A cruise ship expert has issued a stark warning to passengers about the dangers of following social media safety “hacks”.
It comes as videos of ship passengers attempting to make their cabins “safer” have racked up millions of likes. In one, a woman can be seen “locking” her doors shut with two coat hangers, putting rolled up towels behind the handle so the cabin door cannot be opened, and putting a pen in the door closer to stop it from moving.
Lucy Southerton, who shared advice on her Cruising As Crew YouTube channel, slammed the video as “insane”. She expressed concern that these actions could put passengers at risk should they fall ill or need to evacuate their cabin.
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In her own video, she exclaimed: “This actually makes me so mad. This is so dangerous for so many reasons.”
“What if you have a medical emergency? What if, God forbid, you are having a heart attack or something and you call the ship’s medical team and they need to come and see you in your cabin and they can’t because there’s coat hangers, towels and pens in the door.”
“And no one can get in and save you, from yourself, this is absolutely nuts. What if the alarm goes off and you need to get to your muster station, but you’re trying to unhook the coat hangers and remove the towels, remove the chairs and, it’s a lot more likely that you’re going to need to get out of your cabin, that someone is going to want to get in.”
Lucy recalled an incident during her time working on cruise ships when a passenger’s portable door locker, purchased for added security, malfunctioned, leaving them trapped in their cabin. She recounted: “Someone did that in their cabin thinking ‘extra security, staying safe,’ and it broke.
“She was trapped in her cabin and security had to basically break down the door to get into her cabin. This woman just lost eight hours of her holiday because she got herself locked in her cabin because this faulty lock thing broke and consequently broke the door and cost the cruise line loads of money.”
“She was probably scared out of her mind and but I was like ‘you’ve done this to yourself’.”
Lucy further explained that cabin doors already come with an additional lock and strongly advised passengers against bringing extra devices like door locks. She emphasized the importance of keeping the doorway clear of furniture.