Nine cruise ship code words you never want to hear on board

Who's Oscar? These are the words you don't want to hear on a cruise. Photo / 123RF

“Code Oscar” is a phrase to chill the blood of any cruise worker.

Like any profession, cruise lines have their own share of jargon. However there are some announcements that are purposefully designed not to be understood by the punters.

Innocuous “code words” are designed to keep appearances and order onboard.

So the illusion of swan-white calm is maintained for passengers on deck, while below the surface cruise denizens scuttle to fix the constant challenges of operating a giant 3000-passenger floating city.

For example, if you don’t know what a “Babaloo” is, then more fool you. Though there is some ship shorthand that - like a “PVI” - we’d rather we hadn’t learned.

The codes change from ship to ship and company to company, although some are universally recognised as bad news.

One Royal Caribbean Cruise director said there was a whole alphabet of emergency signals.

“It’s crucial for the staff to have code words so that passengers don’t get freaked out if something goes wrong,” Brandon Presser, formerly of the Harmony of the Seas, told Bloomberg.

As the cruise member overseeing the journey of 6322 guests and 2200 crew, he described it as being the mayor of a small city.

“Everything is 10 times crazier when you’re mayor of a city that’s floating in the middle of the sea.”

Some codes such as “PVI” (public vomiting incident) are simply to avoid putting guests off their margaritas. Brandon said he had to call two to three of these a day. A possible “man overboard” is referred to as “Oscar” so as to not alarm guests. The nautical flag “O for Oscar”- one yellow triangle and one red - has been used to signal a sailor overboard since the 1700s.

Presser said in 10 years he had only dealt with four or five of these distressing calls.

More morbid still are the “star” codes. Many cruise lines will have a variation on this, some calling “Bright Star” or “Rising Star”, and just “Code Star” on Celebrity cruises. All signify a serious medical emergency or death onboard.

Generally, the phonetic alphabet is reserved for the more serious situations and is universally understood so other ships can come to their aid.

However, each company and ship tends to develop its own sailor slang, as a melting pot of workers from different countries and cultures.

For example “Mamagayo” - possibly from the Filipino for “dear Grandmother” - has come to be cruise slang for somebody who is lazy or slow. With more than 325,000 international cruise workers from the Philippines, the culture is now throughout the industry.

Words such as “makan” from the Filipino “to eat” have been widely adopted when referring to food - as in “let’s grab something to makan”.

Here is a list of nine cruise code words used by the cruise cognoscenti and what they mean:

• Code Alpha: Used to signal a medical emergency on Royal Caribbean ships, though can signal a more general emergency on Carnival ships.
• Code Bravo: “Fire on board” - from the red naval Bravo flag which means “live fire” or ready firefighters.
• Code Delta: Damage to the ship or difficulty manoeuvring.
• Code Echo: Another one you don’t want to hear. Normally repeated three times “Echo, Echo, Echo” means “Brace for collision!” It can also signal the possibility of collision in strong winds or drifting in port.
• Code Kilo: All crew report to emergency stations and prepare lifeboats.
• Code Oscar: Man overboard.
• Code Papa: From the “Blue Peter” flag, normally a call for all staff to report on deck, it can also signal a ship has run aground or become entangled. On Norwegian ships it can also signal an environmental accident such as an oil spill.
• Code Whisky or Code Victor: Urgent assistance required from from nearby vessels. Urgent medical assistance in the case of “Code Victor”. Similarly “pan, pan” for assistance needed or “mayday” for urgent assistance on radio broadcast.
• Code Zulu: A fight has broken out between guests or possibly crew.