family emergency plan?

[mips]

When we were younger preteenagers at least and went on vacations with parents, we were often allowed to wonder arround unsupervised as long as we stayed together. For emergencies we always wore an id bracelet chain with a dog tag type dealey, that would be not only lobster clipped but also split ringed on to our wrists, ie very hard to take off and lose. The id had our parents home phone number plus a relatives phone number on it. This was way before cell phones were thought of.

 

As for our emergency plan meet at muster station if one of us isnt there get on that life boat and meet at the closest emergency point. We wouldnt bother heading to our rooms for anything other than life vests, and if it looked like it would be difficult to get there we wouldnt head to our rooms we would take our chances above decks. Passports and possessions are replaceable people are not.

[donaldsc]

Just wondering if folks have a family emergency plan when they are on a cruise. I know that I am more likely to be injured driving to the cruiseport than while actually on a cruise, so please don't reiterate that - I already know this. But I have to say that after the Costa Concordia, I am wondering if I should have some sort of a family emergency plan in place just in case. Generally I travel with some combination of my two teenagers, my spouse, & my elderly parents. We are rarely all together at any given moment since everyone seems to have their own interests. I'm wondering if others have thought about this & if they have established a meeting place or some system in case of a ship emergency.

 

No plan and do not plan to have one except that we will grab the life vests and go to the muster station.

 

DON

[donaldsc]

 

I also have an around the neck security pouch and I use a ziplock bag to help waterproof it. I place passports, cash, credit cards and small flashlights into the pouch and put it in the safe. Before retiring I hang the bag on the doorknob, lay out shoes and robes or clothes that we can grab quickly. I have also begun taking a dorky looking baseball cap that has two LED lights in the bill to help manuever hand free in a dark passageway.

 

 

Carrying your emergency kit with you at all times or putting out your "ship sinking" clothes at night seems to me to be a bit of an overreaction. After all, millions of people go on ships every year and nothing happens to 99.888% of them. You make contingency plans for likely emergencies, not for extremely unlikely ones.

 

DON

[lizjoemom]

This is an interesting thread, and something that I have never really thought about on a ship until recently. I always count the number of rows to an exit on a plane, and note where the emergency exits are in hotels, but never took notice on a ship. That said, hubby and I were discussing it and decided that we will create a plan when we get on the ship with our kids when we go to muster. We usually carry walkie talkies or cell phones with us, but my younger son doesnt have a cell, although him being away from us is unlikely unless he is with the Camp Carnival. Older daughter has cell attached to her, so it is likely that we could get in touch with her. I do think that it is a great thing to discuss when we are going over the emergency drill this time. Thanks to the original OP for starting this thread.

[GRAMMYTAN]

Carrying your emergency kit with you at all times or putting out your "ship sinking" clothes at night seems to me to be a bit of an overreaction. After all, millions of people go on ships every year and nothing happens to 99.888% of them. You make contingency plans for likely emergencies, not for extremely unlikely ones.

 

DON

 

Don I hope and pray that I never need to rely on a plan for a ship emergency, but in the end what does it hurt to be prepared? If you don't want to plan, then don't. The OP asked a question and I along with others answered. I didn't ask your opinion.

[4spring]

Don, while I hear what you're saying, I think that two things prompt me to think about an emergency plan:

 

1-I have kids & they aren't with me all the time on cruises since they are a preteen & teen. I wouldn't want to find myself refusing to get on a lifeboat because I was afraid my kids were still on board somewhere (& we didn't have a plan). It only takes a few minutes to make a plan.

 

2-Heck we all research, discuss, post, etc everything else on here from meals to chair hogs to where to park our cars. Why not discuss emergency plans?

 

I have gotten some great ideas on here & just want to say thanks to everyone for posting!

[Texarribean Chick]

Never before having a "plan" - we prepared one after recent events. I now always carry a fanny pack. It is placed on top of the safe when we arrive. In the event of an emergency and we are separated, we go back to the cabin for life vests. The first person there will load cash, passports and jewelry from safe into backpacks and if we can, wait 10 minutes for the other person. If the other has not arrived in 10 minutes we agreed to go directly to our said muster station alone. If DH (or me) arrive in the room and see that the fanny pack is gone - we automatically know the other is at said muster station.

