Why does DCL have us congregate inside the theater instead of outside by the lifeboats?

[ASchwa]

Absolutely! My husband is a veteran, having served in the Air Force including in Desert Storm so I understand what you are saying. This is precisely my point. I have never been the type of person who blindly follows the crowd and does what Im told, just because "they" should know better than me. For example, in 9/11 I'm sure you are all familiar with the people who were told over the loud speakers to stay in their offices and that they would be safe if they stayed where they were. Well, the ones who didnt listen and started running down the stairs, lived. The ones who listened, didnt. im not saying DCL doesnt know what they are doing. Im just saying that I like to question it and analyze and not follow it blindly. I like to know the reasoning of their decisions and like the poster here said, to know what plan B is.

You are mistaken about what exactly happened on 9/11. After the first tower was hit, the second tower's occupants, started to evacuate because they had felt the impact. The building hadn't been hit yet. The first tower, the occupants were evacuating and most making their way out. Most people in the first tower who were already trapped were in the 80th floor and above. So, in order to make sure that people were not hurt by falling concrete,glass and people, they told the people in the second tower to go back and stay inside. No one thought or knew that another plane was heading for them. You are correct that had the people in the second tower not listened to the announcements to stay inside, some would be alive. At the time though, the people in charge had no reason to think that there was another plane. They made a decision not knowing what was going to happen. Hindsight is 20/20, would you have thought at that moment on that day, there was another plane? I was watching the news when the second plane hit and I was surprised. I am a New Yorker, I live in the metro area of the city. We heard about the announcements but now that I think about it, there was no way to know what was going to happen.

 

[Princessdimd2]

Can anyone provide the link to muster station assignments by guestroom? I read that it exist on the boards, but I must have missed it. I will admit I read through the threads quickly.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

You are mistaken about what exactly happened on 9/11. After the first tower was hit, the second tower's occupants, started to evacuate because they had felt the impact. The building hadn't been hit yet. The first tower, the occupants were evacuating and most making their way out. Most people in the first tower who were already trapped were in the 80th floor and above. So, in order to make sure that people were not hurt by falling concrete,glass and people, they told the people in the second tower to go back and stay inside. No one thought or knew that another plane was heading for them. You are correct that had the people in the second tower not listened to the announcements to stay inside, some would be alive. At the time though, the people in charge had no reason to think that there was another plane. They made a decision not knowing what was going to happen. Hindsight is 20/20, would you have thought at that moment on that day, there was another plane? I was watching the news when the second plane hit and I was surprised. I am a New Yorker, I live in the metro area of the city. We heard about the announcements but now that I think about it, there was no way to know what was going to happen.

I don't think fairytalelover was mistaken about what happened that day. Her point was that those on the upper floors of Tower 2 who listened to the instructions to stay in their offices died. Many of those who ignored the instructions and began evacuating lived because they made it down past the point of impact before the South Tower was hit. Of course they didn't know what was about to happen and hindsight is 20/20, but many people's natural instinct was to evacuate and the ones who followed that instinct survived. I know people who were in the South Tower that day. When the North Tower was hit, the office leader gathered his people up and told them to start down the stairs. He didn't care that they were being told to stay where they were. He didn't feel comfortable staying put because he knew what a target the Towers were for terrorism. If I'm remembering correctly, he had been in the Towers in 1993 when they were bombed. They were in the stairwell when the second plane hit.

That said, I still feel strongly that on the ship, you need to report to your muster station if it is accessible. Heading out onto the deck instead of to your muster station will only impede the safe evacuation of yourself and others.

 

[HappilyEverAfter80]

I didn't really read all posts - but it's a bit scary to me knowing that some cruisers will go to a different muster station than assigned if there was a real emergency. If there are lots that feel this way, imagine the potential chaos?
Aren't we essentially assigned to specific lifeboats in our particular station?

 

[MelSpees]

The situations on 9/11 and on a cruise ship would differ tremendously. To compare them seems a bit off to me. On the ship there are many contingency plans and people who will carry them out. The tragedy of 9/11 was totally unforeseen and therefore could not be planned for.

 

[jtba]

Can anyone provide the link to muster station assignments by guestroom? I read that it exist on the boards, but I must have missed it. I will admit I read through the threads quickly.

magic/wonder: http://www.disboards.com/threads/magic-wonder-muster-lifeboat-stations.2579704/
dream/fantasy: http://www.disboards.com/threads/dream-fantasy-muster-stations.2639344/

the lists aren't complete though. perhaps there are are better lists elsewhere on the web?

