The last thing you expect travelling on a cruise ship is the sound of the emergency alarm waking you up at 2am in the morning.
Aboard the Golden Princess sailing between Akoroa and Dunedin on NZ's eastern coastline, at 0204 hours on Monday (Mar 27) the emergency alarm sounded throughout the entire ship. A long continuous blast in every cabin, toilets and passageways, even including all crew quarters.
Awaking from your sleep you wonder whether you missed the 7 short blasts that preceded the long horn blast and therefore we grab our life jackets and make our way to the emergency muster station.
Following the full 50 seconds of siren all passengers could listen in to a conversation---which involved the Captain quite audibly talking to crew members---while all on the Bridge were totally unaware that the alarm had been sounded and 2,600 passengers and a thousand crew listened intently.
Ringing passenger services resulted in an engaged tone (like everybody was wanting more information) and obviously alerted staff to phone the Bridge and alert them to their mistake.
Everyone on board actually heard the phone ringing on the Bridge and it was clearly answered by the officer of the watch.
Then came the peel of announcement bells and the captain apologised for an alarm that was false and there was no cause for concern.
Adding insult to injury a second peel of announcement bells quickly followed with the captain addressing crew; telling them that the alarm was false and to stand-down.
In all the Carry On Captain episode lasted until 0210 hours when we were advised to go back to sleep.
