Fire Aboard the Carnival Ecstasy

WOW that would be a terrifying experience to say the least!

I think it is a matter of feeling secure in the hands of crew members.
It sounds like there was chaos with no one in charge to guide, direct
and inform. The fear of the unknown is part of the terror.

An emergency response procedure needs to be rehearsed with employees
(crew members) so many times that it becomes second nature to them.
That doesn't seem is the case in this situation. Crew members should
take any incident seriously whether it is a fire the size of a dime or
a serious fire...the same procedures should be followed by the crew in
all cases that warrant an alarm going off.

I think this is a serious matter of further training for the crew
members and the cruise line needs to address their emergency response
plan.

Thank goodness you watched the video that tells you what to do in such
an emergency. I amd glad that you are around to write this
letter...its serves a great purpose to show travelers and passengers
exactly why they need to listen and learn to the attendants or video.


The purser was not going to say anything else to make them look bad.
So the explanation she gave was standard.

Please let us know if you get a response from them.

Good for you!

We were on the Ecstasy Jan 10th-15th. You did exactly what the video
and fire drills told you to do. I would've done the same thing.

We had a blast on our cruise, and knew the floor-plan well by just a
few days on the ship too.

I can only imagine how scared you were. I commend you for complaining
over it. As much as I enjoyed my cruise, if this had happened, I
would've complained as well.

I really do not understand why a few commenters are so upset about my
wanting Carnival to hold themselves to their own safety policies.

A few have suggested that I want a refund. Let me make this clear to
you: I DO NOT WANT A REFUND. I had a wonderful time, I loved my
cruise, I will do it again and have already booked my next cruise for
next Feb on the Conquest.

Some have suggested that I should have left my stateroom naked and
with out proper ID and sufficent money. I was in the middle of the
ocean. I was comming back from Mexico. I had been out of the US. My
word alone is NOT going to get me back in the US. When I did return
to the US, I still had to present my passport, do you think they would
have cared if I lost my ID? NO, they want proof of my citizenship.

If we had to be evacuated I would have needed money to be able to get
back to my car in Galveston. My car keys would have come in handy to.
Its not as if I packed my bags and took off down the hallways lugging
them behind me. I got dressed which consisted of pants, shirt and
shoes and grabbed my purse, jacket and life vest. I spent less then 5
minutes doing this. Let me explain to you something. I lived in
Germany as a military spouse for nearly 10 years. When there we were
told if at sometime we were evacated then we were to have certian
things handy. One was a valid ID and money. There was only one time
that I thought I would need to evac and that was when they bombed the
embassy's in Africa. They still tell dependants to make ready in the
event of evac. I used my knowledge of this to help me make my decison
to take my purse when I left my cabin.

We are told during the Muster Drill on the first sea day to take our
med's in the event of an evac. I left mine right there in my carry
off. I knew that I would not die if I did not have them. I gave less
than a crap about the camera, the dvd player, dvd's, and all the stuff
I had bought. I wanted what would be neccessary to me if I had to
leave that ship. And I feel that clothes are a nessisty and so is ID
and money.

I am happy to have made it back to the US with my life. Trust me, no
one is happier about that then me. I am happy that no one died. But
I am NOT happy with the fact that Carnival is denying certain things
that did happen.

When I get a response from Carnival I will share it with you. I am
very sure that I will get one as Carnival is known for its great
customer service.

Ohh and one thing. It does not matter what time a fire breaks out on
a ship. 1am or 2pm. The response should be the same. Just like on
land. Do you think that the fire departments in your towns have a
different set of rules for how they react if its in the middle of the
night or the middle of the day? No. They react according to thier
training, despite the time of day or night. Keep in mind please that
this was not a land based fire. This was on a ship in the middle of
the ocean and you have limited places to go for safety.

i do agree... they need to investigate the fire and why they were so
sucky in handling it.


and then they need to refund you all.


seriously.... you're in a confined space and they lead you to believe
they know how to handle a fire if one breaks out...

and then they fail at it?


that sucks. they need to train better.

"You fight how you train" is something they need to learn!

This is only speculation on my part but I think the reason you are not
getting an immediate explanation from Carnival is that they need to
complete their investigation which probably involves the home office
and probably the Coast Guard. I can see where they would be wary to
give out any information before it was official. Since you mentioned
the fire about the Princess ship, I think it was quite some time
before the official version was released.

I'm not discounting their lack of response. Again, I think that is
something that will be addressed in the official report. I'm sure
from your work in hotels you had, what we had in the hospital after an
emergency, a "post mortem". This is where all the involed parties
made their reports and suggestions were made for improvements if
necessary. I worked in one of the closest hospitals to the WTC when
it was bombed in 1993. Nothing was released until all the information
was verified and any gaps in response were investigated.

