Topic: Carnival orders safety review across all cruise brands

QUOTE:

On the big new ships (oasis, Epic, Allure) they do a full Muster Station roll call by using a bar-code scanner to read you sea-pass card. This is very quick.

The new emphasis is not on abandoning the ships (not wise when you have 6,000 passengers) but on 'safe return to port' of the ship - the ship itself being the lifeboat. (See my Oasis post/video)

This of course did not work for Concordia.

thats a good idea malcolm!(barcode scanner) of your sea pass.but sorry malcolm, i am at a bit of a loss here,having not yet been on either of these ships,can i just ask you to clarify...are you saying this is done at the muster station?..as per boarding and leaving the ship?

QUOTE:

thats a good idea malcolm!(barcode scanner) of your sea pass.but sorry malcolm, i am at a bit of a loss here,having not yet been on either of these ships,can i just ask you to clarify...are you saying this is done at the muster station?..as per boarding and leaving the ship?

The same thing happened on one of our recent cruises. However, I can't remember whether it was Adonia in July 2011 or Pacific Princess in October 2011. Members of the crew used hand-held scanners to check passengers' key cards, as they entered the muster station. It was very quick, and did not delay proceedings.

There are a couple of things to my mind that does not add up to a good muster into the lifeboats.

Hopefully this episode never happens again, on Thomson ships your life vest is in the cabin, and I presume this is the same on a lot of ships. Passengers then have to return to their cabins to collect the life vest putting them in danger when they have to leave the ship quickly. Surely it may be better to have as they say "belt & braces" by having sufficient life vests in the life boats or somewhere on the outside of the ships decks, as well as in the cabin.

Some ships have shute's like on aircraft for quick evacuation, this may have helped in this case where the ship was listing and life boats could not be launched.

You are told that there are enough life vests on deck if it is not safe to return to your cabin.
Also, those shute things seem to be only on freighters etc. If you mean the lifeboat type. There would just not be enough room on a cruise ship to have enough of those.
An escape in one of those would be hair-raising to say the least, but also life saving.I personally have not seen or heard about the aircraft type slides on cruise ships. Anyway, there would have to be crew qualified to operate them. From what I saw on evacuation from Concordia .. there were cooks and waiters helping people get into lifeboats.
Well done them!

I have sailed on the Grand Princess twice and I am going on another cruise with Princess Cruises this summer, as well as on a P & O Ship at Christmas. Both companies are owned by Carnival and I fee perfectly safe. I think that Cruising is still one of the safest ways to travel. When was the last time you heard of a Cruise Liner sinking before this incident? By the way The Grand Princess had two drills, each time, just after we left the port in Southhampton, on the first day of both our cruises. Either it was not done on the Costa ship because of the culture of that particular cruise line or even that particular ship. Do not tar all Carnival cruise ships the same way. The Grand Princess was well organised and a joy to be on. I felt each time the Captain was proud of his ship and felt responsible for all the passengers. He was not going to let anything happen to both. I think most Ship Captains feel the same, they are proud of their command over such beautiful ships.

Can I just ask you to clarify - are you saying this is done at the muster station? as per boarding and leaving the ship

The crew used hand-held scanners to check passengers' key cards, as they entered the muster station

Same here, on our recent Emerald Princess cruise - they scanned cruise cards as we came into the muster station and explained it was a good way to identify anyone who hadn't attended. Apparently they still have printed passenger lists too, as a back up

Cheers,
Lynn

From expert comments during coverage of the Concordia disaster,it is apparent that in the case of the largest vessels carrying some 8000 or more passengers and crew on board,should a major incident occur,and which necessitated a full evacuation be made immediately,it would be physically impossible to do so quickly enough!.Having sufficient lifeboats to accommodate all those on board may satisfy the requisite legislation,but in the seemingly endless desire to build these cruise ships bigger and bigger,and higher,has the ability to actually fill and launch the lifeboats in sufficient time to evacuate a sinking vessel fully and safely been overlooked?.

Very rarely would you see an inflatable liferaft attached to a davit or any form of winching gear. These are usually to be found stacked in racks (mostly in sets of three or six) on the open deck. Normal procedure is to allow them to be ejected into the water with the painter still firmly attached to the vessel and then pull on the painter until automatic inflation takes place. Should the ship sink then they should automatically be ejected from the vessel when it has sunk to a certain depth and again the pulling of the attached painter will effect the inflation of these rafts. I have never heard of liferafts being employed on passengers ships with instructions to the effect that they should be inflated whilst still on the ship and then lowered with a full complement of passengers (survivors).