H82seaUgo

You must not have seen all the TV shows about the incident...after the ship listed, they were having difficulties launching the whole one side of the ship...some people immediately tried to make their way to the opposite side of the ship.

The whole thing was utter mahem.

yeah. i saw they were having difficulties, but they got them all down. or so i thought. you have something that conflicts with that?

You know the answer very well. It's because not all safety boats were launchable. You already stated that someplace here....

 

Why did this happen?

The captain caused this by not commanding an evacuation immediately as he should have.

 

 

you must be confusing me with another swordsman. i thought all the lifeboats were launched.

Pretty sure in that case I would have just swam to shore and hoped someone had a towel ready from me when I got there. People don't realize how much worse the Concordia would have been 60miles out to sea.

you should see the gyrations i go through getting into my backyard pool if it's lower than 80º.

This isn't the Titanic - there are more lifeboats and rafts than passengers and crew and the same for life jackets.

 

That you are blaming the passengers on the Concordia demonstrates how little you know about what went on there and the captain's failure to give the order to abandon ship in a timely fashion. Many of the passengers HAD been through the safety drill.

 

The crew goes through multiple safety drills EVERY cruise. They are prepared.

then splain to lucy why people going to their assigned muster found the boats full.

And on another note, maybe I am selfish, but I don't really care if others don't pay attention, as long as I know where my muster station is, I don't really care about others...their safety is not my problem.

 

I am going to go out on a limb here and say in the event of a real emergency, this is all going to be null and void anyway...I mean, there will be mass chaos and people will just head to the nearest life boat, they aren't going to check the list to see if you are in the right boat, which will leave everyone running around trying to find a boat...

that's what scared me the most with the concordia incident. they were just putting anyone in any boat. people going to their assigned boat found them full, or already launched.

Nor should you. Sheeple will be sheeple.

nope. i'm the one counting the doors to the staircase when i first walk on. i'm the one counting seats on planes i'm flying.

step aside.

It seems silly in the event of a real drill that everyone clog the hallways trying to get from one end of the ship to the other just to get a life jacket. It takes 5 minutes out of your vacation to find your station. You can go back to your cabin if you want but I won't waste my precious time in a real emergency and will go directly to my station.

doesn't seem to be a problem during the drill.

and you seem to be expecting to find a clear area of muster stations to walk across. 6 or 7 decks of people on one deck, outside, creates quite a mob scene.

I guess you guys are missing my point. Yes, everyone should be prepared. But what is prepared? Knowing how to put on a lifejacket, knowing your muster station. That's what's covered in the drill. It's up to the individual to pay attention or not. CCL is not going to wire people's eyelids open so they pay attention, that's not going to happen.

 

Now if prepared for you means doing survival suit prep, learning how to use the emergency radio, learning how to lower the life boats---thats NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

 

I'm not saying what should be done, just want will be done. The drill will stay the same as it is now for the foreseeable future.

and those will be the ones not knowing what to do, or where to go. and they better not be blocking my path, or asking me where they should go or what to do, cause i'm not stopping.

Life has risks, you just have to accept them. But the rangers at Yellowstone don't make you take a 4 hour course on Grizzly defense strategy, and you don't have to sit though a 2 hour video about what to do during a rollercoaster disaster before they let you on Magic Mountain:):)

i'm pretty sure in both those instances you would probably be quite dead in an instant.

Your muster station is now printed on your sail and sign card. If you forget where it is just ask any crew member and they can point you in the right direction. And they do have life jackets next to the life boats and in the life boats. They specifcally say at the drill that if you are not near your cabin in the case of a drill to go directly to your station. The new set up makes much more sense.

i guess they are abandoning the marked path from your cabin to your muster. i thought that was half the reason for going to the cabin. the other was getting the vest.

you certainly have enough time to do so, as long as there is nothing preventing one from doing so.

personally, i would have a hard time knowing where my muster was from where i was on the ship at the time of the "incident". sometimes i even end up aft when i intended to be fore.

i would also need a congregating point for my family. that would be the cabin.

