Regular readers will know I am not a great fan of the lifeboat drill on cruise ships. Not because it's a waste of time - on the contrary they are very important - or because I have done them so many times, although that doesn't help, but because the muster crew seem so determined to treat passengers like idiots.
"Your muster station is D3." Ah, yes. That'll be the number on the front of the lifejacket then. "Everyone take off your lifejackets as we will be doing a demonstration about how to put them on later in this muster." Right....
So I cannot praise Royal Caribbean enough for their new-style muster, which I experienced for the first time last week on Oasis of the Seas.
No rush to get back to your cabin to collect a lifejacket (in fact they no longer have lifejackets in the rooms) which is a good thing given the size of the ship, only to have to make your way back downstairs through crowds of people, either lost, chatting, bored or generally doing their best to avoid standing in lines. And then the lengthy roll-call of cabin numbers starts.
But that was then, and this is now on Royal Caribbean. You simply go, lifejacketless, to your muster station where your cruise card is scanned, sit down, watch a film that has all the salient bits but is quick and to the point and then off you go.
It really is that easy.
Not only that, but it is a more reliable way for the Captain to know, via the scanned cards, who has done the drill. More importantly, in case of a real emergency, passengers cards will be scanned as they get into the lifeboats so everyone is accounted for.
Jane Archer
