Safety First

Cruising is kind of the ultimate luxury vaca. Everything is provided--meals, lodging, entertainment, transportation to one exotic port of call after another.

But we are bobbing around in the ocean, so special care needs to be taken to insure that everyone has a chance to make it off the the ship in case of emergency.

Enter the Muster Drill. (In case you can't read the small print below the ship image, it says "interrupting bar service," which is kind of appropriate for the Carnival Dream because all passengers embark directly into the main bar!)

On our last Holland America cruise, the muster drill involved getting out our life jackets and meeting at our assigned lifeboat for further instructions. The crew checked off names on a list to make sure everyone attended and the ship didn't weigh anchor until the drill was done.

On Carnival we were told to leave our life jackets in our stateroom and gather in the big Encore theater. Had this been an actual emergency, we would have brought our life jackets. Once the theater was about half full (no attempt was made to make sure everyone attended), one of the dancers from the stage troop who entertained us all week, told us that once we were all assembled, we'd be led, a couple of rows at a time, to our waiting life boat.

Let's see. Picture this: klaxon sounding, ship listing, the theater full to bursting with panic-stricken people. Then we'll be told to wait patiently while select small groups are led out to a lifeboat.

Well, that sounds good. Because people are always willing to wait while others are led to safety, right? No, I'm afraid this has all kinds of bad written all over it.

Of course, sometimes people don't panic. I remember one time shortly after 9/11 I was in a London Tube station when a maddeningly calm voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that "A bomb threat has been issued against this station. Kindly make your Way Out." Almost as one, the crowd turned and walked quietly toward the long escalators (which had been shut down in the emergency.) There was no screaming. No running. No pushing or shoving. I was never so proud of the English blood running through my veins. (Of course, my family has been in America since the early 1600s so we were undoubtedly trouble-causers in the Old Country!)

Anyway, Carnival's evacuation plan did not inspire my confidence.

It sank further when, at the tender port of Belize, Carnival used private contractors to ferry us from the ship to shore. Holland America uses the ship's own life crafts. If Carnival doesn't drill with the lifeboats, how do they know the boats are in good repair and the winches to lower them into the water are all working?

I stewed about this for about a minute (I am on vacation after all and have better things to do!) Then when we were in port at Roatan, the Carnival crew practiced fire suppression, ran emergency evacuation drills and lowered some of the lifeboats. They puttered around the harbor with them for about thirty minutes.

That made me feel somewhat better.

Ever since I was a kid, safety has been my hot-button. Probably because my mom is so good at imagining worst case scenarios. Now that I'm older, she's sort of taken up residence in my head--at least about this.

But if I listen to my inner worry wort, I'd never leave my bed. Can't have that.

Years ago, I heard about a group of cruise passengers who died when the excursion bus they were on plunged off a Chilean hillside. No doubt, it was terrible. But those people died while having an adventure. If I have to choose between lingering in a hospital or a Chilean hillside, I'll take the plunge every time.