Cruise Ship Emergency Drills Evacuation Plans

Independent egress for wheelchair users is something that I have personally observed as an absolute non-concern for any government authority. Acts and regulations are meaningless lip service to pretend right and wrong are acknowledged and dealt with.

There is no direct egress off cruise ships for people with mobility issues. FULL STOP.

Although the procedures say there should be, there is more often than not no separate emergency drill to advise the wheelchair user what the procedure is in the case of an emergency evacuation.

Whether in Australia or other countries we travelled to, while visiting hotels, resorts, holiday accommodation, restaurants, event venues etc. we never experienced any provider giving us emergency evacuation procedures.

Life jackets in a wheelchair accessible stateroom on Princess Cruise ship were stored out of reach, on the top shelf of the cabin wardrobe. Access pathways that should be free of obstructions were often lined with housekeeping trolleys blocking wheelchair access. Some heavy doors in public areas were not accessible for independent wheelchair users. The standard emergency procedure is the wheelchair user is meant to stay in their stateroom until a team of people allocated to assist them disembark comes to their stateroom.

It is commonly stated that the captain has a list people travelling on the ship with ‘special needs’. In the case of an emergency evacuation a team of staff are instructed to go to stateroom of the guests on the list and assist, one by one, the passengers with ‘special needs’ to disembark the ship within 30 minutes.

While a mobility questionnaire is completed by the passengers before the cruise commences it is not available to cruise ship staff on board.

Princess Lines is a cruise ship company that operates around the world. A representative of this company stated during a Victorian Civil Administration Tribunal Human Rights hearing that they do not have to comply with Australian law or Building or Public Transport regulations. They consider themselves not to be public transport or responsible for providing wheelchair user passengers with accessible lifeboats to egress the cruise ship whether there is an emergency evacuation or at any other time.

The winds whistle and make other bizarre sounds when blowing hard. The direct egress message is blowing in the wind down the dead-end road. Windswept the squaller is present but yet unseen.