A poorly led and trained crew! If the Captain and crew had proper training and knew proper damage control procedures, things probably would have turned out better. Even more important, if the Captain hadn't been show boating by going off established course, none of this would have happend in the first place.
But since it didn happen, now you have waiters and cabin attendants trying to get all those untrained passengers to life boat stations with no direction from any ships officers....in fact, it appears there was a serious state of denial by senior crew members going on after the collision.
The ship lurches and shudders hard enough to launch dinnerware and passengers (in calm seas) and the PA announces "everything is fine? Seriously?
