NCL Returns to Tradition Muster Drill, Will Royal Follow?

[leisuretraveler223]

e-muster is super convenient, but it's a joke. It provides no insight into what it's like crowd wise. And it provides totally inadequate training for the crew.

 

That being said.....

 

Traditional muster on cruise lines isn't much better.  As long as cruise lines continue to devalue it by wasting time in muster telling me about their environmental programs, or having kids club staff trying to get kids wirstbands, it's pointless.  Get rid of the nonsense and tell people what they need to know.

 

Also, if I'm going to be forced to stop what I'm doing and march to my muster station, let me do it for real.  In a real emergency, we'd be using the crew stairs as well as the guest ones.   We would be accessing the outdoor decks through the emergency doors from the promendade, theater or wherever.  Don't pretend it's a real drill, but then re-route everyone.

 

The reality is that any actual muster on one of these ships would go horribly.  Which is why the real industry goal is to never ever have to do it.

[island lady]

6 minutes ago, Starry Eyes said:

I do not know your life jacket story.  I simply remember watching many carelessly trailing belts back in the day thinking someone could be tripped and injured.

 

Multiple injuries indeed had happened with those trailing life jacket belts on the stairs, with pax tripping on them.   Not sure if one or more sued RCI, but I heard some stories about it.  

 

RCI's explanation:   Don't need to be taught to put on your life jacket, if you are already wearing it when you get to the station. 

[island lady]

10 minutes ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

 

Whoa, the "nuclear" option! 😲

 

Could be made to "walk the plank".  😉 

[Engineroom Snipe]

Just now, island lady said:

 

Could be made to "walk the plank".  😉 

 

So, you like "old school". That'll work too! 

 

Unfortunately, the beer drinkers will think you are "offering" them a "plank" and be waiting for 5 glasses of different beers to taste test. 😏 

[island lady]

4 minutes ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

 

So, you like "old school". That'll work too! 

 

Unfortunately, the beer drinkers will think you are "offering" them a "plank" and be waiting for 5 glasses of different beers to taste test. 😏 

 

LOL!!!    🤣

[chengkp75]

19 minutes ago, hotsauce126 said:

if you think that any real live emergency would be anything other than complete chaos regardless of the type of mister drill you’re kidding yourself

Which it is why it is so important that the crew have repetitive muster drills actually handling thousands of passengers at one time, so that they can handle the chaos.  There are many examples in the past (using the old muster drill procedures), where the actual emergency was not chaos.

[Engineroom Snipe]

27 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Simple solution...don't allow people to purchase anything or use drink vouchers until they've done e-muster.  

 

The more I think about it, this might not be feasible.

 

By default, everyone's purchases and packages are deactivated until a crew member from the muster-station reactivated them through their RCI I-Pad.

 

You can immediately see the problem with this for we are involving and counting on RCI IT to create a flawless working program.

 

When the program fails and even those who did go to their muster-stations are still locked out of their accounts we are looking at mass chaos, "Cats and Dogs, sleeping together..." (Ghostbusters).

 

There WILL be a mutiny of passengers requiring the ship to be evacuated at dock or use the lifeboats to escape.

 

One way or another, we are going to the muster-stations.  🤔

 

"Next person in line with an idea........."

[chengkp75]

16 minutes ago, leisuretraveler223 said:

As long as cruise lines continue to devalue it by wasting time in muster telling me about their environmental programs, or having kids club staff trying to get kids wirstbands, it's pointless.  Get rid of the nonsense and tell people what they need to know.

There is really nothing that a passenger at a muster station needs to know, other than "show up, and shut up".  The announcements being made during muster would not be made during an actual emergency, and are really just to keep your attention while the remainder of the muster drill is accomplished.  There are hundreds of crew doing things as part of the muster procedure that passengers never see, because they are all at muster stations.  This includes searching the entire ship, and that takes time.

 

19 minutes ago, leisuretraveler223 said:

The reality is that any actual muster on one of these ships would go horribly.  Which is why the real industry goal is to never ever have to do it.

See my post above.  There have been actual emergencies where the muster goes, not perfectly, but certainly not "horribly" or "chaos".

 

20 minutes ago, leisuretraveler223 said:

We would be accessing the outdoor decks through the emergency doors from the promendade, theater or wherever.  Don't pretend it's a real drill, but then re-route everyone.

What if those crew stairs were unusable?  What if the theater was involved in the emergency?  What if the muster station is unusable?  Have you ever asked yourself, how would I get from any one spot on the ship to my muster station, if there is a fire at a location in between?  If you haven't put that much thought into evacuation, then a minor re-routing to passenger stairwells should not affect your performance in an emergency.

[time4u2go]

8 minutes ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

 

The more I think about it, this might not be feasible.

