If only the Costa Concordia had been a river cruise ship……………
……… people would not even have got their feet wet!
When I was cruising on the Danube last October we did safety drill as is the norm when cruising. We all got our life jackets from our cabin and headed up to our Muster Stations on the Sun Deck – there were three of these, one for each deck, very clever. Someone put some thought into that. I was thrilled to be with the ‘top deck’ passengers at No. 1 Muster Station, I do like to feel posh!
Now, I hate cold water and as I stood there with my group it occured to me that , obviously, there were no life boats as we were on quite a small craft, so was I going to be plunged into cold water should there worst occur?
The answer to this is no! I voiced my thoughts to our lovely Cruise Director, Caroline from Holland, and she informed me that the river was no deeper than the height of the boat, so if we went down as long as we headed up to the sun deck as we had been told then we would be above water level, with just a vague possibility of getting our feet slightly wet! Who would have believed it?
So, for those of you who have concerns following this terrible disaster on Concordia about cruising the seven seas, maybe one of Europes lovely rivers might be able to allow you to enjoy cruising with peace of mind, and once you have tried that maybe you would like to venture further afield – the Yangtze, the Mekong, or the Volga. River cruising is a brilliant way to see right inside a country, not just the ‘outside edge’ like you do on an ocean cruise. You get right in there to the heart of the place.
Oh, I could wax lyrical for hours as this is my favourite subject at the moment. Give me a call if you would like to chat about it more 🙂
3 Comments on “If only the Costa Concordia had been a river cruise ship……………”
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I've been a Cruise Consultant for a number of years now and I can honestly say that it is just the best job ever. No two days are the same. I have got to know some fantastic people through the course of my job, both in the industry and clients,…
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Perhaps if the captain had not been Italian and observed the training he should have been given there would have been no disaster
Not sure we should, in this politically correct era, be ascribing behaviour to race. I suspect the truth of the incident will be a global problem – people being allowed to bend rules by their bosses when it suits the company (as in the Barings Bank collapse)then left to their own devices if anything goes wrong.
In this case customers come back because of the apparently informal approach to navigation “I’ll get you a better look at the island” – so brings in the money, but corporate criticism is seen almost before the ship had come to rest.
I asked one too many questions on the Cunard.com website. Two weeks ago I was having an avid online discussion about lifeboats on the Cunard Facebook page. I asked if there was a way to launch lifeboats if the ship was listing to port or starboard. I went back the next day. I wasn’t allowed to post.My son asked the same question. He couldn’t post anymore either. My husband corrected a factual historical error on their website. Someone said that Cunard had a perfect safety record in peace time. He asked what about the Titanic? Voila! He was cut off so fast that it happened before his eyes. He was trying to like a remark, and he was notified he’d been disconnected. I don’t think this is the right approach for the cruise line to take.