During the past two decades, North American cruise lines have compiled the best safety record in the travel industry while transporting, entertaining and pampering more than 60 million people throughout the world.
Exemplary Performance
To preserve that exemplary performance, the cruise industry has established its own standards that go beyond the stringent international and U.S. laws and regulations that apply to cruise ships.
All cruise ships must meet standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Ships operating from U.S. ports also are subject to U.S. federal and state regulations as well as quarterly safety inspections by the U.S. Coast Guard and periodic health inspections conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The U.S. Coast Guard has declared cruise ships to be one of the safest forms of transportation, noting that there have been no passenger deaths relating to a maritime accident on an ICCL vessel in over 20 years.
Safety First
The average cruise ship has more than 4,000 smoke detectors. The average response time in an emergency is a matter of minutes, as trained fire teams and emergency crews are stationed onboard only a few hundred feet away from the scene of any possible incident scene. A cruise ship is comparable to a secure building with a 24-hour security guard.
A cruise ship is a controlled environment with limited access. All crew members and guests appear on an official manifest. Passengers and crew may embark and disembark only after passing through security. Once a ship is underway, only documented employees and fare-paying passengers are onboard. Cruise lines conduct background checks on prospective employees. In addition, U.S. embassy personnel conduct background checks before issuing work visas to non-U.S. citizens.
Security Procedures
Highly trained security personnel are employed onboard every vessel. At U.S. cruise terminals, port security includes passenger screening procedures similar to those found at airports, including inspection of all carry-on baggage and the use of metal detectors for embarking passengers
The majority of all cruise lines adhere to a unified industry standard - zero tolerance - for crime onboard cruise ships. These lines operate within a very strict legal framework that gives both federal and state authorities the right to investigate crimes aboard cruise ships.
According to FBI statistics, being on a cruise ship is safer than being virtually anywhere in the U.S. in terms of crimes of any type. |
