A Warning - How Secure is Your Cabin Door?

[StormGoddess]

Ouch, that is some scary.

 

I have found over several cruises on different ships, that if you turn the handle to close the door, you actually disengage the locking mechanism. Unfortunately, these doors aren't made to be closed "quietly". This happened to me recently several times on the Mariner. I would, out of courtesy, try to close the door quietly when leaving, but found I could just push it right back open. And until I let the door "slam" shut of it's own force, the doors were not locked.

I spoke to someone in maintanence about it, thinking something was wrong, and he told me no. It is just part of the mechanics of the door and lock mechanism. So I knew at that point, I had to let the door close on it's own. Kind of stinks.

[bunting]

What a scary thing to have happen, glad you and family are OK.....I carry "doorlocks" that I got from QVC the shopping channel....you place the "lock" in between the door latch and frame, shut the door and slide the latch down..then NO ONE can open the door unless you open it first, makes me feel very safe.

 

The only drawback on a ship is how do they get in to evacuate the cabin in an emergency? the locking system of a ship is intended to protect you but to be opened by the ship´s crew in an emergency, a balance of safety and security....

[bubbadog]

i always use deadbolt when we go to sleep,and alot of times, i get up early and go get coffee, but i make sure i hear the door latch when i leave, and double check by pushing on door before i leave, if i came back and a guy was in my room, i would definatly be in combat mode instantly lol, hope this never happens to you guys again, and hope others double check their doors too:)))):rolleyes: :p

[cruise_lover]

i always use deadbolt when we go to sleep,and alot of times, i get up early and go get coffee, but i make sure i hear the door latch when i leave, and double check by pushing on door before i leave, if i came back and a guy was in my room, i would definatly be in combat mode instantly lol, hope this never happens to you guys again, and hope others double check their doors too:)))):rolleyes: :p

 

In my case it would all depend how good looking the guy was. He might need to be rescued from me. (just an older lady of 58 trying to bring a sense of humor here. )

 

But to the original poster - THANKS - I'm like you in the sense that I hate slamming doors shut. Always afraid I will disturb the people in the cabins next to mine. Now I will make sure that the door is securely closed.

 

Glad you and your family were in no danger of being harmed. Especially if you think of all the possibilities that could have happen. And it really sounds like this older guy either had a little too much to celebrate, was suffering from dementia or a combination of both.

[IRcruisin]

The only drawback on a ship is how do they get in to evacuate the cabin in an emergency? the locking system of a ship is intended to protect you but to be opened by the ship´s crew in an emergency, a balance of safety and security....

 

 

Good point..if someone in your room is incapacitated and didn't have anyone with them then the "doorlocks" would be a problem....however in our case we only use them when we are in for the night, we don't drink or take meds so unless something does us both in, one of us could open the door:) BUT I concede to your point...so everyone ignore my doorlocks suggestion...:)

[Guest scfjjb]

Ouch, that is some scary.

 

I have found over several cruises on different ships, that if you turn the handle to close the door, you actually disengage the locking mechanism. Unfortunately, these doors aren't made to be closed "quietly". This happened to me recently several times on the Mariner. I would, out of courtesy, try to close the door quietly when leaving, but found I could just push it right back open. And until I let the door "slam" shut of it's own force, the doors were not locked.

I spoke to someone in maintanence about it, thinking something was wrong, and he told me no. It is just part of the mechanics of the door and lock mechanism. So I knew at that point, I had to let the door close on it's own. Kind of stinks.

 

 

This has also happened to us on a cruise (Princess) and one hotel (Bellagio in Las Vegas). Fortunately only my DH scared the #%*& out of me both times (and he yelled at me for being careless:( ). Slamming doors is good apparently!

[SarahQ]

I thought I would clarify a bit of my original post for those who were wondering...

 

IIRC, the outside of the bathroom door lock assembly has a knob with a slot through it (picture the top of a flat-head screw). You can lock the bathroom from the outside by turning that knob either with something to catch the slot, or if you can get a good enough grip of the knob, you can use your fingers.

 

Exactly...we were just using our fingers to lock it, and usually the tip of a spoon to unlock it. Very useful feature to have, in case you have a kid that locks themselves in the bathroom by accident.

 

That does sound like a horrid experience. I am glad you are all safe.

 

I do have a question though...why would you assume that you would be flamed for recounting your story and warning others to make sure their doors locked securely?:confused:

 

I found something to flame you about. You should be flamed for starting your post with the assumption that the folks on the RCCL board would looking for and excuse to flame you.

 

Ok, so that wasn't the best way to start off; however, there were two reasons I did so...

 

Having been an active reader of the Cruise Critic boards (RCCL and others) I know that anyone who comes along with anything at all negative to say about the particular cruiseline in question will almost always wind up with someone (or multiple someones) flaming them for their opinion, whether it has merit or not. It happens, frequently, and the flamers excuse is usually that its the OPs first post on the board or whatever...its certainly not the majority of responses that are unduly negative, because by far the number of helpful, supportive people on these boards far outweigh the nasty ones, but I thought I'd nip that in the bud just in case it became an issue.

 

Originally, my post detailed specifically our dealings with RCCL Guest Relations and Security staff (some good, some bad, some ugly) regarding this incident, and some of it wasn't at all flattering to RCCL, believe me. For example, for those who asked if someone cleaned up our room...no, we cleaned it (on Liberty in the GSs, the floor is tiled in front of the bathroom, so not as nasty as if it was on the carpet, but still unpleasant to be cleaning up someone else's urine, to say the least). Did we ask them to send someone to clean it - no, should they have offered - yes. I decided that the post was really way too long to get the point across, so I edited all comments about our dealings with RCCL staff on the ship; therefore, my comment about being flamed really didn't make a whole lot of sense in context. My bad!

