Thank you Ted . I have long thought the same and so am pleased to here the same from somebody with a masters ticket

@ Captain Ted..... very legitimate concerns expressed especially about retirees.. RCL, Carnival etc., have modified some of their ships offering wheelchair/scooter accessibility for special needs, disabled, partially disabled passengers. Not all retirees as able bodied as others. Given, some folks likely unable to climb into a lifeboat, let alone jump into a chute on their own, I wonder what contingency plans crew(s) on these vessels have to ensure their safe evacuation in the event of an emergency...? Maybe they are assigned to specific muster station(s) depending on their needs...?

Hmm,, @ Andrecas,, forgot to mention,,those evacuation test were done with peoples from the building yard,,generally speaking with peoples who know the ship expertly and are generally not retirees. Just imagine even that with older peoples only !?

Well Paul,, they were as you said torpedoed !!!. About 2-3 years back a Carnival cruiser was disabled in the Gulf of Mexico, Just imagine at that moment a hurricane or only a tropical storm comes along. Remember the vessel which departed the E-coast US and ran into bad weather. Passengers complained that the ship was rocking,,,really !!!!??? I dread the day when the first goes to the fishes and everybody in any capacity 'of in charge' will make a statement similar to: We do not understand,, everything was approved and bla bla...

@ Andrecas,, I saw that one,,and my thought was,, how ridiculous that people might think that works in force 8-9 plus with 5-6 m seas and more !!! It worked perfect in a port alongside in smooth weather, but to my knowledge lifeboats/floats are not used there.

Remember the German WILHELM GUSTLOFF
Torpedoed by 3 torpedoes from Soviet submarine S-13 in Baltic Sea on 30 January 1945
More than 5000 passengers drowned...

The lifeboats are only enough if they can all be deployed. It does not need much imagination to envisage a scenario - fire, or a heavy list for example - in which that is not possible and it does not need a rogue shipmaster for those to happen. No doubt the operators to ALARP principles, but the risks cannot be reduced to zero. We accept that same principle every time we board an aeroplane of a top-notch airline. Be be assured, such a maritime accident will happen.

Those vessels are terrible MONSTER.

Not every cruise ship is commanded by a Mr. Chettino. Anyway a fire on the ground floor of a fifty floor appartment block is probably going to much worse and we still built. When was the last serious fire in a cruise ship? One of the Lauro ships?

I'm with Captain Ted about this. The thought of fire, even a contained one or a grounding with the vessel listing, and 5,000 upset people to try and control, leaves me cold. Design and scale have advanced one increment too much, I fear.

No doubt, she's a big lady. I prefer the smaller river boats or Azamara size cruise ships.
Anyway, some info gleaned from on line sources regarding the Norwegian Joy.... Redesigned specifically for the Chinese market with Shanghai & Tianjin (Beijing) as home ports. Reconfigured to accomodate approx 3900 passengers and 1800 crew. The 16 lifeboats, presumably the new "mega" size capable of each accomodating up 370 persons, should be enough to go around in the event entire ship needs to be evacuated. There is also a brief (2:32 mins) youtube clip titled "Norwegian Joy - machinery and evacuation test". Around the 1:25 minute mark it shows the deployment of a chute to the water surface with inflatable (enclosed) raft like devices.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4zs1k2UPUXI

Seeing this vessel,,does really anyone believe that 5000 or more people, a lot of them elderly, can be evacuated from a ship like this when it is in force 8-12 bft and sinking ? Nobody can pay me enough money to make a cruise on these floating coffins.

The chinese letters in her hull means she is going to operate in Asia?