chengkp75

They never have. SOLAS requires that 75% of "all souls" be accommodated in fixed lifeboats, but the ship has to have 125% of "all souls" capacity of boats and rafts. The crew have always been assigned to rafts. The only crew that get into the lifeboats are the 3 assigned as crew of the boat (up to 16 for boats like the Oasis has). This is a common misconception that cruise passengers have. It actually reads, from your quote: "30 min from the time the abandon ship signal is given after all persons have been assembled, with life jackets donned." (bolding and underlining, mine). Now, first off, the "passenger muster" signal is not the "abandon ship" signal. It is the "fire and general emergency" signal, after which the passengers are directed to go to their muster stations. Now, the muster is taken, waiting for everyone to show up, and put their lifejacket on, then everyone waits. Only if the emergency gets out of control, and the Captain decides that the passengers should evacuate, will a PA announcement to "board the boats" be given. This is when the clock starts ticking, for your 30 minutes, but be aware that not all boats are loaded at the same time, nor lowered and released at the same time, so the 30 minutes is for each boat. In other words, if you are in the third boat called from your indoor muster station to get into the boat, only when they call you does your 30 minutes start. See my post regarding the Concordia, and what caused it to roll over, and that the boats were launched, as designed, at up to 20* listing. See the comments about the studies of the Concordia sinking, and how that is the worst case scenario, and it still took over an hour.

All of them. Barring a complete failure of command, as what happened on the Concordia (and was the sole reason for the chaotic evacuation and loss of life), any ship, following proper procedures can evacuate before sinking. Take the Concordia as an example, since it was mentioned previously in the thread. This is considered by marine accident investigators to be the "worst case" scenario for a ship sinking. Cruise ships are divided into many watertight compartments below the waterline, the Concordia had 11. Cruise ships are designed as "two compartment" ships, meaning that if any two adjacent compartments fully flooded, the ship would stay afloat. The Concordia breached 4 compartments, and therefore there was nothing on God's earth that was going to keep that ship from sinking. Now, while the breach was on the port side, the compartments that were flooding (engine rooms) ran all the way across the ship, so flooding would essentially be equal between port and starboard, and this is what the Concordia exhibited during the first hour after striking the rock, it was sinking down by the stern, but with a list of no more than 10-12* to port or starboard (it changed as the ship swung around in the wind). Computer studies of the Concordia show that had she not grounded a second time on Giglio, the ship would have stayed afloat longer, and would have remained upright (the fact that where she grounded the second time had deeper water towards shore, allowed the ship to pivot on this rock and roll over). The first striking of the rock was at 21:45 hours, and the ship did not ground on Giglio until after 22:33 hours, and even at 23:10 hours, the list was only 10* (and lifeboats are designed to launch at 20* list). Schettino was notified about the extent of the flooding (at least 3 compartments) at 21:55, and should have signaled for passenger muster (the "fire and general emergency signal") at this time. If he had, the passengers would have been mustered, and the boats prepared long before the ship grounded on Giglio, and therefore, they could have had an orderly evacuation with only an acceptable list. As it was, 23 of 26 lifeboats were launched, and 71% of all souls onboard were evacuated using the ship's boats. All of that is to say that ships don't sink in minutes. Even the Titanic, with it's design flaws, took nearly 3 hours to sink. So, given that a catastrophic breach like the Concordia's is extremely rare, and without a command failure, a ship like the Oasis would take a couple of hours or much longer to sink, I am completely confident that given the training the crew received using the in person muster training, that every passenger could be evacuated safely, and the crew also (remember, when the passengers get into the boats, only the 3 assigned to each boat as crew (up to 16 for Oasis type boats) would be evacuating with the passengers). The crew waits until the passengers have all been evacuated, and then, if the Captain feels that the ship is not able to be saved, he/she will sound the "abandon ship" signal, and the crew will take to the life rafts. So, if

