Carnival Details Safety Drills Process for Pandemic Sailings

As Carnival Cruise Line’s sail date out of the U.S. is inching up, more details have emerged about how the cruise line will carry out safety drills.

Carnival’s Brand Ambassador and Senior Cruise Director, John Heald, said in a June 25 Facebook video that the drills will be carried out through each passenger walking towards their muster station indicated in Carnival’s new app or on their boarding pass.

“There will be no more large-gathering safety briefings,” Heald said. “Those cruising in the next few months need to download the app called the Hub App. It’s available (for iPhones and Android phones), and it’s free.”

The app will contain information such as the name and location of the guest’s muster station.

“Look at the app or your boarding pass in the first hour or an hour and a half of being onboard. Follow the signs on the ship and go to your muster station – the app will tell you how to get there. If you’re able, use the stairs – because, remember that in a real emergency, the elevators wouldn’t be working,” Heald said. “This is the place you need to get to in a real emergency.”

“There will be crew members to help guide you, and there will be team members at every muster station. Once you get to your muster station, find a Carnival team member and check in with them. You don’t have to do anything else – the team will take care of you once you get to your muster station,” he added.

The second part of the safety drills with Carnival is watching a safety video, Heald said.

“At some point before the ship sails, you need to go to your stateroom and watch the safety video featuring the brilliant Shaquille O’Neal, our chief fun officer. He’ll give you the 411 on all the safety procedures,” Heald said.

Heald said that the cruise line will know if any passenger onboard the ship had not completed their safety drill. That person would therefore be limited in what they can do on the ship.

“We will know. There is a protocol in place, which I’m not going to mention … but you have to trust me when I tell you that we will know. The way that that person will know is that if they don’t check in to their muster station before the ship cruises, before the ship sails, they won’t be able to do certain stuff. I don’t want to go into any more details than that because that’s a negative,” Heald noted.

According to him, if carrying out safety drills in this way proves to be effective and working, Carnival will implement this method on a permanent basis.

“It’s a huge move forward. But I could only stress that this is going to work if every single person cooperates,” he said.

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