 

By default, everyone's purchases and packages are deactivated until a crew member from the muster-station reactivated them through their RCI I-Pad.

 

You can immediately see the problem with this for we are involving and counting on RCI IT to create a flawless working program.

 

When the program fails and even those who did go to their muster-stations are still locked out of their accounts we are looking at mass chaos, "Cats and Dogs, sleeping together..." (Ghostbusters).

 

There WILL be a mutiny of passengers requiring the ship to be evacuated at dock or use the lifeboats to escape.

 

One way or another, we are going to the muster-stations.  🤔

 

"Next person in line with an idea........."

That's a valid point.  Counting on RC's IT department to do anything accurately, consistently, and reliably is certainly a stretch.

[leisuretraveler223]

3 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

What if those crew stairs were unusable?  What if the theater was involved in the emergency?  What if the muster station is unusable?  Have you ever asked yourself, how would I get from any one spot on the ship to my muster station, if there is a fire at a location in between?  If you haven't put that much thought into evacuation, then a minor re-routing to passenger stairwells should not affect your performance in an emergency.

 

What if the main stairs were unusable. What if the grand lobby with the big doors to the outdoor deck were the site of the emergency?  I'm going to spend the entire week using the main stairs, etc. But the PREFERRED route from my stateroom to muster, the one marked on the back of my door may very well instruct me to use said crew stairs.  Maybe just once during the week it would make sense to do so.

 

I have thought about this more than you give me credit for.

[mandyleighflies]

33 minutes ago, hotsauce126 said:

if you think that any real live emergency would be anything other than complete chaos regardless of the type of mister drill you’re kidding yourself

 

THIS.

 

Flight Attendant here and I agree 100% on this. We perform the safety demo before EVERY flight and literally no one pays attention to it. Whenever you see an aircraft evacuation it is utter chaos, people still bring their suitcases even when they are directed not to do so. People panic, it's natural and everyone reacts differently in emergency situations. That's the reality of emergencies, we cannot plan for them but we can prepare. I think the videos/app RCL is utilizing now works great. I also agree that your card shouldn't work until you have completed muster duties, and I do think you should have to prove you have completed steps such as scanning a QR code at muster station, at your lifeboat and in your cabin with life vest location. This would give guests at the minimum a familiarity with these locations. I do not see a benefit to actually mustering as in reality, this is not how things would look during an actual emergency. However, if there would be a way to "walk you through" the steps and locations, I believe that would be beneficial. 

 

Muster starts in your stateroom. (ideally however, if they are not ready, you have the ability to do this all in reverse, start at muster and go to lifeboat then to stateroom and complete muster duties)

 

1. Scan QR code located on the cabinet door where your life vests are located. Watch 1 minute video on use and to verify you have enough for each member of your cabin. 

2. Go to Muster station. Scan QR code with RCL rep. Watch 1 minute video of how you got here and what you bring here and when. 

3. Go to Life Boat station. Scan QR code with RCL rep. Watch 1 minute video of when you come here and what happens here. 

4. FINISHED. Now your card works at the bars and restaurant's and you are free to enjoy vacation. 

 

This is just my 2 cents but I think something like this would run smoothly and allow passengers to walk themselves through this process without disturbing vacation. 

[Starry Eyes]

47 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Simple solution...don't allow people to purchase anything or use drink vouchers until they've done e-muster.  

Some ships do not start the emuster until noon though passengers boards earlier, so they might need to make an allowance for those early hours or open emuster when passengers board.
 

Carnival says if a person may purchase two drinks before completing their drill; the system will deny a third drink until the emuster is completed.  Fewer drunks at muster drill would be a positive.

[Canuker]

1. I am very much in favour of a real, in person muster drill given by real in person crew.

2. I am in favour of muster drills that congregate people in appropriate outside locations, with their life jackets.

3. A muster location in, say, the theatre is laughable. If the ship is going down or keeling over, the bottom-most deck is the last place I'd go.

4. The virtual musters I've attended have been pathetic in terms of practical information that will be useful in an emergency.

5. I was once at a muster drill that comprised someone turning on a video cartoon presentation. There were so many people crammed into that room that we could neither see nor hear the presentation.

6. On our last cruise, we failed to attend the muster drill because, evidently, the instructions to go there were being given over the cabins' audio system. We were vaguely aware of a man rapidly script-reading  and mumbling on about many topics but could not hear much of what was being said, nor was much of it of interest to us. We received a note the next day saying we were to report to a second muster drill because we had failed to attend to the first one. We didn't even know about the first one, which had been told to us by Mr. Mumble. We felt bad at this point but felt we were not alerted properly to the first one. Our guilt quickly vanished when we arrived at drill #2; there were over 200 people there! We learned that if our cabin audio was used, to go out into the corridor, where the audio volume was high enough to hear and understand what was being said. Thank goodness there wasn't any real emergency. We reported the audio issue to our steward, who understood, but by the time we left the ship, no improvement was evident.