I forgot all about the "nightie" part. It creeped me out too --- so I always hid my nightie, but our friends thought it was cool so every night hers was made into something different and hung in different places in the cabin!:eek:

 

Also -- as far as the price goes - although we pay almost the same now (sometimes), don't forget --- 30 years ago, the price usually included air fare and a hotel room for either the night before or early in the AM if you got to the port city before 8AM. We were also transported from the airport to the hotel / to the ship as part of the price!

not only nighties, but shirts and other stuff.

sometimes right out of the dirty laundry. :eek:

The bottom line is: you could cruise every month for the rest of your life, and you will probably never have a problem.

like the lottery........ it can happen at any time.

none of those concordia passengers said they expected that to happen in this day and age. even the vikings were shocked if you listened to the wind......

My last cruise was in 2009 on the Valor... We had to report to a muster station on deck, and ours was towards the aft of the ship, in the cove area where the deck turns... It was hot hot hot.. Miami in September... It was very hard to concentrate on the directions being given, and honestly I wouldn't have much remembered them after I went to bed that night... The ship was leaving port before they ended the drill... come to think of it I was pretty annoyed at that too...

 

All that said, I am a prepper too... lol...

 

WIth all that said, as I mentioned earlier, the purpose of any drill is practice... the practice is just as much for the Staff as it is for the passengers... if not more so. Nothing can prepare you for an emergency such as the Concordia...

 

but I must say, given the mess of the Captain, the fact that so many people did get off, and got off safely tells me that the crew did a pretty outstanding job given the leadership they were under...

and that was only due to the wind that pushed the ship to shore. God knows what would have happened had that not happened.

I agree. We've been to plenty of drills with jackets and without on various lines. Half the people are already 4 drinks deep, there are always a few jokesters, crying kids, old people who don't understand what's going on. Always the same, probably always will be the same.

 

While it's great that everyone is keeping a close eye on safety, it also needs to be looked at realistically. The Concordia was a tragedy but if you weigh the millions of people who have gone though the drill without incident, the chances that you'd ever have to abandon ship are miniscule. And the chances that you'd have to abandon ship AND the crew totally choked is ever less likely. Not something I'm going to spend my time worrying about.

easy fix. remove those individuals from the drill and sequestor them.

and then make them repeat the drill with the real officials, not the dancers and bingo callers.

It is pretty SAD and pathetic that for a pax to take their own safety seriously (and that of their family, wife, children, etc) it depends on the attitude of the crew member/s?!:confused: I am not sure I agree with that and I know for sure it isn't true for me. I could care less what the attitude of the crew is regarding the safety drill. I make sure I know what I need to know in case of an emergency and anyone who doesn't is simply foolish. Anyone who doesn't is also endangering everyone else, because they are going to be the idiots running around in a panic without a clue in the event of an emergency.

exactly.

Do they ask you to put on the floatation vests on airplanes? No.

 

no they don't. but odds are, a plane landing in the water will have virtually no survivors, except at takeoff. captain sully was extremely lucky.

and you will not be jumping at least 4 stories into the water from a plane.

LOL..you're kidding, right???

I have never been to a muster where everyone took it seriously, jacket on or not. The seriousness of the drill is dpeendent upon the crew member standing before you. If they take it seriously and keep everyone in line, it's serious. If they are lax, so are the passengers.

no i am not.

please realize this has been MY experience.

Baloney. The party starts as soon as you board the ship and they are hustling DoDs. Always has been.

i've yet to see bar service at muster.

Sorry I disagree. Wearing a life jacket and having to put it on yourself is good training and sets the tone for a drill.

it is interesting that this party atmosphere only started when they discontinued the jackets being worn.

my concern is wondering how many would need to jump in the water and their head go through the hole because it's not on secured properly. no one will be checking strap and compliance in a real emergency.

Not only do people trip on the life jacket straps, I've seen too many pass out from the heat only made worse by wearing a life jacket.

i wonder how many will pass out during the real deal, then.

