Cruise Ship Safety: What You Need to Know

We’ve gathered answers to some of the most common questions around cruise ship safety so you know what to expect. From international safety standards in place onboard your cruise to personal safety measures you can take, we hope this information helps you to feel more confident the next time you set sail.

It can feel daunting to be out on open water, but cruising is very safe because of the many policies, guidelines and regulations set in place to help ensure the safety of passengers, crew and the ship itself. In 2010, the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) was established, which gives cruise lines strict requirements to follow to protect their passengers.

Some of the safety requirements regulated by the CVSSA include:

Ship rails - Cruise ships are required to have guardrails that are at least 42 inches tall to help prevent passengers, particularly children, from accidentally falling overboard.

Safety drills - Before leaving the port, passengers are required to attend a mandatory safety drill, also known as a muster drill, to make sure everyone on board knows what to do and where to gather in case of an emergency.

Technology - Cruise ships need to be equipped with technology that can be used to manage safety. This means integrating technology for detecting passengers who have fallen overboard, time-sensitive key technology, an extensive sprinkler system, satellite communication systems and CCTV (to name just a few).

Training - One of the most important things the CVSSA emphasizes and regulates is training requirements for crew members on how to handle emergency situations. The U.S. Coast Guard even worked with the Maritime Administration and the FBI to develop training for crew members for crime prevention, detection, evidence preservation and reporting.

Even with these regulations in place, it’s important to remain diligent when it comes to the safety of you and your family onboard. While a cruise ship is a very safe mode of travel, it’s easy to get comfortable on board, which might lead to complacency when it comes to safety. 

Cruise ship sinkings are extremely rare, in fact, only 20 cruise ships have sunk within the last 100 years and most of those happened before the end of the 1990s. Several of those ships had no passengers onboard at the time and, in many cases, passengers and crew were fully evacuated safely. As modern cruise ships advance both technically and structurally to meet ever improving safety standards, the risk of major accidents happening at sea drastically decreases. These standards provide cruise ships with requirements for things like the design of the ship’s hull, fin stabilizers, weight distribution and watertight compartments to maintain buoyancy.

There is a lot that goes in to ensuring a cruise ship is structurally sound, especially when you consider the average ocean cruise ship is 900 to 1,000 feet long (that’s the equivalent of three football fields!). It takes a large team of crew members to make sure the ship is functioning correctly both before and during cruising. Some of those essential crew members working behind the scenes to manage safety include:

Navigation Officer – This crew member is responsible for the safe movement of the cruise ship during its travels. The navigation officer monitors things like ship position, weather conditions and potential hazards and makes course adjustments if needed.

Chief Engineer – The Chief Engineer oversees the engineering crew who are responsible for maintaining the ship’s engines throughout the journey. There can be anywhere from four to eight engines helping to propel the cruise ship along its route!

Marine Engineers – This team manages the cruise ship’s buoyancy by adjusting ballast tanks filled with water to control stability.

Chief Meteorologist – While not technically onboard the ship, larger cruise lines often employ a Chief Meteorologist to monitor weather for an entire fleet of ships.

For experienced and new cruise travelers alike, there are some common safety concerns that regularly come up. While it’s impossible to avoid these concerns 100%, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk. Knowledge is power when it comes to cruising safely.

Here are some of the more common safety concerns when it comes to cruising:

If you experience these or any other safety concerns on board the ship, you should always report the situation to a crew member. If you’ve been injured or aren’t feeling well, go to the onboard emergency room or ask a crew member for assistance in getting treatment. Cruise ship staff and crew want travelers to feel safe, so addressing any concerns is important to them. However, if you feel there is a larger safety concern that isn’t being addressed by the crew of the ship, you can contact the Federal Maritime Commission to report and help resolve the issue.

In extreme cases where injuries may be too difficult to treat on board, a medical evacuation can be done to a hospital equipped for care. It’s hard for travelers to know what to do in this situation, luckily Travel Guard’s medical assistance team is extremely experienced in handling these types of situations and can work with the onboard medical staff to coordinate care and get you where you need to be.