For the record, the ship was Cunard's Queen Victoria.

7. We have learned to check our own best route(s) out to an open deck, in addition to the ship's own muster instructions.

Rant over.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Canuker

[time4u2go]

3 minutes ago, mandyleighflies said:

 

THIS.

 

Flight Attendant here and I agree 100% on this. We perform the safety demo before EVERY flight and literally no one pays attention to it. Whenever you see an aircraft evacuation it is utter chaos, people still bring their suitcases even when they are directed not to do so. People panic, it's natural and everyone reacts differently in emergency situations. That's the reality of emergencies, we cannot plan for them but we can prepare. I think the videos/app RCL is utilizing now works great. I also agree that your card shouldn't work until you have completed muster duties, and I do think you should have to prove you have completed steps such as scanning a QR code at muster station, at your lifeboat and in your cabin with life vest location. This would give guests at the minimum a familiarity with these locations. I do not see a benefit to actually mustering as in reality, this is not how things would look during an actual emergency. However, if there would be a way to "walk you through" the steps and locations, I believe that would be beneficial. 

 

Muster starts in your stateroom. (ideally however, if they are not ready, you have the ability to do this all in reverse, start at muster and go to lifeboat then to stateroom and complete muster duties)

 

1. Scan QR code located on the cabinet door where your life vests are located. Watch 1 minute video on use and to verify you have enough for each member of your cabin. 

2. Go to Muster station. Scan QR code with RCL rep. Watch 1 minute video of how you got here and what you bring here and when. 

3. Go to Life Boat station. Scan QR code with RCL rep. Watch 1 minute video of when you come here and what happens here. 

4. FINISHED. Now your card works at the bars and restaurant's and you are free to enjoy vacation. 

 

This is just my 2 cents but I think something like this would run smoothly and allow passengers to walk themselves through this process without disturbing vacation. 

As @chengkp75 has repeatedly pointed out, the purpose of the muster drill is not just to drill the passengers.  It is also to drill the crew.

[chengkp75]

3 minutes ago, mandyleighflies said:

I do not see a benefit to actually mustering as in reality, this is not how things would look during an actual emergency.

The major difference between an aircraft evacuation and a cruise ship muster, is time.  First off, the aircraft evacuation happens during and after the emergency has happened, and in the immediate vicinity of the passengers.  On a ship, muster is not about getting the passengers off the ship, it is about getting them to safe, limited, controlled, locations where they can be accounted for, and then searched for if unaccounted.  This will normally be called long before the vast majority of the passengers are directly threatened by the emergency, and long before any thought is given to getting into lifeboats.  There are many examples of cruise ship musters, in real emergency situations, including a sinking in Alaska, where the muster went smoothly.

 

9 minutes ago, mandyleighflies said:

This is just my 2 cents but I think something like this would run smoothly and allow passengers to walk themselves through this process without disturbing vacation. 

This is the key that I see for keeping the e-muster, it doesn't disturb my vacation.  It doesn't give any safety benefit, and in fact lessens the safety awareness of the passengers, and safety training of the crew, but it does meet the all important, my 30 minutes of vacation are inviolable.

[BecciBoo]

12 minutes ago, Canuker said:

1. I am very much in favour of a real, in person muster drill given by real in person crew.

2. I am in favour of muster drills that congregate people in appropriate outside locations, with their life jackets.

3. A muster location in, say, the theatre is laughable. If the ship is going down or keeling over, the bottom-most deck is the last place I'd go.

4. The virtual musters I've attended have been pathetic in terms of practical information that will be useful in an emergency.

5. I was once at a muster drill that comprised someone turning on a video cartoon presentation. There were so many people crammed into that room that we could neither see nor hear the presentation.

6. On our last cruise, we failed to attend the muster drill because, evidently, the instructions to go there were being given over the cabins' audio system. We were vaguely aware of a man rapidly script-reading  and mumbling on about many topics but could not hear much of what was being said, nor was much of it of interest to us. We received a note the next day saying we were to report to a second muster drill because we had failed to attend to the first one. We didn't even know about the first one, which had been told to us by Mr. Mumble. We felt bad at this point but felt we were not alerted properly to the first one. Our guilt quickly vanished when we arrived at drill #2; there were over 200 people there! We learned that if our cabin audio was used, to go out into the corridor, where the audio volume was high enough to hear and understand what was being said. Thank goodness there wasn't any real emergency. We reported the audio issue to our steward, who understood, but by the time we left the ship, no improvement was evident.

For the record, the ship was Cunard's Queen Victoria.

7. We have learned to check our own best route(s) out to an open deck, in addition to the ship's own muster instructions.

