Why Disney, WHY??

Also an interesting question, if the chances of getting in a plane crash are so much higher than on a cruise ship, why does a cruise ship require a more intense drill?
One thought: you have a better chance of surviving an incident on a ship than the crash of a plane going hundreds of miles an hour.
 
Also an interesting question, if the chances of getting in a plane crash are so much higher than on a cruise ship, why does a cruise ship require a more intense drill?
If you are on a cruise ship and something happens, you will have to take an active role. You will need to get your life jacket and get to a muster station. It is very possible that you will not be in your stateroom when this occurs so would have to navigate the ship.

On an airplane, you are almost certainly to be in your seat when an emergency begins. You really would not have to make any decisions yourself as the flight attendants would give you all the needed instructions.
 
If you are on a cruise ship and something happens, you will have to take an active role. You will need to get your life jacket and get to a muster station. It is very possible that you will not be in your stateroom when this occurs so would have to navigate the ship.

On an airplane, you are almost certainly to be in your seat when an emergency begins. You really would not have to make any decisions yourself as the flight attendants would give you all the needed instructions.
On the other hand, emergencies in an aircraft happen very very quickly and seconds matter--planes are designed to be evacuated in 90 seconds or less, and there are far more likely to be major complications like blocked exits, smoke in the cabin, etc.. (The 90 second evacuation standard includes half of the exits randomly blocked.) And, to be frank, the NTSB has identified major problems with flight attendants' performance during actual emergencies, so it's not safe to assume passengers will have good direction. Emergencies on ships happen much more slowly.

I suspect it's just a matter of practicality. Airline flights are as short as 30 minutes (or even less), so doing an extended safety briefing is impractical. Cruises have at least 2 days, so blowing 30 minutes on a muster drill is much less of a burden.
 
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About taking backstage areas, if you don't go through them for the drill, how do you know where/how to access them during an actual emergency?
Definitely agree with this-- I know on the Classic ships, sometimes the muster access aft (say, to Animator's Palette) can be through a staircase that is not normally used by passengers on a day to day basis (or, it was... if my memory serves correctly).
I am certainly not opposed to going back to the 'normal' muster drill-- I don't feel like scanning the code upon boarding the ship, and not actually coming from my stateroom gave me as much sense of direction of where to go.

Also-- for those who are extra concerned about the closeness of the muster drill, if there was an emergency which required you to abandon ship, the lifeboats are WAY more densely packed.
 
Also an interesting question, if the chances of getting in a plane crash are so much higher than on a cruise ship, why does a cruise ship require a more intense drill?
Having all plane passengers walk to the closest exit at the beginning of each flight is not feasible. Telling passengers to look around to find the nearest exit is the best the airlines can do, short of putting cards or labels with the nearest exit at each seat. It also would not make sense to drop oxygen masks at each seat — I would guess getting them back up without damage would not be easy.

On a large ship, having passengers walk to muster stations does work. DCL apparently decided the downsides of making guests wear life vests (taking up more space, being uncomfortable, possible damage) outweigh the upside of ensuring everyone knows where they are in the cabin. However, unlike with oxygen masks, cruise passengers can locate the life vests on their own if they feel that would be useful.
 
Also-- for those who are extra concerned about the closeness of the muster drill, if there was an emergency which required you to abandon ship, the lifeboats are WAY more densely packed.
Yes, and personally that freaks me out. But I know the chances of needing to get in a lifeboat are very slim, as opposed to the chances of being packed in together for a muster drill (which are quite high).
 


This is such a tiny portion of your vacation and it could truly save your life. I honestly don't understand why the extreme shouting over it.
I've been reading these to make sure folks stay respectful (thank you!), and the difference seems to be whether you find the covid era briefing sufficient and not whether there should be one at all.
 
Yes, and personally that freaks me out. But I know the chances of needing to get in a lifeboat are very slim, as opposed to the chances of being packed in together for a muster drill (which are quite high).
Apparently NCL this week has also has gone back to the normal, in person muster drill.
Bottom line, the "e-muster" drill was never intended to be a permanent change, it was just a concession to covid. And sadly, apparently too many people were cheating and not really doing the e-muster drill.
 
Well there are reports that NCL has gone back to in person muster drills on some of it's ships.
 
NCL is going back to the traditional life boat drill too.
 
And after my post above, there was a fire on the Disney Wonder (last Wednesday during Pirate night). THAT is why the muster drill is so important. Fortunately it was small, and quickly extinguished.
 
Just got off the Disney Wonder. We had the full muster drill.