I beg to differ on this. For the most part, the speaking and demonstrations given during the in person drills are not required to be done, and are done during drill to keep you occupied. For years prior to the pandemic, when ships were using the in person drill, the IMO allowed that the safety demonstrations did not need to be done during the muster, as long as they were shown on the ship's TV (and several lines had the TVs set to that channel on turnaround day). What the in person drill does is give you experience in having everyone onboard doing the same thing, and trying to get to their muster stations at the same time as you. This is realistic training, and it has been shown in any industry, that the more realistic the training, the better the response in an actual emergency. The other part of the in person drill, is what the passengers don't see the crew doing, which is searching every cabin and public space (since there is no one there, you're all at muster), as they would in an emergency. It also provides the crew with real life experience in handling a crowd of thousands who may not be amenable to directions (during drills) or frightened (during emergency). The in person drill trains everyone onboard (passengers and crew) how to work as a team, to try to save your lives. In an actual emergency, you only need to know 3 things: show up, shut up, listen up. These are all taught in the in person drill but not in the e-muster. Believe me, if I thought for an instant that the e-muster gave better training than the in person muster, I'd be all for it, but if you look at posts by professional mariners on various forums here on CC, over the years since the e-muster came into existence, they all, to a man/woman, feel that the in person drill gave better training.

Nope, just a hazard of going to sea. Been in more than I can count, and only once did I think we might not make it, but that was a single hull tanker, where when you looked out the bridge windows, the entire ship forward of the house was submerged (not covered in spray, or hit with a wave) and not visible. But, she popped right back up and carried on. On land, either at home, work, or at your AI resort, in an emergency, you can just leave, and get away from the emergency. A shipboard emergency, you are fighting for your "planet" since there really isn't much option to remaining with the ship.

So, what was the emergency?

And, I can point to the IMO, which did not give the e-muster full approval, as it is unproven procedure. I can point to the number of shipboard emergencies where the passenger muster went off without a flaw, using the in person drill procedure. And, what really gets me, is that the vast majority of complaints about going back to the in person drill are from those who haven't done it yet. Look at the Disney board, you don't see a peep about the drill. And, yeah, I'll sign off here, even though you're pushing of the Points Guy opinion can lead to misinformation.

And, did they muster the passengers in preparation for abandoning the ship? Did they have the crew standby in case of flooding? I can pretty well guarantee you that the ship was in no danger of sinking, having been through tropical storms and hurricanes on various types of vessels. Not saying it wasn't unpleasant, and not saying it wasn't scary, but it wasn't an emergency, even as powerful as Dorian was.

Please show me some facts to back this up. I don't willingly accept statements as being correct or accurate, without some facts to back them up, though you seem fully invested in the Points Guy's assertions. Just like I won't jump on the blame wagon and criticize a cruise line that has a fire onboard, until I see the facts, not hearsay. When Carnival Corp corporate executives and legal team said they weren't polluting, I guess you believed that as well.

The "irritant" value of the drill is what is realistic, having thousands of people going to their stations all at once (not just dribbling in as they like), and having to stay at the muster station with those hundred plus people for a while. The e-muster does not provide that training for the passengers, and does not provide the crew with realistic crowd management training. Believe me, if you think the muster drill is an irritant, just wait until you are in an actual emergency. Knowing how to get to your muster station from your cabin is the barest of minimum knowledge a passenger should have. What if you were not in your cabin at the time of the emergency? What if you needed to get forward, and found yourself wading against a tide of passengers that were heading aft? What if the fire was between you and your muster station? And, just so you know, I participated in at least one drill a week, for 26 weeks a year, for 46 years, and found it within myself to participate fully every time.

I wonder how it would go if the crew just decided that drills are "uncomfortable", and decided not to participate, since the passengers don't seem to care.

I find it amazing how spending less than 0.5% of your week's vacation (less if you're on a longer cruise) in perhaps uncomfortable conditions learning how to save your life in an unfamiliar environment (and trust me, a ship in an emergency is unfamiliar territory to 99.5% of the passengers, regardless of how many cruises they may have been on), can affect their decision on whether to cruise or not.

