I did watch the show from beginning to end. It was very enlightening.

Personally I am not very much of a Cruise Ship person, but that is just me.

The show left me with a LOT of food for thought, and oddly a lot of assurances about the safety that is built into the ships. For me the fact that there were plenty of lifeboats on the ship was a great fact in my mind. Regrettably, because the ship was listing so far to one side the boats on the high side of the boat could not deploy, but in the open ocean the boat would just release the boats as it sank into the ocean and leaving the boats to float, kind of like a floating dry dock that releases a boat by lowering into the water.


The show left me with the affirmation that a flashlight even the smallest of ones would have been invaluable. The lights went out twice, once when the boat hit the rocks, and again when it ran aground. Having food or snacks or anything like that was not really needed as they were not far out to sea.

The type of issues that the boat had were pretty simple, there was not fire, no smoke, no rapid catastrophe. While everything happened in a short time there was no sudden sinking or snapping of the ship. The necessary equipment list for this disaster I see as a flashlight, important documents, CC Cards, and maybe (and an extreme maybe) a spare air tank. Heck if the captain and crew had been honest and had a moment of forethought, this could have been a textbook scenario.

It is my understanding that there are RAPID changes happening in the maritime regulations requiring lifeboat drills to happen before the ship even leaves the port and not 24 hours as before.

It would be nice to see the cruise ships grow more understanding to people who wish to carry more preparedness equipment on the ships, but I don't really see that happening.