1) Have an American Express Card. It's helpful to have the numbers on it memorized.

2) Once the immediate dangers are past, get access to a phone. Call them collect and ask for Global Assist.

3) Wait not very long at all while they bring you travelers' checks, a replacement American Express Card, a ride, and suggestions for a place to stay.

4) Get replacement passport or other travel documents from the US Consulate or Embassy.


While my experience with Global Assist overseas was far less harrowing than a cruise ship sinking, it was nice to see how quickly they had me taken care of.

Another option open to me is to call my mother, my sister, or my brother-in-law, and have my sister's lovely Italian in-laws come get me. I'd call them directly but I don't have their numbers.

Travel insurance is an excellent choice. Good travel insurance will indeed arrange for and pay for medical care or transport, in addition to providing emergency access to cash if things go badly awry.

I've no affiliation with American Express other than as a customer.

An article I read yesterday detailed the account of one of the entertainers aboard the ship. When told to continue as though everything was fine, she went to her cabin and got ready.

Apparently she and her group do summers in the UK and winters doing cruise ships in the Mediterranean. She'd been there, done that and knew things weren't right. While she and others in her group helped many of the passengers and were (according to her) the last off the ship, the Captain left way earlier, like before midnight.

From everything I've read, with the time available from initial collision until the ship fell over, no one should have perished. There was plenty of time to completely abandon ship except that the Captain delayed in order to move the ship away from where he was way off course and too close to the reef. This was a lame attempt to cover his A** and will only make the case against him in court that much more damning. They delayed making the call to the Coast Guard for an hour -- Unforgivable.

Think about having a small Go-Bag right next to your life vest containing paperwork (passports, tickets, cash, et al) and put on warm casual clothes to make yourself a bit more comfortable in a life raft.

I use travel insurance when I go to remote places around the world. The cost is affordable. I usually use TravMed. I've been lucky, and never had to rely on this option so far.

However, I don't recall any policy from them about providing cash in the event of an emergency. It's actually a really good question. Suppose you are safe - you manage to get away from a bad location - but you need cash now. I guess you can always go back to the time-tested routine of washing dishes at a local restaurant. Hahaha !
Most travel policies cover emergencies ... usually the costs of hospitalization and evacuation. I don't think they offer money.

The suggestion above to make an emergency phone call to AmEx is probably an excellent idea.

Pete2

Re the divers: I wonder if they have brought in anyone with experince diving wrecks or at least caves. In the images of divers I've seen so far they are only diving with one tank. I guess if it failed they could buddy-breath. While lost. In zero viz. In an unstable ship. As they try to untagle each other from debris.

Recreational cave and wreck divers are just plain nuts, but these guys are certainly heroic.

Never been called 'irrational' before this comment. Nice job.

thseng

I was thinking the same thing about these divers. I did quite a lot of scuba diving when I was younger. I only ventured short distances into underwater caves and grotto's, and never went deep enough that I couldn't make it back out pretty easily. I was never a cave diver.

I am a bit surprised that the divers are using normal equipment. Maybe they are working in pairs - I guess we would expect them to use the buddy system. It does seem like the underwater passageways of that ship pose some risks.

cheers,
Pete2

A wreck that has been submerged for a while has at least achieved relative stability. The mind reels at the situation divers could encounter in terms of debris and entanglement hazards in this quite recent and evidently unstable mess.

In a situation like this, I wouldn't put much faith in a buddy system.

Some of those photos are stunning -- especially the pics showing the massive hulk in relation to the boats in the dock.

Read that this cruise ship is well more than twice the tonnage of the Titanic.

Am interested to find out how the other dimensions compare.

Read the book Shadow Divers to get an idea how treacherous a wreck can be.

At least these guys don't have to worry about nitrogen narcosis, decompression, and coming up out of sight of the boat in the middle of the ocean if you lose the anchor cable... but they still have to deal with low vizibility, entanglement and disorientation.

Another one that gives me the chills is the story of the escape from the sunken sub S-5.