Carnival Cruise Ship: Public Relations Mess

We have all watched the amazing story unfold on that Carnival cruise ship over the past few days.  Overflowing toilets, irate customers, and an explosion of criticism via social media... Carnival executives have their hands full with this incident.  Many people have been offering suggestions regarding the near term public relations strategy that Carnival should employ.   I would like to offer one point that is a bit more long term in nature.  Carnival has to conduct a highly transparent after-action review.  I would recommend bringing in reputable outside experts to help conduct a review of safety and operational procedures.  Moreover, Carnival needs a clear communication plan associated with that after-action review process.  How will the various stakeholders be kept informed of the process and the findings?   How will potential customers learn about the corrective actions that result from this lessons learned exercise?   Having a transparent and legitimate/credible after-action review process will go a long way toward rebuilding the company's reputation.   Yes, they can do some things in the short term to manage the public relations crisis.  However, salvaging the brand in the long run requires a clear demonstration that the firm has done everything possible to insure that this type of incident does not happen again.