With the cabin set up it’s time for the required SURVIVAL DRILL. On Princess, this was pretty much a sales seminar conducted over drinks in the lounge. On Carnival however, it’s much more of an actual fight for survival not conceptually all that different from meeting Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz.
Once again demonstrating their total inability to handle more than six people at a time, the crew tried to shoehorn 150 life jacketed people into a space that might fit 50 if nobody weighed more than 120 lbs. Since anyone on a cruise who is over 7 months old weighs more than that, the Carnival solution is to mash the early arrivals against the bulkhead and pile row after row of people in front of them. In less than 10 minutes, the people in the back couldn’t breathe and the women up front were hoping that was only somebody’s thumb. This madness continued until at least three people suffered claustrophobic frenzy and/or compression asphyxia which was, apparently, the objective of the drill. At that point the mission was declared a success, leaving the crew free to immediately and wordlessly disappear while the mob sorted itself out and the casualties were treated by a salesman who earned a merit badge for first aid 35 years ago.