Then there was the electrical fire on Pirate Night when we were far from shore and pitch black with a good rolling sea.

The fire spread was surprisingly rapid at first, but once they cut power is was under control in about 30 minutes. If it had continued to spread, with the observed mental and physical abilities of most of the passengers we were convinced there would have been a lot of fatalities if we actually had to abandon ship.

Large masses blocking a stairwell screaming "what do we do" to an overwhelmed crew will get a lot of others killed.

This is no joke.
 
Just got off the Disney Wonder. We had the full muster drill.

Then there was the electrical fire on Pirate Night when we were far from shore and pitch black with a good rolling sea.

The fire spread was surprisingly rapid at first, but once they cut power is was under control in about 30 minutes. If it had continued to spread, with the observed mental and physical abilities of most of the passengers we were convinced there would have been a lot of fatalities if we actually had to abandon ship.

Large masses blocking a stairwell screaming "what do we do" to an overwhelmed crew will get a lot of others killed.

This is no joke.

Did the fire damage the wonder a lot?
 
Did the fire damage the wonder a lot?
One speaker tower on Funnel Vision was really damaged. They couldn't repair at sea, but they got the screen working and used the surround speakers on deck for the movies. Not as good, but a work around that kept the movies rolling. When we debarked this morning I didn't see the crew working the tower, so not sure how long to replace.

We watched a technician working behind the Funnel Vision for quite a while the next day. From the fire (video had been posted on Facebook), it really looked like the top third was burnt up.

They did the fireworks show two days later but without finishing Pirate Night.
 
If you’re worried about disease and germs on a cruise ship then maybe it’s not for you. More importantly if we are dropping all Covid requirements then why would they not have the in person drill. You can’t have it both ways.

Just my worthless 2 cents…
 
If you’re worried about disease and germs on a cruise ship then maybe it’s not for you. More importantly if we are dropping all Covid requirements then why would they not have the in person drill. You can’t have it both ways.
There are plenty of COVID-related changes in the world that have stuck around because COVID forced us to learn new ways of doing things, and in many cases we realized that these new ways were superior to the way it used to be. It's telling that Disney is the only cruise line that has gone back to the old muster drill. Maybe others will follow in time, but I expect that they'll only do it if forced to. Of course, Disney also did a pretty half-hearted attempt at the virtual muster drill too--IMO, it was executed much better on my Celebrity, Princess, and MSC cruises. Maybe Disney wouldn't have been forced to go back to in-person muster drills if they had done a better job on the virtual ones?
 
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There are plenty of COVID-related changes in the world that have stuck around because COVID forced us to learn new ways of doing things, and in many cases we realized that these new ways were superior to the way it used to be. It's telling that Disney is the only cruise line that has gone back to the old muster drill. Maybe others will follow in time, but I expect that they'll only do it if forced to. Of course, Disney also did a pretty half-hearted attempt at the virtual muster drill too--IMO, it was executed much better on my Celebrity, Princess, and MSC cruises. Maybe Disney wouldn't have been forced to go back to in-person muster drills if they had done a better job on the virtual ones?
Who is the virtual muster drill superior for? The crew or the passengers? Clearly Disney thinks it’s more effective in person. I can certainly tell you I leaned more in person than the virtual muster drill.

Sure, the passengers enjoy having the virtual muster drill but it’s not really supposed to be enjoyable.
 
Who is the virtual muster drill superior for? The crew or the passengers? Clearly Disney thinks it’s more effective in person. I can certainly tell you I leaned more in person than the virtual muster drill.
Personally, I learned a ton more from the virtual muster drill. As I mentioned earlier, I still remember where my muster station was for each of my last 5 cruises that used virtual muster. For the in-person muster drill I struggled to remember where my muster station was even by the end of the cruise. Further, because many cruise lines required guests to observe and pay attention to a one-on-one in-person life jacket demo during the virtual muster drills, I also retained that information a whole lot better.

We here have no evidence that the in-person muster drill is any more or less safe than the virtual one, we just [possibly incorrectly] assume that the old way of doing it is superior because it's just the way it has always been done (in recent history, at least). I can say that virtual drills, when executed well, increased safety for me personally, but that's only my experience and I have no idea if it is true more broadly. I just know that Disney stands alone here so far.
 
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It's telling that Disney is the only cruise line that has gone back to the old muster drill. Maybe others will follow in time, but I expect that they'll only do it if forced to.
Didn't someone mention that NCL is also going back to the old way? I expect that they'll all follow eventually.
 

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