GAH - freaking bugfuck idiots …
Towards the beginning when a bunch of morons decided not to climb out of the main dining room and then it started to flood … Wait without panicing, when the water level gets high enough you can float or swim to the passageway the others are going to be using to escape through.
I can understand not wanting to climb the artificial Christmas tree… but really, ignoring physics?
Bad strategy. By the time the water was high enough to reach the top, it would be rising too fast to outrun it and it would most likely have been pitch black.
Stupid movie for many, many other reasons though.
Someone’s watching TCM. 
Yeah, but when I was 8, it was the greatest movie ever.
Wouldn’t the water have been too cold to ‘wait’ in? I don’t recall where the actual capsizing takes place- somewhere in the Atlantic, right?
Carol Lynley in hot-pants. Mmmmm.
In the Mediterranean, I thought.
I was around 12 when it came out. Scared me to death. I swore I’d never go on a cruise afterward. And I haven’t, albeit not solely because of the film.
Still a fun watch despite what Mr Grumpypants says. 
Do they have massive tidal waves in the Mediterranean?
I thought so too, but wiki says in the North Atlantic. That said, I seem to remember the rescuers at the end speaking Greek.
There’s got to be a morning after!
Greeks used to rule the shipping world. Remember Aristotle Onasis?
In the book, they capsized in the Atlantic (near the Azores).
In the movie, they capsized in the Mediterranean. Earthquake caused the wave.
And of course, if I remember my basic oceanography correctly, the ship have had to have been in shallow water for the wave to even have been noticed, much less been capable of capsizing the ship. It’s been decades since I saw the film - were they in shallow water?
Good catch, my man! The captain specifically says It seems to be piling up in those shallows. By the way, Happy New Year.
OK, then the movie wasn’t quite as stupid as I remembered. 
I preferred “The Towering Inferno” anyway.
Possibly, but the ship itself is a maze of shafts and passageways. If you wait for the water to “help” you along, you’re far more likely to find yourself in a dead end and drown.
Picture one of those simple mazes and try solving it from bottom to top while the page is slowly fed into a shredder. Are you going to reach the top or are you more likely to get trapped with no means of retreat? Starting as soon as possible at least gives you a chance to backtrack if necessary before the water “catches up” to you.
The problem I’d have is the goal of getting to the keel of the ship, which is just solid metal. I’d try to find the lowest (well, lowest when the ship is upright) access point, like the gangplanks visible in this photo, hope that they’re above the waterline, open them while wearing life jackets and float beside the inverted ship.
The water doesn’t seem to be paralyzingly cold - characters swim through it at one point.
I’m confused. Which Steve McQueen was in that one? 
