Jump to content

Disney returning to in-person Muster Drill


Recommended Posts

Over on some Disney boards, it's been reported that all of DCL's ships have started returning to in-person Muster Drill.  Posters are split over whether it's a DCL choice or a Coast Guard/legal requirement.  Any rumors for Royal?  I feel like there are posters here who would have much more insight into whether the Coast Guard was involved in the decision.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My source is cruiseradio.net:

"Disney Cruise Line has learned that just because something is made quicker and easier doesn’t mean that people will be more inclined to do it.

The line is bringing back in-person muster drills on all of its ships due to a reported lack of willingness from passengers to do the digital safety drills that have been in place since the line resumed voyages in 2021."

and 

"As of right now, cruise companies have been allowed to keep their e-muster procedures and most have with positive passenger feedback. Disney Cruise Line, however, is going back to in-person muster drills to ensure that every guest participates fully and knows exactly what they should do in case of an emergency.

It’s unknown whether the Coast Guard will eventually require all U.S.-based cruise lines to go back to this form of safety drill."
 
I think this is a case where a few people are wrecking a good experience for the rest of us. 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PG Cruiser said:

If only Royal can hold on to the SeaPass cards until the guests report to their muster stations.  Or probably have guests claim the cards from those stations.

That’s actually a great idea. If people could not access their stateroom (or buy a cocktail) before doing that simple 1 minute requirement on their phone, muster would be done in record time!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Vision two weeks ago, the scanning didn't begin until about 1 PM.  We tried to scan our cards after boarding at noon, but the staff were too busy elsewhere.

I do recall just prior to sail away, some 400passengers had failed to complete the muster drill, and the Captain personally appealed to everyone.  We did seem to depart on time, so I guess the appeal worked.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with a solution involving locking out an account until the SeaPass is scanned at the muster station. No scan…no service.  
I also like the idea that room cards be issued at the muster station (I believe this would be most effective…Royal’s IT dept seems to have some difficulty dealing with computer programming…go figure…)😜
But, both of these require the crew to already be in place at the stations prior to passengers boarding. I would hate to see boarding delayed due to the crew not being ready. Or services such as dining and room preparation be delayed due to lack of available crew who are working the muster stations. 
From what I have experienced, most of those working the muster stations have been from the entertainment and Cruise Director’s staff…so it shouldn’t be an issue. But I don’t know if that’s the case on smaller ships. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Any time they've handed out seapass cards at consecutive cruiser meetings the distribution of cards has been a disorganized sh*tshow.   That's a limited number of cruisers.  Handling 6,000 cards that way doesn't seem like it would scale well.  

Yes, I can see the card distribution being a problem.

My question is, "What causes this problem?"  Is it laziness, selfishness, ignorance?  What causes 400+ guests at times to not report to their muster stations minutes before sail away?  There has got to be a solution to this.

I really don't want the in-person safety drills to return.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about this?

Crew at the muster stations will hand out wristbands without which no one will be served at bars, allowed to make reservations, or allowed to enter dining venues or any other venues on the ship.   They've used wristbands before to monitor vaccination status; they can use them again to monitor safety drill compliance.

Perhaps "these people" can be shamed into completing the safety drill.

image.png.a4903c3f3a5c4c474d9d5feb2a855957.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's another one:

If sail away is at 4:00PM, guests have until 3:00PM to do the safety drill the new way.

After 3:00PM,  those who haven't done so have to do it the old way.   Line them up there in the muster stations, make them wait for the others to show up.
 

There's no need to "punish" those who have complied along with those who haven't

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, PG Cruiser said:

How about this?

Crew at the muster stations will hand out wristbands without which no one will be served at bars, allowed to make reservations, or allowed to enter dining venues or any other venues on the ship.   They've used wristbands before to monitor vaccination status; they can use them again to monitor safety drill compliance.

Perhaps "these people" can be shamed into completing the safety drill.

image.png.a4903c3f3a5c4c474d9d5feb2a855957.png

 

I like this assuming once you set sail everyone can remove their wristband.  

 

1 hour ago, PG Cruiser said:

My question is, "What causes this problem?"  Is it laziness, selfishness, ignorance?  What causes 400+ guests at times to not report to their muster stations minutes before sail away?  There has got to be a solution to this.