 

[tinkerone]

I read two pages and i'm not about to read more. it is certainly any ones choice not to go to their muster station however keep in mind you can't just walk up to the first boat you see and expect you will get on it. each boat holds a certain number of people and these people have been planed out ahead of time. there going to check your card or if you don't have your card they will ask your room number and if you are not in that boat they are going to send you to where you should be. you have just wasted valuable time in not going to your appointed meeting place. go ahead and run around but you are the one putting your family in danger. the inside meet up places are steps away from a door to the deck, its not going to take long for the cm to lead you to where your boat is.
jmo.

 

[bumbershoot]

Now, let's say the theater is on fire or submerged, going to the theater really is not the best option. In that case, we should be told which boat is assigned to us.

And in that case, once that is the situation happening at that time, they will tell you.

If you were in charge of people for 3-7 days, and that's the only amount of time you were spending with them, I really doubt you were telling them your plan Zs. For the people in your unit, I'm sure they knew more than one plan; possibly because any of them might become the person in charge, telling others, total newbies, what to do next. We're the newbies in this.

As far as evacuation routes go, I'll ask the employees which way to go.

Don't you think, being that I have actually planned evacuations for THOUSANDS of people in case of the "what if" scenarios, that I would still go to the muster stations.

From the first post of yours here, how could any of us know that?

If every pax on a cruise was as diligent and conscientious as you are, the muster drill would be over in 10 minutes!

Well, I don't know. After all, someone taking the drill 100% seriously will go about their business UNTIL they hear the alarm. And then at that point they will start making their way to their station. We tried that once (against DH and DS's wishes, because I read some really interesting thread about it on cruisecritic and it made total sense to me to practice it as it would happen in an emergency). People didn't appreciate it. About 3/4 were already there, and we were looked on as slackers. (then the other 1/4 of the people came slowly to the station so we definitely weren't last)

If *everyone* did it that way and then shushed and listened, it would be over quickly. But if some get there before the alarm has gone off (impossible in an emergency situation) and some get there as it goes off and some get there after making their way to the stations after the alarm has gone off, those first people are going to feel like it's taken an awful long time for the drill to be done!

im not saying DCL doesnt know what they are doing.

To me, I feel like you are.

The ships are their homes, their babies. They know the ships inside and out. They know where to send us.

Each person has their own comfort level, and if you are specifically highly trained in managing disaster situations, that protocol is ingrained in you, I can really imagine it is something you instinctively cannot just turn off, nor should you have to do when you can ask for more information.

Each to their own, and fair sailing to you on your voyages.

Do YOU appreciate people asking you plan B, C, etc? Would you appreciate 4000 people (or even one person from each group) asking you for that information?

 

[bumbershoot]

The situations on 9/11 and on a cruise ship would differ tremendously. To compare them seems a bit off to me. On the ship there are many contingency plans and people who will carry them out. The tragedy of 9/11 was totally unforeseen and therefore could not be planned for.

I agree.

One is a cruiseship where there are experts right there, knowing what's going on. The other was an office building. No experts on the situation happening, no knowledge of what was about to happen, what was in the works. If there hadn't been the second plane, the ones going outside might have been hurt/killed by the other building falling etc, and the ones inside would have been the survivors.

 

[ASchwa]

I don't think fairytalelover was mistaken about what happened that day. Her point was that those on the upper floors of Tower 2 who listened to the instructions to stay in their offices died. Many of those who ignored the instructions and began evacuating lived because they made it down past the point of impact before the South Tower was hit. Of course they didn't know what was about to happen and hindsight is 20/20, but many people's natural instinct was to evacuate and the ones who followed that instinct survived. I know people who were in the South Tower that day. When the North Tower was hit, the office leader gathered his people up and told them to start down the stairs. He didn't care that they were being told to stay where they were. He didn't feel comfortable staying put because he knew what a target the Towers were for terrorism. If I'm remembering correctly, he had been in the Towers in 1993 when they were bombed. They were in the stairwell when the second plane hit.

That said, I still feel strongly that on the ship, you need to report to your muster station if it is accessible. Heading out onto the deck instead of to your muster station will only impede the safe evacuation of yourself and others.