 

My reason for posting was to warn people about a possible dangerous situation, not necessarily to give a dissertation on how RCCL dealt with the incident - I'd rather see a discussion of the importance of making sure your door is secure (thanks to all of those with suggestions!) and so I'm glad that's what has transpired in this thread.

 

I can personally say that I will NEVER take the security of my stateroom, hotel room or anything else for granted again.

[Mark_K]

Good advice. It could have been a lot worse than an old man.

 

Could have been that you went to bed while your husband was still at the casino, then he came to bed, and then it was someone sneaking into your room, silently opening your safe, taking money out of your husband's wallet, putting it back in the safe and then leaving without you hearing him. (I think that's how the story went, it's been a few years)

[bubbie617]

I didn't read your original post as anything negative about RCCL. The situation did not occur because of any fault on the part of the cruise line. It was one of those unfortunate accidents.

 

I'm reasonably sure that RCCL took care of cleaning up the bathroom and santitizing it for you. If they didn't, then you would have reason to say negative things. As it stands, no one was really at fault here. It was just an accident of circumstances. Sorry it happened. Glad no one was harmed in any way.

[SarahQ]

I didn't read your original post as anything negative about RCCL. The situation did not occur because of any fault on the part of the cruise line. It was one of those unfortunate accidents.

 

I'm reasonably sure that RCCL took care of cleaning up the bathroom and santitizing it for you. If they didn't, then you would have reason to say negative things. As it stands, no one was really at fault here. It was just an accident of circumstances. Sorry it happened. Glad no one was harmed in any way.

 

What I was clarifying was the when I first wrote the post I DID include my negative comments about RCCL's handling of our situation (although it wasn't all bad) but before posting it I edited those comments out, for the reasons stated in my post above.

 

I will say that I absolutely agree this was not RCCL fault; however, it is their responsiblity, and I felt that they didn't deal with that responsibility as well as they could have.

 

I'll re-state - RCCL did nothing to clean/sanitize in anyway due to this incident. When we ran into our cabin steward in the morning, we made him aware of the situation and asked him to sanitize the area with bleach etc. He was not aware that anything had happened and no one else was sent to clean our room at any time.

 

I'll leave it up to the individuals reading this thread to decide if they think that was appropriate or not.

[BobBeaSea]

WOW! I know when I close the cabin door I have to hear the "click". I can see how it could happen....very fortunate it was an older man and nothing more. Your husband handled it very well. The older gentleman must have been a bit shocked as well :eek:.

 

BTW, I grew up not far from you...in the McMaster University area. Small world...:)

[heatherb1958]

What a terrible experience.

 

DH is disabled and walks with a stick.We always drop the deadbolt but when we retire for the night he always puts his stick under the handle of the cabin door, like they do with chairs in the movies!!:) He says it gives us extra protection, even if it didn't stop someone coming into the room we would hear it fall to the floor!

[TDOTCRUISR]

I'm one of those people that compulsively check & re-check the deadbolt. On the Mariner, after everyone was in for the night, I would leave the closet door wide-open, since it happened to be right in front of the cabin door. This way if someone entered, I would hear the main door bang into the closet door. I also leave the bathroom light on, so no one walks into anything in the middle of the night. Paranoia sets in, after hearing so many people try the door handles on cabins & in hotel rooms.

[rednancy1]

Yikes that is scarey. :eek: I'm very sorry that happened to you and your family. I definately think RCI should have had your cabin floor sanitized right away. Bad form on their part.:(

[Cruising89143]

You do have to put some pressure on those doors to shut. I always use the safety lock just in case someone takes the do not disturb card out of the key slot. That way the room steward cannot come in thinking that no one is in the room.

[arabrab]

Wow, as a mom who is continually reminding teenagers to quit slamming doors, I guess I need to rethink my instruction. Slam that door!

 

I'm glad you were all ok.

[VegasPinkGirl]

That does sound like a horrid experience. I am glad you are all safe.

 

I do have a question though...why would you assume that you would be flamed for recounting your story and warning others to make sure their doors locked securely?:confused:

 

 

Maybe she's been on some of the other boards where they'll flame you for just about anything. :D

[Nanatochase]

I could possibly see this guy thinking he was in his room, but didn't he notice that there was NOT a big round bowl in front of him when he was peeing? :confused: . I'm just glad all of you weren't physically harmed.

[jaxon41]

Wow this is scary...Something not so similiar happened to us on our honeymoon sailing. Someone actually walked into our cabin while we were in bed watching a movie, I heard the card go into the door, and chuckled thinking hahaha someone has the wrong room, and then bammm the door opened, the other guest looked as shocked as I was when they realized they had the wrong cabin...This has also happened to me when I was a flight attendant back in the old days, I had walked into rooms after checking in to find people sleeping in the bed. Scary!

It happened on the Mariner in 2005 that someone else's key worked in your door???? What did security have to say?

[aqhacruiser]

I'm glad that you and your family were ok:) I never noticed that you could lock the bathroom door from the outside before and I'll have to check the Explorer in Oct. I wonder why they would have that feature.

[Merion_Mom]

I'm glad that you and your family were ok:) I never noticed that you could lock the bathroom door from the outside before and I'll have to check the Explorer in Oct. I wonder why they would have that feature.

 

Suzanne, it's more that you can manipulate the lock from the outside.

 

That means that you can lock an unlocked door, or unlock a locked door.

 

I use it because my kids will go into the bathroom and lock the door. If they are in the shower and I want something from the bathroom, I stick something rigid in the slot and open it.

 

(to be completely truthful about this, I didn't know all of this - my daughter showed me :))