No one likes to stop their vacation to stand in the hot sun waiting for less considerate people to show up. That, however, is exactly what happens in a traditional cruise line meeting mock.
At a certain time, usually a couple of hours before sailing, everything is turned off on the ship and all passengers must report to their muster station, the place on board where each passenger must go in case of an emergency. Once at their station, cruise passengers attend a demonstration on how to put on a life jacket and some other safety instructions.
The problem is that the classic muster drill requires all passengers to introduce themselves before the drill begins. That essentially never happens to people who showed up on time and end up waiting for those who didn’t. That’s frustrating and quite uncomfortable for the people whose assembly station is outside, which is a lot of them.
Since the pandemic, cruise lines have been using a virtual meeting where passengers watch safety videos on the cruise line’s app and then check in at their physical meeting station. Royal Caribbean Group (RCL) – Get a free report and Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) – Get a free report still use that technology while Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) – Get a free report and Walt Disney (DIS) – Get a free report Cruise line have gone back to the classic version.
Royal Caribbean may have accidentally discovered a happy medium that could keep a variant on the virtual/digital/e-muster/muster 2.0 that will keep passengers happy and safe.
Celebrity Cruises May Have the Answer Muster
While Celebrity Cruises is owned by Royal Caribbean, it generally caters to a slightly larger audience than the company’s namesake brand. The cruise line uses the same virtual meeting as Royal Caribbean, but many of its passengers seem not to watch the videos on the app or on their stateroom TV before checking in at their meeting station.
If you don’t, the people at the station offer the demo. In the case of Celebrity, many of the people doing life jacket demos and safety talks are entertainment staff members. Using musicians and performers to deliver that information is certainly an improvement over a video that can’t gauge whether people are actually paying attention. In fact, it might even be better than the traditional gathering that has a fairly large group of people.
The Celebrity setup requires the demo to be done over and over again, but for small, committed groups. Actually, that might be a more logical way to run muster drills effectively so that passengers can complete the drill over a period of several hours (without relying on other passengers to show up) while also having them absorb the security information.
Safety is the main objective of the Muster drill
Muster drills are a legal requirement observed by the US Coast Guard. At the central level, the point is to make sure passengers get the required safety information. The old system and entire e-muster setup is compromised, making sure as many passengers as possible hear and absorb the information.
Cruise lines want to make sure that happens as efficiently as possible, but they also don’t want to have to shut down revenue-generating areas on their ships for an extended period of time. Moving to a system that requires people to attend an in-person presentation (ideally one presented by an entertainment staff member) at their leisure within a wide window on the day of departure may be the most effective and convenient option.