I believe the
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulations require the General Emergency Signal to actually be sounded as part of the mandatory cruise ship muster drill. Presumably so the passengers are instructed in what it actually sounds like.
This video, taken by a passenger on a
Disney cruise, perhaps demonstrates why that requirement is there. While it is clear many people knew what it meant and what to do when the alarm sounded, others appear to not know what it meant. While this situation turned out to be a false alarm, you really do want everyone to at least recognize what that alarm means...
I find the alarm to be physically painful when it sounds. We have cruised 8 times with
DCL. My solution ? High quality foam ear plugs with a high noise reduction rating - the kind meant for use in loud environments. The usual ones I use are these by Macks, or something similar by a major reputable brand like 3M (I will not "cheap out" when my hearing is involved):
https://www.macksearplugs.com/product/ultra-soft-foam-ear-plugs/ which are noise reduction rating 33. Then, I cup my hands over my ears for an extra layer of protection.
The ear plugs are one part of a two-part strategy though, as obviously walking with hands cupped over your ears is a bit challenging and can be dangerous if you try to do it walking down stairs. They announce the drill (and the horn) well in advance [and post-covid it may be that the muster will be done differently and we won't all gather in the same way, but the horn will likely still sound, so part of this will still apply, you may just be able to be in a different location for the horn(s), like your stateroom). So, we know the time of the muster, and they keep making announcements. We make sure we are in our stateroom well in advance. We check the corridor and note when the crew assemble -- listen to the announcements because they call them to assemble at their stations. Once the initial crew go to their stations, the emergency stairwells are opened up. We feel it is important to take the emergency stairwell so we know how to do it/where it goes should there be an emergency, so once the one for our stateroom is opened, we ask the crew member manning its entrance if it is ok if we go down then, and they have always said yes. So we go down, ear plugs in. This gets us down to the muster station BEFORE they sound the alarm announcing the start of the drill. At the muster station, when they give the warning that the alarm will sound shortly, hands cup the ears until it stops. You can still hear it, it is just muffled, to a point that for me at least it isn't painful anymore. You can hear the rhythm, you know what it will sound like (just lots louder) if sounded in an emergency, etc. If there was a real emergency, I wouldn't care about the loudness as it would be a short-lived issue relative to the much bigger issue of the emergency - plus you can cup your hands and cover for part of it -- I have to do this all the time for e.g. fire alarms at work or in public places [btw - an aside - at work I actually keep a pair of ear plugs in a specic spot on my desk so that if the fire alarm goes off I can use them... makes it soooo much easier!]
