On cruise ships do women and children still have priority before men during evacuations? Do passengers still have priority before crewmembers? Unlike the olden days moderns ships carry enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew and captains aren’t expected to do down with the ship (or are they?). I can understand why children would still get higher priority, but is there any reason women would?
First, although modern ships have enough lifeboats for everyone, it’s highly unlikely that any ship will encounter a disaster of the sort that happened to the Titanic. The Titanic took over two hours to sink and never acquired a considerable list. Having enough lifeboats for everyone does not mean everyone survives, because there might not be time to launch all the boats (if the ship sinks too quickly) or many of the boats might not be usable (if the ship lists or capsizes). The sort of drama that took place on the Titanic, with the “women and children first” order, the long farewells, and the noble acts of sacrifice, is not likely to happen again. If something happens to a ship that makes it sink in two hours without listing, everyone is likely to get off. (But, like I said, this isn’t what usually happens; it didn’t happen to the Lusitania, the Andrea Doria, the Estonia, the Morro Castle or any other maritime disaster since the Titanic.)
Somewhere on the Encyclopedia Titanica message board there’s a thread that deals with what would happen on a modern cruise ship (written by a cruise ship captain, IIRC). Basically, everyone is assigned a place in a specific lifeboat. (This was not the case on the Titanic; crewmen were assigned a boat to help launch, but passengers were just supposed to go to the Boat Deck and find a boat.) If an order is given for passengers to go to the boats, they go immediately to their designated boat. If the boat can be launched, they get in. If the boat can’t be used because of a list, they’re basically on their own. (Presumably, they would be told to find life rafts.)
If I’m remembering this accurately, the modern procedure could easily mean that people who were assigned a boat on one side might largely survive, while people who had been assigned a boat on the side where the boats weren’t usable could be in much greater danger. (On the Titanic, men who went to the starboard side were refused access to boats, as the officer there interpreted the order as ‘women and children only’. On the port side, men had a chance of getting in a boat if there were no women around.) It’s no longer ‘women and children first’, though, because it’s no longer a matter of going to whatever lifeboat you can find and getting in.
The captain is not expected to ‘go down with his ship’ as Captain Smith of the Titanic did, although traditionally they should be the last to leave. Since the ship’s captain ultimately has authority over everyone else on the ship, it’s important that they survive so the disaster can be investigated and prevented from happening again.
The ‘women and children first’ idea, BTW, replaced an older idea of loading the lifeboats by cabins; first class goes first, then second, then third. There was, understandably, a problem with this, so it became ‘women and children first’ (although on the Titanic people in first class were far more likely to survive than those in third).
Today, the idea seems outdated and even a bit ridiculous. Recently, I watched A Night to Remember (1958) again, and I couldn’t help thinking the order was absurd and unnecessarily deepened the disaster. Especially for the boats that were launched half or two-thirds full, I thought it would have been far better to keep families together than to force the men (who, in 1912, were the sole providers in almost all families) to die.
I was on a cruise a couple of months back (Carnival out of Miami if it makes a difference) and when we did our practice evacuation drill we had to go to our assigned lifeboat and were told to line up with women and children at the front and guys behind them. I imagine in real life it would be a bit more chaotic, but the notion of it still exists.
I can imagine sacrifices being made on a modern cruise ship today. If, as Roches explained, the lifeboats on one side of the ship were unusable it still may happen that the men who were assigned to usable lifeboats would forgo their places to allow young children and their mothers to get to safety.
I’m not suggesting it would be a blanket rule as many men would want to remain with their families but I imagine there would still be occurences of this.
If you’re a woman and you don’t stand out in front for the life boat drills on a modern cruise ship a Filipino life boat captain will drag your ass out there. So much for your feminist ideals. 
Why do women and children jump into the lifeboats first? So the men will have something soft to land on.
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.
Actually, on the Andrea Doria, I thought that the only people who didn’t survive were those killed in the collision with the Stockholm. Everyone else though, was able to be transported on to that ship before the Doria sank.
Personally, I believe in equal rights for women. That means, if I were in charge, I would allow them to have the same chance of drowning as men. (“No cutting in line, ladies!”)
My, chivalry is dead, isn’t it?
I’ve been on a couple cruises down to Ensenada, Mexico, and run into the life boat drill bit both times. Me, I thought it was done smoothly enough: it did make me stop and think for a (one, that is) moment.
No other explanation given, just “Gentlemen, could you step back? Ladies, could you step forward?”
…also cute beyond words: the bridal couple, just married, still in gown and tux, with life vests.
I’ve been on several (mostly Royal Caribbean, in the Caribbean, both coasts of Mexico, Central America, and the Mediterranean) and there has never been any division based on sex.
The only floating inequality I can recall was on a sort of barge type boat giving tours up and down the Thames in London. The women got a flower at the end, but the men got nothing. What if I wanted a flower too, huh? At least give us a piece of candy or something.
One can hope, but I’d feel a lot better if we put a stake through its heart and buried it deep.