Cruise Pt 13

{O U R L A S T D A Y}

Our last day dawns. I want to get more photos, talk to some more people, have a couple toddies, make goo-goo eyes at Suzanne, and relax.

In the post 9-11 era, you’re not allowed to actually go on the bridge anymore, but you can see everything from the Bridge Viewing Room. Signs ask visitors not to knock and disturb the officers as they work.

I manage to speak to one of the officers. I ask him how someone gets to be an officer of a ship like this. He explains that you have to be a graduate of your country’s Naval Academy, and have actual experience at sea before you’ll even be considered. The captain and his top officers are all Scandinavian, from Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavians have a long seagoing heritage, much longer than ours, and I expect their service academies would produce fine quality officers. I ask: “Airlines often use autopilot systems to fly planes; does the ship have such systems too? He assures me that they do, and that the ship primarily operates on autopilot, with constant course corrections being made by the computer and GPS. He goes on to tell me that the ship has large stabilizing fins underwater that keep the ship steady for the comfort of the passengers.

I was surprised to feel the ship move at all because it’s so huge, but the sensation is actually similar to riding in a car at times. We notice lots of passengers with motion sickness patches; little dots about as big as a nickel stuck behind their ears.

I speak to one of the servers by the pool, a friendly fellow from Polynesia. I ask him: “On a ship like this, which is a confined space, and passengers who have basically unlimited access to alcohol, you must sometimes have incidents. (He smiles) Do you have a brig or anything like that to handle people who are out of control?”

He says “The rules here are the same as they are on the land. We have a security force here, and if someone breaks the law they are handed to the authorities at the next port.” I was not able to confirm this, but I suspect that the Head of Security is a deputized US Marshall.

I ask him what it’s like to work on a ship. I found that: 80% of the staff are from Polynesia. They work 10 month stretches, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, and then can go home for two months. The waitstaff are paid a base rate of 6 dollars a day plus room and board. Their wages are almost entirely dependent on their tips.

Me =

::: :::

Jeff commandeers the sound system and plays ‘Solidarity Forever’ at full volume as he organizes the workers and leads them in a triumphant march around the deck. Then he remembers that Suzanne hates it when he does this kind of stuff whenever they go anywhere.

So he has another beer.

Me = Me =

::: :::

Suzanne notices a guest on the ship who is blind. He has a seeing eye dog. She wonders how you let a dog outside on a ship. We ask one of the Maitre d’s, a young lady from Romania. She said she had helped this guest get settled in, and that she had set up a box with something like cat littler in it for the dog to use.

I note that with the huge quantities of alcohol on board, the Friends of Bill W. have a meeting every day at 5 in the Chapel.