started, while they forgot the rest of the people still waiting for their rescue just to get to the land. Gee, "I was cold, I was hungry, my Hilton room didn't give me new clothes etc"

 

 

This is just disturbing to me. How can you possibly judge how someone should feel after going through a situation like this?

 

As cruise line passengers, some of us longtime cruisers, we are conditioned to believe (not told that it's impossible) just conditioned to believe that this won't happen... and it shouldn't have.

 

Would you honestly ever take a cruise if you gave serious consideration that your trip could be "the one"? Would you take your loved ones? Next time you are at a muster drill, look around... just watch how many people pay attention, I mean intently listen to the instructions of what to do.. about as many people that pay attention to the flight attendants on planes.

 

No one actually thinks their plane is going to crash, no more than passengers aboard a cruise liner think their ship is going to sink. How can anyone possibly criticize people for their reaction in this situation?

 

I' guess I'm super selfish because if I were on this cruise, I would ONLY be thinking of myself and my family first and foremost and our well being and safety before strangers that I don't know. I am being honest... Could you possibly look at your loved ones and tell them "stop complaining, you should be grateful you're on dry land"...?

 

This is a worse case scenario for any cruise line... I'm quite certain plans are in place for this, unprecedented as it is... This isn't a case of delay due to mechanical failure and flights missed etc, etc, etc.. A 4,100 capacity cruise ship hit something and sank quickly with no warning in the middle of the night forcing everyone to abandon ship with nothing in hand. So yeah, call me crazy but I'd expect things to be handled for me by someone or some agency asap... information on how to get help, at the very least.

[Lionesss]

I cannnot even begin to imagine the fear you have gone through.

Thanks for sharing.

[ducklite]

A common thread to all these incidents of problems are sea are the frustrations with lack of information. I think the failure to provide for blankets, clothes, food, etc. by a cruise line when a ship founders between ports of call is understandable, but failing to let passengers and crew know the state of things and giving no information or clearly incorrect information is the biggest problem in this case (apart from whatever mistakes were made that led to the accident itself).

 

I wonder how much of the information gap is due to the actions of the captain and the senior officers. It sounds like the crew were as misinformed as the passengers. It must have been very hard on them. I hope we eventually learn why there was such chaos and why the emergency evacation plans were not handled correctly.

 

It sounds like there was criminal culpability on the part of the captain and at least some officers. I suspect that the hero's will end up being passengers and the lowest level crew as this story unfolds.

 

And if there is criminal culpability on behalf of the officers, it's unfortunate that Italy is a Catholic country. You can take that however you'd like.

[mizdiz]

Michelle, Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I am sorry your family and thousands of others had to go through this.

[LauraS]

On behalf of everyone here at Cruise Critic, particularly the Community, I'd like to say "thank you" for taking the time to share your story with us. We immediately checked the ROLL CALL for this sailing and reached out to you and are so glad we now know you are safe.

 

There's so much more to this thing we call the internet, isn't there.

 

Please, continue to stay safe.

 

Laura

[quanmama]

I am so glad to hear that you guys are safe. It must have been horrifying especially for your daughter. Praying for everyone a safe journey home!

[MusicalBear]

Michelle,

 

So glad to hear that you and your family made it safely away from that terrible tragedy. Thank you for sharing with all of us what happened during a chaotic situation. Please have a safe trip home and keep us all posted on how Carnival Corporation handles the situation. May all of your future cruises be happy and peaceful.

 

Barb

[SkyGuy747]

Thanks for sharing your story and I'm very glad you and your family are safe.

 

I am always a little concerned when I'm in a place or conveyance where I don't speak the native language well. In an crisis, it's human nature to revert to your native tongue for emergency communication. Emergencies are always chaotic by comparison and not understanding any information provided really compounds that. I certainly don't want to suggest that we only do things 'hosted' in our native language - there's so much more of the world to see! But, when I'm out of my language 'element' I am aware that I must rely on no one but myself for safety.

 

We are quick to condemn Costa in this case for the way they handled the situation, yet in less than 24hrs, some (most?) passengers have been provided with ferry transportation from the island to the mainland, bus transportation from the mainland to the airport or port of origin, hotel accommodation and food of some sort. All largely organized in the middle of the night on a weekend. Not to mention the hospitality of the good people of Giglio in the hours immediately following the crisis.

 

While it's conjecture on my part, I suspect a great deal more specific information was provided in Italian than it was in English. That said, Michele and her family are safe in an airport hotel, so even though it is frustrating to not know what is happening, it has happened!

 

Could it have been handled better? I suspect so. Most emergencies could have been handled better - we learn from all of them. Is it 'shame worthy' as some suggest? I don't have enough information to agree or disagree.

 

Again, so glad you're safe, and there's good advice above about taking some time to process this and work through your emotions - you have been through a very traumatic event, the effects of which most of us will never fully comprehend.