It does not shut down their AC, but it will seriously adversely affect their AC. Here is my standard spiel about balcony doors and AC. Every cabin has two AC systems in it. The first, is the one controlled by the cabin thermostat (and the balcony door switch), which only recirculates air within the cabin over an individual cooling coil by an individual fan in the cabin. The second one is the fresh air supply system that balances out the bathroom exhaust fan, so you get fresh air in, and stale air out. This system takes air from outside the ship, cools it, and supplies it to a number of cabins, and is controlled centrally, outside of passenger control. Typically, all the cabins in one fire zone (between the doors in the passageway), on one deck, are supplied in common (so maybe 30+ cabins). Now, the amount of fresh air supplied is slightly more than the exhaust air from the bathroom, for a very important reason, this slight overpressure in the cabin, keeps smoke from the passageway from entering your cabin. The overpressure goes out through the gap under the door to the cabin, into the passageway. So, in a fire, you won't get smoke into your cabin. Now, if I open the balcony door, this unbalances the fresh air supply to your cabin, since you have changed the overpressure relief from the small gap under the door, to a huge wide open doorway to the balcony. This drops the pressure in your cabin to atmospheric pressure, and can be shown by simply opening the cabin door at the same time the balcony door is open, and the wind tunnel created will blow any light object in the cabin out the balcony door. Now, we get to your neighbors. Since their cabins are maintaining positive overpressure, but yours is not, the fresh air supply will "take the path of least resistance" and increase the airflow to your cabin, meaning less cool fresh air for the other cabins in the block. Therefore, their cabins will start to warm up, and you also remove the important safety factor of overpressure from their cabins. Whenever I got complaints about warm cabins, particularly if there was a cluster of them, I would just walk down the passageway and listen for the wind whistling under a cabin door. That is the cabin where I would find a balcony door open, and when the occupants were told to close it, the complaints from the surrounding cabins stopped.

As noted, likely not enough room for this. This would need to be an inflatable tub, not a pool, just about the size of the child's butt and legs when sitting, and even this can be complicated if the pool deck is really crowded. You would have to fill from one of the showers on the pool deck, and empty in the same place. If you have a balcony cabin, one of these inflatable tubs would be good there.

When you disembark at the first port, you would need to be cleared by that country's immigration for a stay of other than a cruise ship port call. Then the ship needs to submit a new passenger manifest for departing the port to the immigration officials, without you on it, and get that cleared. Then, at the second port, you need to be cleared by immigration out of the country, and then the ship needs to submit another new passenger manifest adding you back onto the ship, and get that cleared. This typically involves expense to the cruise line, so in many cases they are reluctant to grant you the clearance to do this. While they cannot hold you on the ship (if you have the proper documentation to be in the country as someone other than a cruise passenger), they can refuse you re-embarking at the second port. You would have to contact the cruise line's "down lining" or compliance departments, not just the phone service center agents, to get this clearance well in advance of the cruise.

And, listening to those passengers who wish for a more comfortable experience, but not necessarily listening to maritime safety experts at the IMO. The USCG does not have the final say in this, the IMO does. And, the USCG is fine with this as long as there is a covid health emergency. When that expires in a couple of months, we'll see whether the e-muster retains its conditional approval from the IMO.

It's not some ships it will work on, and some it won't. On any given ship, if there is a ground fault in any electrical equipment anywhere on the ship, it can cause the hair dryer to not work. These ground faults come and go, as they show up, and are repaired.

From HAL's "exemptions" to the prohibited item list: Personal grooming devices such as hair dryers, flat irons, curling irons, shavers, and other electrical devices, such as fans (no larger than 12" in diameter), power strips, multi plug box outlets/adaptors, and extension cords (without surge protectors) are allowed when used with proper caution. However, if such devices are determined to pose a hazard, they will be removed and returned on debarkation morning

No, they won't, necessarily. The dual voltage capability only allows you to choose which outlet (US or European) that you plug into. Please link me to one that specifies it will work on cruise ships, I'd like to research.