Rant over.

Personally, not.  If one is so stupid one cannot glean the info one needs from an iphone or monitor to:

1. get to the right muster station in time of crisis

and 

2. stand there and be given your jacket, put it on and wait for further instructions, maybe one needs to consider a land vacation where nobody is given any safety info including a driving manual any more.  I am much more threatened by driving my car to the corner market than of drowning on a cruise ship.  Way more!

 

If watching the stew or a TV on a plane can suffice, why not a ship.  I hope they keep things like they are now, convenient, easy and informative without herding us like cattle outside in inclement weather, sometimes to stand when some need to sit, with a bunch of drunk people who aren't listening at all.  An individual is responsible for his/her safety and this is just fall out from our society and the all prevailing atmosphere of the nanny state.  To think that someone who has done muster 30 times doesn't know how to get there, put on the life jacket and wait is ludicrous. 

 

But hey, that's just me.

[chengkp75]

20 minutes ago, Canuker said:

3. A muster location in, say, the theatre is laughable. If the ship is going down or keeling over, the bottom-most deck is the last place I'd go.

While I agree with most of your post, this I don't.  Muster should be signaled long before a ship is "going down" or "keeling" over.  If the ship is actually doing this, then after everyone has been accounted for, can you go outside to the boats.  Many, many times, muster is called in an emergency when no thought whatsoever is being made to evacuate the ship, or even at times when there is no threat to the vessel at all (man overboard is a common one).  Most ships built in the last 10 years do not have the space at the boats to accommodate a muster.  And, indoor muster stations are not randomly selected by the cruise line, they are approved by the class society, after meeting requirements for ingress/egress, nearness to boats, evacuation paths, ventilation, structural fire protection, and so on, set by maritime safety experts, who have studied crowd and crisis management.

[chengkp75]

4 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

But hey, that's just me.

And, you are entitled to your opinion.

 

So, I guess that making me attend fire and boat drills 26 weeks a year, for 46 years was ludicrous as well.  I could have just said, I know where the boats and rafts are, I'm responsible for my own safety, so I will disregard the fire and go to the boat and get away.  I must be stupid, because I felt that repetition was the best form of training to create unthinking response.  

[Engineroom Snipe]

5 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

And, you are entitled to your opinion.

 

So, I guess that making me attend fire and boat drills 26 weeks a year, for 46 years was ludicrous as well.  I could have just said, I know where the boats and rafts are, I'm responsible for my own safety, so I will disregard the fire and go to the boat and get away.  I must be stupid, because I felt that repetition was the best form of training to create unthinking response.  

 

"Train like it is real and when it is real you will do it like you were trained." Pure repetitive reflex with no time to think about it. When the adrenaline is high, repetition is the key.

[BecciBoo]

I knew you'd be commenting Chief!  I still respect everything you say.  But the training about fire you mention we never got anyways.  And most importantly, I'm not in the coast guard.  My job is to go to my muster station, get the jacket and obey the orders, and I feel you can get that much from what we have on our phones/monitors.  If we pay no attention or fake it, (which is pretty stupid in my book) that's on us.

Edited January 24, 2023 by BecciBoo

[time4u2go]

2 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

I knew you'd be commenting Chief!  I still respect everything you say.  But the training about fire you mention we never got anyways.  And most importantly, I'm not in the coast guard.  My job is to go to my muster station, get the jacket and obey the orders, and I feel you can get that much from what we have on our phones/monitors.  If we pay no attention or fake it, (which is pretty stupid in my book) that's on us.

As the chief has repeatedly pointed out, it's not just about training you (the passenger).  It's also about training the crew, through repetition.

[BecciBoo]

Which they do all week long.  But not on my time...thank goodness.

[time4u2go]

1 minute ago, BecciBoo said:

Which they do all week long.  But not on my time...thank goodness.

They do muster training all week long?  What?

[Engineroom Snipe]

8 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

I knew you'd be commenting Chief!  I still respect everything you say.  But the training about fire you mention we never got anyways.  And most importantly, I'm not in the coast guard.  My job is to go to my muster station, get the jacket and obey the orders, and I feel you can get that much from what we have on our phones/monitors.  If we pay no attention or fake it, (which is pretty stupid in my book) that's on us.

 

Plese refer to my post #26. I have no dog in this race. Why even worry about this when we will have to do whatever the cruise line mandates? It is a moot point to get worked-up about any changes that we will have NO control over except to not purchase the cruise fare.

 

😉

[chengkp75]

5 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

Which they do all week long.  But not on my time...thank goodness.

The "behind the scenes" part of the muster drill cannot be done unless the ship is empty (as when all passengers are at the known muster stations.  There is far more to the passenger muster drill than even the stairwell guides and the muster station leaders.