But surely you are not suggesting that the passengers should take it upon themselves to deploy the rescue craft......

 

Cruise ships can sink.....that's not the issue for me......all I'm saying is that if the Captain of the Concordia had reacted in a more timely manner, some lives would have been saved.........as it was even with whatever chaos ensued, 4000+ souls were saved. That is an absolute credit to the crew members who were actually doing their jobs.

 

There is nothing about the current muster drill that would have prepared me for a severely listing ship, or how to climb to the exterior hull and climb down a rope ladder.

 

My sister and I have a very well thought out plan for emergency situations. We pay attention to announcements when they come on, to ensure it's not something urgent.....many just continue the party......We always have cash, credit card, identification and a flashlight with us........while we are apart much of the day and evening, we know how long to wait in the cabin for the other to arrive, where our 2nd meet point is, and an alternative meet point. We've scoped out the many not so obvious paths that will get us to our muster station.

 

We accept responsibility for our own safety. But we don't need to know how to deploy a lifeboat and if there ever comes a day when that kind of information is given to passengers then it will be sad indeed for it will be the end of my cruise life.

no.

and every "event" at sea is not going to play out like the last one.

listening to the family from connecticut relay their story made me change significantly how i would think on my next cruise.

she stated she knew exactly where she was supposed to go, and how to get there.

and when she did, there were mobs inside the ship, and couldn't even make it to her lifeboat.

and when she got there, it was already full, as she proceeded to the next one. she went the whole length of the ship, and all were full.

by the time she realized the next thing she and her family could do was make it to the other side of the ship, the ship was listing so bad that they couldn't make it across the ship.

until some ropes were put acrosss that deck.

and it turned out, she and her family ended up having to go down that ladder on the outside of the ship; the one they show on the infrared film.

yup. she knew what she was supposed to do. :rolleyes:

btw, i see this post has been reposted on the brand ambassador's facebook page.

the usual suspects are already. Attempting to discredi the op's credibility.

fortunately, there are more people backing up the op's claim.

Well don't hold your breath on that one.......there is no way that I want someone other than a Qualified Crew Member having anything to do with the deployment and maneuvering of the lifeboats.......

 

Talk about complete chaos.......when a bunch of wanna be know it all's decide that it's time to deploy this boat or that raft..........

 

I'm frankly tired of the constant comparison of the efficiency of the muster drills to the circumstances aboard the Concordia....Had the Captain sent people to their muster stations in a timely manner, and begun an evactuation, I believe there would have been little or no loss of life........

 

And though it was tragic, how many of the 32 that lost their lives acted in a way that put themselves in danger..........like the crew member who left a muster station to return to his cabin for a musical instrument.....How did 4000+ people manage to get off that ship safely if they were given such poor direction.

 

And when was the last time that anyone was given instructions on how to navigate on a severely listing ship and actually balancing themselves on the exterior hull to climb down a rope ladder..

 

I don't rely on information that I receive during the muster drill to educate me or prepare me for a ship evacuation. It does me very little good to know that muster stations A, C, E, G will use lifeboats 2, 4, 6, 8.......I'll get in what ever lifeboat I am directed to once I arrive at my muster station.

how many shios sail in iceburgh infested water, yet the titanic changed all the rules, most still in effect.

and regardless how you think you will act, if in a real emergency, you get down to deck 4 because you know where you're supposed to go, but you can't get past the bottom of the staircase on that floors landing for the crowds, and the lights are out, or there is smoke present, any orchestrated evacuation is better than none.

if concordia was a wake up call to those who think cruise ships can't sink, those that don't want ti listen perpetuate the problem.

this is quite disturbing.

i've often joked in the past couple of years that the only thing missing at these drills was bar service, because they became one big party since the elimination of the life vest.

even those in charge would be partaking in the "party".

i truly believed that since the concordia senseless disaster, that a return to a drill where you could hear everything said.

this is a contnued disgrace.

lots of good threads and pictures of the old ships on the "whatever happened to" boards, where this post will most likely wind up.