All cruise passengers issued warning about viral ship safety tips | Cruise | Travel

A cruise ship expert has warned passengers they could endanger themselves by following social media safety “hacks”.

It comes as videos of ship passengers attempting to make their cabin “safer” have gone viral on social media.

In one video, 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 shares advice on her Cruising As Crew YouTube channel however branded the video “insane”. Lucy fears it could lead to a passenger putting themselves in danger should they fall ill or need to evacuate their cabin in an emergency.

In a video, she said: “This actually makes me so mad. This is so dangerous for so many reasons.

“What if you have a medical emergency? What if, for 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 a moment when she was working onboard cruise ships and a passenger bought a portable door locker designed to keep their door firmly closed.

However, it malfunctioned and they were unable to unlock the cabin.

She continued: “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 went on to explain that cabin doors have an extra lock for protection. The expert concluded by encouraging passengers to leave devices such as additional door locks at home, and to keep the furniture free from the doorway.