Crowd Management

[arabrab]

After reading about the recent problems with the Grand docking late, and the ensuing chaos at disembarkation, and seeing reports like this from a number of other cruisers who experienced similar problems either with tendering or disembarkation, I'm wondering why the cruiselines aren't spending a lot more time thinking through crowd management issues and developing a master plan for managing them. Having hundreds of people crammed into small spaces is really a pool of gasoline that needs only a spark to ignite to cause a great tragedy. Even without a tragedy, the disorganization and chaos leaves passengers with a very bad memory.

 

The reality is that ships are late for a variety of reasons -- they have generator problems, thruster problems, encounter large seas, evade storms, or have a medical emergency onboard that requires them to divert. It doesn't really matter -- in any given year, there are going to be dozens of cruises that arrive back at the final port late.

 

So, late happens. And when late happens there are a cascade of problems, all of which are predictable. People will miss flights, some of them booked through the cruiseline; some booked independently, people on board need to tell others on shore of the changed situation, people will try to take self-disembarkation even if they previously hadn't signed up for it, and passengers for the subsequent cruise have nowhere to go, and may have nowhere to park.

 

I'm not singling out Princess here, but really, they're are part of Carnival Corporation, which is one of the largest (perhaps the largest?) cruise operator in the world. And Carnival Corporation has got to have a Risk Management department, and that department ought to be saying, loudly, that a coherent plan for arrival deviations needs to be thought through and rolled out. And why would anyone argue? After all, it is a system problem, and it makes a lot more sense to have a systematic solution than it is to treat each occurence as a unique, unforseen event that needs to be managed on an ad-hoc basis.

 

Now the cruiselines are in the enviable position of really having a LOT of information at their fingertips, or at least somewhere in the bowels of their computer systems. They know, to the person, who's on board, where they're from, emergency contact numbers, class of service, disabilities, and whether the passengers are flying back on Princess arrangements, and, if so, what those are.

 

With just a few more questions added to the cruise personalizer, they'd have everything they need. For people who aren't booked on Princess-arranged flights home, they need to ask how they're getting home: self drive, met by limo/private car, staying at an area hotel that night, bus/shuttle reservation, back to back cruise (this ship), back to back cruise (different ship), train, or flight arrangement. If it is a flight or train, they need to ask for the airline, flight number(s), and departure time.

 

Now that they've got all this -- and confirm the return information at cruise-check in, they've got what they need to make an arrival deviation a safe and less exciting and unpleasant experience for everyone on board. Crowd control rule number one: manage where people are allowed to gather before they congregate. The good news is that there are so many staff members on board that this shouldn't be a big problem. Rule number two: Communicate clearly and make sure that the passengers know that you are in control and that you have a plan.

 

First, figure out who's got a disability that may need special assistance. They (and the rest of their travelling party) are going to need special assistance.

 

Second, figure out who's got a big problem: people who have flights or trains leaving too early to safely make the arrangements work given the new arrival time. These folks then fall into two categories: those Princess made the arrangements for, and those who self-arranged. Princess has a system set up for rejiggering their own flight arrangements, and can execute that. Letter A goes to those Princess passengers, telling them that Princess is adjusting their departures and that at a certain time they should proceed to (pick a lounge of suitable size) and wait for further information. Letter B goes to people who made independent arrangements for return travel on the day of return. The letter should tell them the earliest time of departure for which flights should be rebooked, and the back could be a listing of all of the airline phone numbers that someone might need. If the cruiseline was going to offer some financial reimbursement, or free phone calls from the room, then would be the time to say so. Offering the assistance of Princess in obtaining hotel accomodations that night would be nice, and Princess is in a better position to arrange a block of rooms than individual passengers are. These folks are going to have to make new flight arrangements, and communicate with folks at home about the change. Keeping this whole category of folks out of the hallways and exit areas is a key strategy.

 

 

Now you've got three groups left, none of whom have big problems. The folks who were going to stay in the area, folks who were going to drive home, and folks with flights enough later in the day that their arrangements don't need to be changed. You need to keep this group fed, happy, and occupied rather than standing around blocking the exits.

 

Once you do dock, you need to manage the exit strategy so that only small groups are trying to exit, and you've ensured that people who aren't in the selected group aren't allowed to move to the exit area. This takes planning and practice, but it is manageable.

 

There's obviously a lot more detail than is here, but the real question is why the cruiselines aren't doing more to manage this as a known problem. I hope that it doesn't take a stampede that kills people in the crush before somebody wises up.

 

Cheers,

Barb K.

[spongerob]

Good thoughts, Barb, but everything you mention requires the cooperation of passengers. There is a system, it works great, as long as everyone plays by the rules. But to some, rules are just guidelines and suggestions or only apply to others. As someone who just got off Grand Princess mentioned, people who did not have early disembarkation privileges decided to take them anyway.

 

People should slow down in construction zones, too, but some don't. It's likely that the driver on your bumper fussing about their drive taking 2 minutes longer is the same one pushing and shoving their way to the front of the line. I've even seen people send their children ahead, then follow them as if they didn't put their kids up to it.

 

People just need to be nicer to each other - we don't need a 45-page white paper detailing how to disembark.

[mii]

I got to agree with Rob. Every single cruise that I have been on they tell us NOT TO BLOCK STAIRWAYS to the Atrium, not to block exits and guess what. There are still some passengers who feel once that that ship docks they are right there standing in line, blocking the stairways, sitting on the stairways. And believe me it is not just Princess. I was on a Celebrity cruise this past June and if you followed the instructions like they wrote there would have not been a problem. But again, passengers did not pay attention and it was a zoo.

 

You have some great ideas and I agree with them but it is the passengers(or some of us) who just do not want to follow the rules.

 

Marilyn