Surviving a cruise.......?

Good Morning Readers,

As I sit here on the chaise lounge preparing for another day in paradise at the office, CNN is reporting a cruise ship in distress, again.

So how should a prepper prepare for what should be a vacation on a boat? Do these things have bag searches like airplanes do? That would surely limit some options.

 

Buy your own boat and sail it...that way you control all the variables.

 

While I would love the opportunity, I lack the funds.

I guess the surefire way is to pack diapers and boil water.

 

Stuff breaks, cruise ships are just big stuff.

Take disinfectant wipes and use them often. The problem with cruise ships is not that they break down, its that they are full of people that don't understand the basic concepts of personal hygiene (including the crew that cooks your food).

Personally if I wanted to get underway on a ship eat food other people cook, stay up late and not get any sleep, I would just join the.......never mind, just stay away from the salad bar.

 

Try telling the folks on the Titanic that.

 

That was a British ship without its own ice maker, they couldn't just let the champaign get warm could they? it wouldn't be right to expect the Brits to drink warm bubbly.

Don't blame the hardware for a software failure. The Titanic is a classic case of "loose nut behind the wheel", not of stuff breaking.

 

Ah....the biological interface.

 

It usually is in cases like that one.

I have yet to see a ship or or anything else drive itself into a big chunk of ice or anything else. But what do I know, it could have been perfectly reasonable to believe there was no ice in the north Atlantic in the spring of 1912.

Other than gastrointestinal viruses, sexual assault, theft, and the requirement to give up your constitutional protections, cruises are a peachy keen way to spend your vacation time

I wonder how many cases of PTSD will occur because these rich folks were forced to crap in a bag because their toilet wouldn't flush? Damaged for life they are.

 

I got sea sick once on a ferry crossing to Ireland. I'm a land lubber.

 

Cruises can be a lot of fun. They do check your bags similar to airports but not as strict although they have a list of banned items.

I've never had any problems or gotten sick on any cruises or heard about sexual assaults other than one time in a article. Pick out any city you would like to visit and you will find some cases of food poisoning and crimes taking place. You can't avoid human nature no matter where you go so there will always be a chance of something bad happening.

If you wanted to take some survival supplies I would think bottled water and emergency food like the high calorie food bars would be good and some cleaning supplies like wipes and hand sanitizer, several medium size trash bags, small flash lights a multi-tool if they allow it and extra warm clothing if it is somewhere potentially cold. A inflatable life vest you can carry around with you if your really paranoid.

IMO the biggest problem on a cruise ship is the close quarters and inconsiderate jerks that cough and sneeze without covering their mouth or washing their hands so don't eat or touch your face until you have washed or sanitized your hands.

In reality even with the few cases of mishaps on cruise ships the last few years the chances of something bad happening are very slim when you consider how many ships sail every single day. The ratio is most likely much smaller than going somewhere on land for vacation.

 

Actually there are a lot more cases than you will ever know about. Most cruise ships are not US. Flag vessels and are not answerable to U.S. law for crimes that happen underway outside of U.S. waters so there is no requirement to report. The cruise lines are very aggressive in protecting their industry and negotiate settlements with crime victims very quickly and get them to sign a non disclosure agreement before they hit a U.S port.

Even with that, I will concede that they are generally safer than walking around Chicago after dark

 

I'm not saying nothing happens but the people that have the expendable money to go on a cruise are not generally the thug type that you have to worry about and for the number of people cruising every year the incidents are pretty low. Cases that do occur are most likely among people that know each other.

The FBI site has some interesting info and numbers. Looks like about 30-40 cases a year with around 10,000,000 people sailing per year. or 1 crime for every 250,000 people. Chicago's murder rate alone is more like 37.5 per 250,000K, not including any other crimes. According to this link any crime involving a US citizen is reported to the FBI.

FBI — Cruise Ship Crime

This is good advice

 

From congressional testimony in 2012:

"Crime Reporting

The data in Appendix B was received from the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information request. A similar request was made in 2011 for data after October 2008. The material returned in response was totally unhelpful. All useful information was redacted. As well, the FBI says they are not required to keep track of or report crimes committed on cruise ships unless they have opened a file of investigation and subsequently closed the file. That means that allegations of crime are no longer available for analysis (including crimes where the FBI has judged a sexual assault to be a “he said, she said” situation, and thefts of less than $10,000 given that these are not treated as worthy of prosecution). One obvious problem is that it is impossible to measure whether cruise ships are doing better or worse than the 2007-08 baseline. Another problem is that it is impossible to compare onboard crime rates with crimes on land. On land crime rates are based on the number of allegations; these can’t reliably be compared to only the number of incidents opened for investigation and subsequently closed. While this absence of data may serve the interest of the cruise lines, which prefer incidence of crime to remain hidden, it is not in the interest of the public or in the spirit of the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010. Unfortunately, the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 (CVSSA) was amended."

http://www.internationalcruisevictims.org/Senate2012.pdf

Who would have thought the FBI was not as forthcoming with data as their web site would lead you to believe.

 

Most assults have come from the third world crew members. Not exactly what the Cruise World wants you to know.

 

An offshore company takes you offshore and experiments on you with bioweapons.

 

A lot of this is still making assumptions based on worst case. Even if you tripled or quadrupled what the FBI reports you wouldn't even come close to the safest cities in the US per capita. I find it really hard to believe that thousands upon thousands of serious crimes are taking place that no one knows about and all goes un-noticed by anyone.

If you or your family member was a victim of a serious crime on a cruise ship would you just walk away and assume they reported it or would you make sure something was being done even if it meant reporting it yourself to the authorities? I doubt very many people would walk away from any serious incident and not do anything else about it.

Every ship I have been on also have cameras covering all decks and areas of the ship that can be referenced any time a claim of a crime is made.

I've never heard that. Most of the cases I have read about have been from other passengers and are usually among people that know each other.

I don't doubt there are some problems they try to cover up but you have to look at the big picture. If 10,000,000 people sail a year and there are 1,000 serious crimes then that is still only 10 per 100,000 which is lower than most if not all US cities.

 

What, another one?

Don't do it. Take a car trip somewhere instead, or spend the money on something you would like (or need) for SHTF.

 

Oh I doubt I'll ever take a cruise. I don't like the idea of being stuck in a tin can with a bunch of people for a week. I'd end up pushing some of them overboard.