For some reason, you do not seem to understand Teresa's complaint
despite the fact that she has explained it several times. When I read
her letter, my impression was that she was upset about the lack of
coordination, direction and response. It was the cruise line that
brought up the matter of inconvenience in their attempt to downplay
the incident. As far as I can see, inconvenience is not Teresa's
complaint. She only mentioned it to dispute Carnival's claim.

Not trying to defend Carnivals' response, but what makes you qualified
to assess an emergency management situation?

I am an EMT-I and have worked in public safety for 15 years. You only
saw one side of the response. One of the first things we do is assess
the situation, then triage the patients. On a ship that size, the
response staff can easily be overwhelmed. On a scene where you have an
active fire, the first priority is RESCUER SAFETY, and personnel
accountability. You first have have to ensure all of your team is
accounted for, then size up the scene, and follow your incident
commander's order. First priority is attending to your own people,
bottom line if we are victims we can't save you.

The victim you encountered may have already been triaged by another
staff member. Her injuries don't sound life threatening, so 15 minutes
before transport is not unusual given the average staff on board a
vessel of that size. It sounds to me as if the evacuation went
textbook. The fire was contained, a person was apprehended, and you
were back in your rooms within 3 hours. As far as injuries, under
HIPAA we are not allowed to discuss our treatment of patients with
anyone other than a designated family member. It's known as protected
health information, and this why the staff did not go into specifics.
That's standard procedure these days. they also are not going to admit
anything from a liability standpoint. Anything they say can and will
be used against them. Thank the TV personal injury ambulance chasing
lawyers for this response.

yes, this was an unpleasant situation. but the outcome could have been
much more tragic, and you should be grateful to the staff that you did
not suffer any grave injury and were able to walk away. I can tell you
often times not everyone does. Just something to think about.

While I can imagine there could be some initial confusion or delay on
the part of the staff given the late hour of the fire/smoke-related
emergency, shouldn't *most* of the staff be familiar enough with the
initial boarding drills and the layout of the ship overall, and their
emergency obligations/responsibilities related thereto, to avoid this
sort of confusion?

I was on a 10-day cruise two years ago and while I knew the layout of
the ship pretty well by the end of the trip, I can imagine being
scared and confused if this had happened to me.

To the OP's defense, I do feel there should have been at least minimal
crewmember presence or an announcement made of some sort to let
everyone know what was going on, that they didn't need to panic. It's
one thing if the passengers had simply smelled smoke and wondered what
was going on, but the fire alarms were going off and without crew, no
one had any idea how dire the situation was or what they needed to do.
I know there are more than enough crewmembers on that ship to both
evaluate the situation and take care of the passengers, and all - no
matter what their position onboard - are trained in emergency
procedures and have an assigned role in the event that an emergency
arises.

If the place was filled with smoke why did you get "dressed, grabbed
my purse, my room key and my life jacket"? The life jacket I
understand. The rest, NOPE! May be in that time you were taking (by
the way, the ship could have been SINKING while you were getting
dressed) to get dressed and everything the crew members were all ready
through the area. You don't know WHY the medical team took 15 minutes
to get to the elderly lady. Maybe YOU didn't SEE her getting looked
at by someone else. How do YOU know that some one that was with here
was a Doctor and told the Crew that she could wait a moment? How do
you know that there wasn't some one with Chest Pains (more dangerous
than a hurt leg) that the Medical team needed to get to FIRST? You
are making a lot of assumptions here.

To me, not getting back to my room for 3 hours would be NOTHING
compared to what COULD have happened if the ship sank. Did you TALK
to anyone that had to wait 3 hours? Maybe the crew DID and offered
them something and they agreed everything was all right.

Everyone was fine. No one was seroiusly hurt. You were told
something you didn't like. I feel you are not owed anything else.

Did you enjoy the rest of your trip? I hope you did!

assessing the situation. They figured out some nut job caused a small
fire, took care of the fire and took the Tool into custody. If there
were more of a threat to the ship, there probably would have been more
specific instruction given to the crew to prepare to evacuate the
ship. That would have been a fun drill, and I bet you would have
something to say about that. But it wasn't that bad.

What could they do? Broadcast an announcement to the whole ship that
a nut job torched his cabin? In the case of an odd occurance such as
this, it isn't surprising there wasn't rapid communication of exactly
what was happening.

So this woman injured her leg. Was it broken? If not, 15 minutes
isn't bad. If you fell at home, you wouldn't get medical treatment in
less time.