 

Our final commitment to each other was - "you survive for me and I'll survive for you". We are both healthy strong adults and having the knowledge of everything we have to live for, our children and each other - we'll both make it!

[OceanDreamin]

Some great ideas on this thread!

 

After the recent "man overboard" situation on Carnival Magic, DD and I agreed that if there is a Man Overboard call, and we are not together, that we will both head back to the cabin, so that we each know that the other is safe. Not the same kind of emergency evacuation situation as is being discussed, but still something we planned for.

 

Also, on a recent non-cruise trip I scanned copies of our passports, and e-mailed the scanned images, along with a list of important phone numbers, to my own yahoo email account, making it accessible to me from anywhere in the world. I will definitely do this for our cruise, as well. If there is a call to abandon ship, I'm NOT going back to the cabin for anything! With color photocopies of our passports available to me via internet once we are safe, it will be much easier to get them replaced. I supposed I could scan front and back of a credit card, too, now that I think of it.

 

Love the WATERPROOF flashlight idea. I had intended to get small LED flashlights with a keychain ring, to wear on our Lanyards when we are out and about, but now I'm going to go in search of waterproof ones, as that's an awfully good idea.

[conchead]

My husband and I have both agreed that we will first go get our life vests, passports and cash. Then go to the emergency location on that's on the back of our door.

 

Not a good answer .. IMO

 

 

My sister and I carry a small cross body purse with our kindles and cash and stuff like that and we now carry a small LED keychain size flashlight. It's light is very bright so no problem if we're without lights.

 

We also each have a small 7" size LED in our carry-ons.

 

Our plan is always to meet at the cabin if it's accessable, and go to our muster station together, if we can't get to our cabin we meet at the elevator lobby closest to our cabin (which is almost always deck 6 forward) if that's not accessable we move down to deck 5 and so on until we are on deck 4.

 

Assuming we can get to our cabin the 1st one there gets the passports and cash and meds out of the safe.

 

As far as people losing their lives due to returning to their cabins I think that was mostly due to the fact that the call to muster wasn't made in a timely manner and the rest can probably be attributed to the 10% rule which says that approximately 10% of the population freezes in an emergency and doesn't do anything to try to save themselves.

 

When...did 7" become "small":p

[sunshine252]

Most people probably know this, especially after the recent disaster, but I've aways heard that after you pick up your life vests, wait until you're out of the interior of the ship to put them on... if you're wearing one & the area you're in suddenly floods it can (supposedly) make it much more difficult to escape. Your mileage may vary...

[hfitzger]

Thank you for your e-mail attachment idea! I've used that method for other things that I wanted to make sure I had access to (instead of a flash drive, etc.), but I never thought of it for this purpose! What an easy way to keep some record of documentation without having to carry it with you. I'm thinking it would also work great in case you get left behind in port, which would probably be more likely to happen than a disaster on the ship at sea! :)

[4spring]

Good point about the life vest.

 

There was an earlier comment about emailing themselves a copy of credit cards, passports, etc. That sounded like a good idea too, but I was wondering if attaching that information to an email would be secure since it'd be going over the net.

[Aplmac]

Indeed great suggestions and comments!

These boards are great for that kinda stuff aren't they?

 

 

Small LED lights are a definite Must Have, post-Concordia

and Security is going to be seeing lots of them on their Xray screens from now on!

 

 

Luckily for myself and Wife, it's usually just She & Me to look out for

so 'gathering the clan' is not a factor for us and we are usually inseparable anyway

(I'd have to chew my arm off, fellas...) :cool:

 

For those of you who have boating experience, one thing to keep a constant eye on is degree of list,

- to which side? -or is she going down on an even keel (you'll be lucky!)

or is she going down bow first? stern-first?