Of course she was mistaken, she made no distinction between the first tower, that was being evacuated and the second tower, that they told to stay put. She said that those people on 9/11 were told to stay in their offices and died. The way she said it, she made it seem that everyone in both buildings were told to stay put. Look again at her post. Yes there was an attack in 1993, I had seen the news, that night a man came into the drugstore that I worked and told me he had climbed down the stairs of the World Trade Center. I agree that the ones who ignored the announcements were smart to leave, to follow their instincts, but in the twenty minutes between the first tower being hit and the second one being hit did anyone believe that another plane had been hijacked and was heading for the second tower. I remember the news reports were unclear whether the plane was either a small plane or a big plane, if it was an accident or on purpose. When the second plane hit they could see it had been deliberate. Only after the Pentagon had been hit the news then had a few reports about the planes being hijacked did the full enormity of the situation become clearer. I guess that you also didn't hear about the people who were injured by falling debris that day. When there is a fire in a building in NYC, unless your apartment is on fire or the one next to it, you are to stay put even if the fire is on the same floor. That happened to me once, I was visiting an apartment in a building and there was a fire on the same floor. Was told by the Fire Department to stay where we were. Except for some smoke, which I only smelled a little of, I wouldn't have known there had been a fire.

 

[MaleficentRN]

But I AM IN CONCIERGE - I must be the first off of the ship!!!

and for the MDR issues - "which one of these boats is mine. I don't get to spend much time with my family, so it will be just us in here - you can put everyone else in one of those other boats"

and finally .... I came down here at the beginning of the cruise and put my towel on this boat .... it's mine for the duration of the cruise ... I won't be sharing and I might not come back and use it at all, but I don't want anyone else to enjoy my personal life boat on this cruise because I might come back and want it sometime later.

When I've stayed concierge, our muster station was in the theater. I paid good money to go down like steerage?! At least put me in District or some other bar so I can have a few drinks while the water rushes in around me!

 

[FlagTechMgr]

Please Please Please ... Go to your assigned muster station! If you don't then you are the one who is adding chaos and confusion in the middle of an already chaotic and confusing situation. The emergency plan has been developed and reviewed by professional mariners and multiple organizations. They know what they are doing.

The FIRST thing you should ALWAYS do upon arriving in your stateroom is look at the station bill on the back of your door. It will describe what to do in a given emergency and also what the specific emergency signals are.

i thought Disney actually had the best drills of any vessel I had been on to include the merchant ships I sailed on professionally. For purposes of the drill, I would say show up early with the crowd and get it over with and then take your family on a walk through at a less chaotic time. The one downside to a drill of that size is that there is so much going on that it can be difficult to absorb what you the passenger need to absorb.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I always ~hope~ to be in a theater for the drill. I hate the outside stations. Standing shoulder to shoulder like sardines in the sweltering heat. Ugh.


Another item to mention is that ships, much like airplanes, study disasters to develop better procedures. Each disaster = lessons learned. Titanic? A lot was learned from that. And changed. Costa Concordia? Yep, more lessons learned and changes to emergency procedures. So even if you *did* end up in a situation that those ships were in, the evacuation would be handled completely differently and assuredly eons better.

 

[Dug720]

When I've stayed concierge, our muster station was in the theater. I paid good money to go down like steerage?! At least put me in District or some other bar so I can have a few drinks while the water rushes in around me!

I'm wondering if they have changed the muster stations around. When we were Concierge on the Dream in July 2013 (cabin 12028) our muster station was on the deck.

My next 2 cruises - Dream cabin 9000 and Fantasy cabin 5044 - were both in the WDT. 9000 was in the balcony and 5044 was on the main level.

 

[E ticket rider]

Sorry but I dont feel safe heading inside of a sinking ship....common sense tells me to get my family outside asap

Go look up some of the videos posted from the Costa Concordia sinking. The Captain failed in his duty and didn't properly muster his passengers for the emergency. They all rushed the boat decks because it was quite clear to them that the ship was sinking. It was complete chaos. Disregarding the safety protocols put in place won't make your family safer, it will actually endanger them. A ship evacuation needs to be a well coordinated event. If all 4000 passengers on the Dream or Fantasy rushed the boat deck all at once, there would be more risk to all onboard. They can't launch all the lifeboats simultaneously. It would create a huge safety issue at the waterline as they released the lifeboat from the ship. The crew have been trained on how to efficiently and safely evacuate the ship, you haven't and would create a safety impediment. It takes an extraordinary event to sink a ship so quickly that there wouldn't be time to properly muster the passengers. If that were to happen, you'd have bigger things to worry about than your muster station being in a theater.

 

[SirDuff]

I agree.

One is a cruiseship where there are experts right there, knowing what's going on. The other was an office building. No experts on the situation happening, no knowledge of what was about to happen, what was in the works. If there hadn't been the second plane, the ones going outside might have been hurt/killed by the other building falling etc, and the ones inside would have been the survivors.

That and the fact that I'm sure one could find many, many examples of people who died in an emergency because they didn't follow instructions.

