After 30 years of mandatory lifeboat drills on dozens of cruise ships, I have just finished a cruise on which -- for the first time -- I didn't have to wear one of those bulky orange life jackets.
No, I didn't break the rules. Royal Caribbean has a new plan for the mandatory mustering of passengers, which is the exercise designed to prepare for emergencies such as abandoning ship if it hits an iceberg or something.
On the new Oasis of the Seas, which debuts in Florida in December, life jackets will not be placed in passenger cabins. Instead they will be kept at muster stations, the place where passengers would go in an emergency to gather for boarding a lifeboat. The plan, no doubt, was the result of the size of the new Oasis, which will be the largest cruise ship in the world.
All over the world, passengers on cruises are required on the first day of their voyage to await a signal, then go to their cabins, put on a life jacket and walk -- sometimes several flights of steps -- to their muster station. This mustering takes place in groups of about 150 people, enough to fill a lifeboat.
On their first few cruises, passengers tend to accept this comical looking intrusion into their day, traipsing up and down stairwells in bulky orange life jackets, taking pictures of each other looking foolish, then sitting for what usually is a boring lecture at a time when passengers would prefer to be outside in the sunshine or in the casino.
Preparing for a disaster at sea
The point of the exercise is about safety. Everyone has seen the movie, "Titanic," and no one wants to be caught unprepared for the next disaster.
Still, it's not difficult to learn how to put on a life jacket, nor to follow instructions about where to muster. After a few cruises, the drill feels repetitious and a waste of vacation time
At least one cruise line executive agrees.
"It is a royal pain in the ass," says Richard Fain, chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises, in one of his recent blogs about Oasis of the Seas. Fain says the drill is a good safety protocol, but "it's a laborious, uncomfortable, manual process that can distract from the important safety purposes."
On the Oasis, says Fain, passengers can walk directly to their muster stations for the safety drill, where leaders will use a wireless system to take attendance.
"This is a dramatically better system," says Fain. And safer, as passengers are not wandering all over the ship with the straps of their life jackets hanging loose, tripping up other passengers.
Cruising on the Celebrity Equinox
Royal Caribbean has been testing the new drill on its ships. That's where my experience comes in. Royal Caribbean owns Celebrity Cruises. Last week, I was on the new Celebrity Equinox out of Southampton, England. On the first morning at sea, we mustered without wearing life jackets.
I did not feel any less safe. Or less mustered.
What's next? Will international maritime authorities require Royal Caribbean to haul out the stashed life jackets for 5,000 passengers at muster stations each cruise of the Oasis of the Seas? Or will a simple life jacket demonstration do?
Will Royal Caribbean's system of removing life jackets from storage in the cabins be copied elsewhere? I wouldn't be surprised.