 

I think ignorance.  I think a lot of first timers really think its something that they can avoid or ignore and it will eventually go away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure I'd like the option of blocking your ability to get a drink until you've done your muster station. We always get the earliest boarding time possible and lately they don't have crew at the muster stations until 12-1. Means I'm on board a couple hours before I can get that starting the vacation drink. There really should be some way to get people to do it, I just don't know what. I know on Oasis our first post COVID cruise Oct 21, with reduced capacity we were an hour late leaving. The captain was calling one couple for that whole time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, KevinJ said:

I'm not sure I'd like the option of blocking your ability to get a drink until you've done your muster station. We always get the earliest boarding time possible and lately they don't have crew at the muster stations until 12-1. Means I'm on board a couple hours before I can get that starting the vacation drink. There really should be some way to get people to do it, I just don't know what. I know on Oasis our first post COVID cruise Oct 21, with reduced capacity we were an hour late leaving. The captain was calling one couple for that whole time.

They can always delay the "blocking" until the muster stations open.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PG Cruiser said:

My question is, "What causes this problem?"  Is it laziness, selfishness, ignorance?  What causes 400+ guests at times to not report to their muster stations minutes before sail away?  There has got to be a solution to this.

I really don't want the in-person safety drills to return.

I imagine it comes down to human nature and the demographics of cruisers.

Consider 50% on a typical cruise haven't sailed with Royal before.  Muster?  What's that?  Never heard of it.  New to cruise don't know how good they have it having never done mustard before.  Then consider the folks who don't really understand english well.  They cruise too.  Bombarding them with english announcements has zero effect.  

Then there is the car-to-bar in 15 minutes problem.  That's the Royal slogan.  Problem is once people start drinking it's easy to lose track of time and not hear the announcements.  Oops.  

The mandatory physical muster wasn't perfect either and people still found ways of missing it.  eMuster just makes it easier for them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

This was an RC cruise?

This is probably the best way to do it.  Scan, muster, then start your vacation

Yes, Adventure.

They had the midship gangway and the front gangway on the starboard side. In front of each set of doors they had about 4 crew members with scanners to scan your set sail pass. They also had a crew member that dealt specifically if you had young kids. If your muster station was not in their area they directed you to the correct one, otherwise you'd point to you muster station sign, they scan and away you go. It added an extra maybe 5 minutes to get on, but well worth it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see Royal returning fortunately. I recall waaaaaaay back in pre coronial times (I believe it was late 2019) when Royal had actually trademarked the term 'emuster'. This leads me to believe Royal was working on this even before it becoming a 'necessity' 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Vancity Cruiser said:

I don't see Royal returning fortunately. I recall waaaaaaay back in pre coronial times (I believe it was late 2019) when Royal had actually trademarked the term 'emuster'. This leads me to believe Royal was working on this even before it becoming a 'necessity' 

I don't know if you came up with it or are just repeating it, but I love "pre coronial". Lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, twangster said:

Any time they've handed out seapass cards at consecutive cruiser meetings the distribution of cards has been a disorganized sh*tshow.   That's a limited number of cruisers.  Handling 6,000 cards that way doesn't seem like it would scale well.  

Virtually all of my cruises are back to backs. Never had any problem getting my new card. Scanned the old one as I entered the theater and walked up to the table where they easily found my new card and handed it to me. Easy peasy. 
Maybe they learned lessons from the sh*tshow days…or maybe I’m just lucky.
But again…I would hope that before they make a decision to surrender and return to the bad old days that they would first try anything and everything to keep eMuster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On my Anthem sailing last week I had a “quiz”  appear in my app, a few days into the sailing, it was in regards to the muster drill in the app and it asked about finding my station (enter #), how to put the life vest on (numbered statements I had to shift to priority order)  and another question, maybe 2, that escape me. Thefriend I was traveling with, separate cabin, did not get this “quiz”.  I’ve never seen this before. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

On my Anthem sailing last week I had a “quiz”  appear in my app, a few days into the sailing, it was in regards to the muster drill in the app and it asked about finding my station (enter #), how to put the life vest on (numbered statements I had to shift to priority order)  and another question, maybe 2, that escape me. Thefriend I was traveling with, separate cabin, did not get this “quiz”.  I’ve never seen this before. 