You'll need this info in your head to plan your escape route out to an open deck somewhere

(might be your muster station, might be not) -who knows?

 

Remember than panic kills and women screaming doesn't help keep anyone's head clear!

[Aplmac]

I now always carry a fanny pack.

It is placed on top of the safe when we arrive. In the event of an emergency and we are separated,

we go back to the cabin for life vests.

The first person there will load cash, passports and jewelry from safe into backpacks and if we can,

wait 10 minutes for the other person.

If the other has not arrived in 10 (very long!) minutes we agreed to go directly to our said muster station alone.

If DH (or me) arrive in the room and see that the fanny pack is gone - we automatically know the other is at said muster station.

 

Our final commitment to each other was - "You survive for me and I'll survive for you". ===> Love it!

A pretty good plan except for that 10 mins. bit.

 

I guarantee you that will be the longest 10 mins. of your life :eek:

and would suggest you shorten that down to 5 mins. max.

 

I would also suggest that, to save a few more seconds of awful waiting time

...if First Person has already gathered the fanny-pack and necessary valuables

that you then wait either outside the cabin or at a point on the corridor near the stairwells

where you can see your partner approaching from all directions near or far

and I hope that this wide-angle photo of mine will illustrate what I mean.

 

Such multi-directional-view locations do exist, Security knows them all

-you just need to identify them! ;)

.

[donaldsc]

Don, while I hear what you're saying, I think that two things prompt me to think about an emergency plan:

 

1-I have kids & they aren't with me all the time on cruises since they are a preteen & teen. I wouldn't want to find myself refusing to get on a lifeboat because I was afraid my kids were still on board somewhere (& we didn't have a plan). It only takes a few minutes to make a plan.

 

2-Heck we all research, discuss, post, etc everything else on here from meals to chair hogs to where to park our cars. Why not discuss emergency plans?

 

I have gotten some great ideas on here & just want to say thanks to everyone for posting!

 

I will not disagree with you on on your comments. However, I still say that carrying a ship sinking kit with you at all times and laying out your ship sinking clothes before you go to sleep at night is a bit much.

 

Just my opinion, however.

 

DON

[4spring]

Aplmac - good points - I'm guessing we'd want to be on the opposite side of the ship from where the ship is listing. As for the screaming women, I'm thinking there might be a few men carrying on as well (staying calm is key).

Don - I think its all food for thought. And no problem with folks having opinions. Truth be told, I'm probably not organized enough to have "ship sinking" clothes laid out - but I do think I'll be emailing myself some copies of my important documents (you could call that a "ship sinking email" :) ) & a small flashlight added to my "what to pack" list.

[chasinraynbowz]

Luckily, DH and I are usually together and if we aren't.... one of us is in the cabin napping (me.. lol) and he is out and about.

I like the idea of picking a meeting area on the other side of the ship from your muster station. Makes good sense. I am with Don however on carrying around my money or cc and my passport 24/7. I would be too afraid of leaving my passport somewhere... lol. It will go in the safe in a ziplock bag. If we have time to get it great, if not thats ok too.

We will need to rethink all of this next year when we take our grandson on his first cruise. He will be with one or both of us at all times, except while he is in camp.

[GRAMMYTAN]

[I][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]When we first got our passports I immediately made copies for us to pack and emailed them both to myself and my daughter but the file they are on is password protected. I am not a computer guro, so this may or may not be a good practice but I hope the password protection will help. I also use dropbox for work docs. Would that be a better solution than a password protected file?[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/I]
[I][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3][COLOR=#0000ff][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/I]

[SHICHIDAN]

We have the muster station backed by a pod chosen on port and starboard fore and aft.

Ship staff will be given first shot at directing an emergency situation of course but we will always maintain primary responsibility for our individual and collective safety.

[Aplmac]

[quote name='SHICHIDAN']Ship staff will be given first shot at directing an emergency situation of course
but we will always maintain primary responsibility for our individual and collective safety.[/quote][COLOR=Black]I like how you phrased that! Well said.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=White].[/COLOR]