Soon after you board a cruise ship you will be instructed to attend a lifeboat drill. No one really likes doing this as it interrupts their enjoyment of the ship, and few people look more attractive with a bright orange pillow strapped to their bodies. Most reluctantly acknowledge the rationale and fifteen minutes later, after repeated calls looking for the two people who ignored the drill, everyone can return to their vacation.
What the passengers don’t see are the shoreside emergency drills. Usually led by the “designated person ashore,” – a senior maritime executive charged with the responsibility for safety.
The senior safety officer would develop a scenario, with information sequenced as it would happen in a real situation – little known early on, more in phases and often a correction of what was initially reported as it plays out.
While the focus is directly on safely resolving whatever the situation is, all disciplines are included in the room, including finance, marketing, public relations, human resources, guest services, etc. With any significant incident there are cascading impacts throughout the whole organization. Most take notes saying very little, as the discussion needs to be very disciplined.
One group not in the room is the “away team.” These are designated people who have bags packed every day when they come to work, who are assumed to be in-route to wherever the incident occurred. They are given just basic information on the incident and sent on their way. In the final stages of the drill, they are brought in to explain what challenges they may have identified in their assumed roles and debriefed on what others learned.
I remember one drill where the scenario was criticized by the team as being too extreme. A ship at night returns to a distant port to disembark a sick passenger and it runs aground creating a huge hole, with a few other wrinkles. I don’t recall the exact measurements of the hole, but the engineers questioned the reality of the event. Not one week later another cruise ship incurred almost exactly this scenario with a larger hole. They ended up beaching the ship to stabilize it. Score one for the safety officer.
Passengers also don’t see the rigorous emergency training that occurs on the ship. Fire suppression is a big one, but there are many others including the rapid deployment of rescue boats should a passenger go overboard – which, by the way, is preceded by an alarm call over the speakers of “mister MOB.”
When I joined the Disney Cruise Line, I was not familiar with the cruise industry. Over the years I was there I learned an enormous amount.
My most impactful takeaway was how disciplined the officers, crew and shoreside cast were when it came to safety. Taking thousands of souls to sea is not to be taken lightly.
The ships are beautiful, the stage shows are Broadway-worthy, and the private islands are impressive but sometimes it is the things you don’t see that make your cruise great.