I also had that pop up on my app a few days into some sailings. They wanted to know my experience with eMuster; they asked the location of my muster station and gave me all of the choices onboard, I just had to select mine; and the same question about the sequence of putting on the life jacket…open it, put it in over my head, close the snap, pull the strap, tuck away excess. Just had to slide each step into the correct order. Very quick and easy.

I also make sure to give big thumbs up to the eMuster on my post-cruise surveys.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In person muster drills were the worst, I don't know a single person who enjoyed it.   I hope they keep the e-muster especially if the Coast Guard allows it to continue. 

 

In my opinion the information is there for all passengers to observe, it is no different than the safety video or manual demonstration flight attendants do onboard an aircraft. The information is presented whether passengers to choose to pay attention to it or not is up to them.  If passengers don't show up at their muster station to record they've seen the mistrial information then Disney should do like Royal does and just page them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, twangster said:

Royal created eMuster before the pandemic.  They even trademarked it, then during the pandemic offered it for other cruise lines to use on an interim basis royalty free.  Perhaps their license fees were too much for DCL.  

Interesting observation I didn't realize.  I suspect you might be correct and this is the real reason behind it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, twangster said:

Royal created eMuster before the pandemic.  They even trademarked it, then during the pandemic offered it for other cruise lines to use on an interim basis royalty free.  Perhaps their license fees were too much for DCL.  

I would think Disney would have the resources to create their own version that would work around licensing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

eMuster was first tested in January 2020 on Symphony before the pandemic shutdown the industry in March of 2020.  To trial it in January they had to be working on it for sometime including getting SOLAS and agencies such as the USCG on board. 

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/07/24/royal-caribbean-announces-electronic-muster-drill-its-cruise-ships

The patent for eMuster was filed in September of 2019.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/07/27/6-really-interesting-facts-about-royal-caribbeans-new-cruise-safety-drill

Since the governing bodies approved before the pandemic there is no reason to suspect they will withdraw their approval now that the pandemic is a routine part of daily life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, twangster said:

eMuster was first tested in January 2020 on Symphony before the pandemic shutdown the industry in March of 2020.  To trial it in January they had to be working on it for sometime including getting SOLAS and agencies such as the USCG on board. 

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/07/24/royal-caribbean-announces-electronic-muster-drill-its-cruise-ships

The patent for eMuster was filed in September of 2019.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/07/27/6-really-interesting-facts-about-royal-caribbeans-new-cruise-safety-drill

Since the governing bodies approved before the pandemic there is no reason to suspect they will withdraw their approval now that the pandemic is a routine part of daily life.

Second time you have spelled this out, yet everyone keeps questioning it. Lol. It sounds like it's a done deal and here to stay because it pre dates covid. Thanks for explaining it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/14/2022 at 5:08 PM, PG Cruiser said:

If only Royal can hold on to the SeaPass cards until the guests report to their muster stations.  Or probably have guests claim the cards from those stations.

I was thinking that maybe the Seapass cards could be rendered useless for any purchases (Drinks!) until you finish the safety drill. They could include the stateroom TV only playing the safety drill until you deactivate it by going to your Muster Station.  With this process the staff would not need to hand out the Seapass card but you still are required to go there before the card is useful for purchasing.  Yes I am taking into account those that do not use electronic devices to view the muster drill. That is why I didn't suggest to lock them out of their room as well.  They may need to use the TV to view the safety video. 🙂  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Making the room keys not work for your room would actually work because those not doing the muster drill on time either don't care (to which the in room TV wouldn't matter) or don't know (also, the in room TV wouldn't matter)

Once I access my cabin at 1pm-ish I often don't get back until well after the ship has departed.  That means well after the legal requirement for the ship to have performed a muster demonstration.  

I'm not certain locking guests out of cabins, which for Royal, a company that doesn't embrace technology, probably isn't even an option without reprinting a new card so more complexity, a 3 hour line at guest service if that many are not mustering and the cost for wasted cardstock when printing a new one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...