 

[E ticket rider]

I was a medic in the army, deployed to Iraq, have been trained in mass casualties, evacuations, etc.
I have actually HAD to do those in real life. No matter how planned a situation is, you can't plan for everything. But you CAN offer a plan B. I am not saying NOT to go to the muster station. I am saying that they need to have a back up for every muster station. Not even saying it needs to be at the lifeboats, but if everyone is running from a burning theater that is my muster station, and they didn't tell me where to go in the evet that my muster station is not accessible, then should I just stand there? No! But where exactly should I go? Against the crowds to the burning theater? Against the crowds to the upper deck staterooms? Out to the lifeboats that may be in a completely different direction than where my lifeboat is located? Again, causing chaos against the crowds.
That's what my point is getting at. Telling me to just go to my muster station isn't good enough (clearly I would go because that's the protocol), but my point is they need to give a secondary location in the event that a specific muster station is not accessible.
Being that I have had to plan for evacuations, mass casualties, etc. I can tell you right now, a blanket response of just go to your muster station is not the best response.
Talk to your CM and ask them where you should go if the muster station is not accessible. I asked mine, and guess what, they had to ask their supervisor after his initial response of "just come here". When I explained that what if "here" is on fire where should we go, he paused and went to ask his supervisor.
So don't tell me they are all trained in this and know what they are doing. If it was an emergency and I had to ask where we should go, this CM would have been clueless thus causing more panic.

Many people, myself included, don't have any formal disaster management training. Telling people "Plan B, C, D and/or E" would create confusion and panic. In an emergency, your only option is to follow crew direction. The Plan B that may be employed might be specific to the type of emergency or location of damage. It doesn't surprise me that the CM didn't have an answer to your question handy. If your muster station is inaccessible, there will have been radio communication from the bridge to the crew on what to do/where to go. The CMs would be notified and you would be directed to the proper location. We sailed shortly after the Concordia sank and someone asked a "what if" question regarding the list angle that would make it impossible to launch lifeboats from the "high side" of the ship. The CM didn't know the precise angle, but did inform the concerned guest that the ship is equipped with enough life rafts that they could deploy the entire ships complement from one side of the ship if necessary. Grandeur of the Seas had a fire on the mooring deck almost two years ago. Her captain ordered the passengers to muster. As the fire built, it rendered one of their muster stations in a restaurant inaccessible. The crew was properly briefed by the bridge and the passengers were safely directed to an alternate location. The fire was extinguished and the passengers remained at their muster station for several hours, but the ship was not evacuated. No one was given a Plan B in advance, yet the crew got the job done.

 

[FlagTechMgr]

We sailed shortly after the Concordia sank and someone asked a "what if" question regarding the list angle that would make it impossible to launch lifeboats from the "high side" of the ship. The CM didn't know the precise angle, but did inform the concerned guest that the ship is equipped with enough life rafts that they could deploy the entire ships complement from one side of the ship if necessary.

20 degrees. Regulations require that the lifeboats be able to be launched at a 20 deg list angle. Regulations also require that there be life saving capacity for 100% of persons on board on each side of the vessel. If your lifeboat can't be launched, there is a life raft waiting for you on the other side.

Due to the length of the typical cruise ship voyage (always less than 24 hrs from land) they may be authorized to have less lifeboat space than passengers. In which case, those of you mustering in the theater are likely pre-designated for a life raft. Again, read the station bill on the back of your door.

20 deg. may not sound like a lot, but its massive, you would see a lot of scared faces at even 5-10 degrees of list. It only takes about 3-4 degrees before your inner ear notices and your mind is telling you that was a "big one"

 

[AngelDisney]

This is a very informative thread indeed. I agree that the crew will find ways to inform passengers if an alternate muster station is needed for any emergency situation. I am glad to learn that there are sufficient lifeboats or rafts on either side of the ship for all passengers + crew onboard. A ship is a closed space unlike a school or a building on land. We cannot just go to different exit and be able to get out. We need to follow instructions to get on the lifeboats in an orderly manner. I sure hope that our ship captain would know what professional decisions to make in case of emergency. Hopefully these are just what-ifs and they will never happen to us in real-life!! Pixie dust

 

[E ticket rider]

It's also very important to report to your assigned muster station rather than choose to "save yourself". I agree that muster is the least fun part of the cruise, but every little thing the crew says and does is carefully planned so that they can get an accurate passenger headcount. The Captain and his officers are (supposed to be) the "last boots on deck" in an evacuation. The Captain should be the last to abandon ship, but he can not do that until he is certain that his passengers are all safe and accounted for. If you choose to go it alone and present yourself on deck to the first crew member you see, the crew will have to stop doing their job so they can tell you to go back to your assigned muster station. In the event of a ship evacuation, the longer it takes to account for the passengers, the longer the crew are at risk. It's pretty ballsy to risk someone else's life because you think you know more than the trained professionals.