"New" cruise card readers

[ONT-CA]

Someone said that they used them for the muster drill on our last cruise, but no one questioned the fact that we did not hear the announcement, so did not attend. :)

 

We haven't heard the announcement in a long while...

[Treven]

Looking forward to the new reader on my Alaska cruise in Sept.:D

If the Sea Princess doesn't have it, c'est la vie; I won't not go over it.

[1 HappyCruiser]

Before I left they were talking about doing this as apparently there is a rarely enforced coast guard rule (or some agency) that all passengers and crew must be documented as attending one muster per embarkation. I didn't hear for sure whether they actually decided to down the road.

 

I could see why they would, in the event of an incident and inevitable lawsuits they would have an active defense.

 

As of right now Princess assumes that because they make the announcement, everyone attends the muster.

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

Ruby was taking a roll call at muster on TA a few months ago.

 

yours Shogun

[Loonbeam]

Yep. But once they have an efficient roll call method wondering if this will change fleetwide. It's a huge liability.

 

As of right now Princess assumes that because they make the announcement, everyone attends the muster.

[Astro Flyer]

Yep. But once they have an efficient roll call method wondering if this will change fleetwide. It's a huge liability.

 

As of right now Princess assumes that because they make the announcement, everyone attends the muster.

 

With current technology & legal system, a defense of 'assume' may not work. Add to that the other post about the CG possibly increasing compliance of these regulations & non-attendance may go the way of other old days of cruising things like the midnight buffet. :p. If that happens, then cruise lines will probably notify us. I'm not judging others decisions on muster drill attendance but if there's a true emergency some may wish they had attended the drill. :rolleyes:

[Earthworm Jim]

For sure it is just an interim step. I suspect you will soon see cruise cards with RFI chips embedded. With those you will just be able to walk by a detector with the card in your pocket!

 

It could be so. However, I don't know how expensive creating RFI cards is. The cost might be prohibitive for a short time use thing such as a cruise.

[canmark]

They were using the handheld scanners on Ruby Princess in June.

 

Although I heard someone say "Have your cruise cards ready" at the muster drill (at the Princess Theater), they were not scanned. I wondered about this, as I assumed there was some requirement that passengers attend the drill. As this was my first cruise, I was curious to attend. Found the line about how the alarm does *not* mean "abandon ship!" to be quite funny.

[caribill]

Someone said that they used them for the muster drill on our last cruise, but no one questioned the fact that we did not hear the announcement, so did not attend. :)

 

We haven't heard the announcement in a long while...

 

 

There are usually at least two announcements before the alarm plus another announcement after the alarm sounds. There are broadcast in all the passenger areas on the ship including in all the cabins.

 

Unless one has had too many welcome aboard drinks, it is really hard to miss hearing it.

[CruisinChris]

For sure it is just an interim step. I suspect you will soon see cruise cards with RFI chips embedded. With those you will just be able to walk by a detector with the card in your pocket!

 

 

I don't think so. That's not so secure. WIth the current method the security officer looks at the picture associate with your card and looks at you. In the scenario you paint, anyone with a card could walk onboard. Sorry

[Go-Bucks!]

Was on the Caribbean a couple weeks ago and they didn't announce anything about taking the card to the muster drill, but once there they said that everyone needed to have them scanned. I had forgotten to take mine so the crew member just asked my name and which cabin I was in then he manually put it into the scanner.

 

But they didn't use the hand held scanners for anything else except the muster drill.

[donnajl]

The scanners were used at the muster drill on our June Canada/New England cruise on the Caribbean Princess.

[Seabreeze8]

On our cruise, they didn't use the scanner for the muster drill, only for embarkation and disembarkation.

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

By using hand held scanners Princess can have a number of people checking folks at muster,

 

so no real issue with delays ques waiting to be checked

 

 

so next step is to record who attends and demand anyone that misses the first muster attend the second one

 

yours Shogun

[RuthlessBoss]

Usually the lines are slow moving due to passengers getting ready for the security x-ray of their belongings and then going through the metal detector, not the couple of seconds it takes to ding the cruise card.

That's what I was thinking. If the scan clips a few seconds off time, so what? Items still need to be x rayed.