There have been reports on various forums here, that Dyson products (digital motors) and ceramic heating element hair straighteners will sometimes work and sometimes not, on ships. While I have not been able to get answers from the manufacturers, this is likely due to the electronics in the appliance requiring the neutral and ground to be at the same voltage, which is not the case with shipboard wiring systems. I looked up the Revlon brush the OP mentioned, and found out that it has an "ALCI" test function. This is an "appliance leakage current interrupter", which is like a ground fault circuit breaker that detects an imbalance of current, and do not work on the shipboard wiring systems that have separate grounds from the power conductors. For the OP, generally, any device with an ALCI "block" (with a "test" and "reset" button) will possibly work sometimes, and possibly not work sometimes.

There have been reports of Dyson products, in general, having spotty performance (not working) on ships. I believe this is due to the electronics of the "digital motor" in Dyson products not being configured to accept the "floating ground" of shipboard electrical systems that may at times present voltage in the ground wires. Similarly, I have seen reports of newer "ceramic" hair straighteners not working, and these use electronics as well. As for the two ships in the OP's question, they are no different than other ships as far as their electrical systems are concerned, and I think that the only difference as to when some Dyson products work and some don't is that there are changing conditions of whether or not a piece of equipment on the ship has a ground fault or not, and what voltage.

I will heartily disagree with you that the cruise industry is "one of the most polluting industries". After 46 years at sea, on all types of vessels, including cruise ships, I will say that the cruise lines, for all their faults (mainly Carnival Corp), are head and shoulders above the general maritime industry in terms of environmental compliance. Many more cargo ships and lines have been fined in the US for pollution than cruise ships, they just don't get the attention. Further, the ships don't use either crude oil or kerosene (you do realize that jet fuel is kerosene) as fuel. They use diesel fuel (even in gas turbines) or residual fuel oil, which has seen a mandated 86% reduction in sulfur emissions over the last 3 years. And, cruise ships amount to about 3% of the total commercial vessels at sea, and no one complains about the pollution from the cargo ships that bring your cars, TV's and Iphones, along with 85% of the world's commerce to you. As to the OP's question about detergents, they use commercial/industrial products like EcoLab. As far as I know, none of these are "cruelty free". Vegetarian/vegan food is generally available on all cruise lines, though the selections are limited. You need to address this with the cruise line's "special needs" department ahead of time, and with the maitre 'd and executive chef when onboard. Typically, you will be asked to make your menu choices the day ahead of time.

Of course SOLAS requirements are being followed. Every time a USCG inspector comes on the ship and holds drills, and every time a class society surveyor witnesses drills onboard, they are using SOLAS requirements as the basis of whether the ship is meeting SOLAS or not. If the muster stations were not in accordance with SOLAS, the ship wouldn't sail. Muster stations are determined, by the class society, not the cruise line, at newbuilding, and the locations are based on the primary SOLAS consideration: "the muster location should be as close to the lifeboat embarkation point as practicable", and the locations must meet ingress/egress standards, volume standards, escape route standards, lighting and ventilation standards, and structural fire protection standards that are set by the class societies based on computer crowd and crisis management paradigms. Older ships, that have larger promenade decks, will still have muster stations outdoors, under the boats, and will for the life of the vessel, they won't change. Newer ships have reduced the size of the promenade decks (to maximize internal revenue generating space, i.e. more balcony cabins), and so the muster stations had to be moved indoors. This was not for passenger comfort.

After 46 years in marine engineering, on all types of ships, dealing with all kinds of marine vendors in ports around the world, I know this is not correct. But, JMHO.

Most of the things onboard cannot be found at Home Depot, or even most wholesale hardware suppliers, so "getting a part" in a port call is not likely.

Figured you might be gigging me for correcting you. No worries.