A little late...

May 14th 2015
So the first few weeks of May were pretty busy!!
Due to high water in the Rhine, (heavy rainfall in Basel) we weren’t able to go into Basel on the 2nd of May. We had to stay in Breisach, where our guests disembarked. That was the fastest disembarkation I have had so far, around 9 am everyone was off the ship, I loved it!! Then as soon as everyone was off the ship, we sailed to Strasbourg. Where we greeted our new group of guests. So far everything ok..
But unfortunately we weren’t able to move the entire week!! So the excursions had to be done by bus from Strasbourg. There was even talk of moving everyone off the ship to hotels, but all hotels were fully booked due to some conventions. And of course for a big group like that you would need at least 50 rooms to keep everyone together!
Then finally on the 5th of May we got the go ahead to sail, so we left as early as possible to be the first ones at the first lock we would have to go through. The sooner we would be there, the sooner we would be able to go through and keep moving. But the next morning it was clear that nothing was going to happen. There was only one other cruise ship there, if there wasn’t a problem, it would have been crowded with cruise ships.
So after lunch our cruise director had to tell the guests that we had to go back to Strasbourg. They had to open a lock near Basel and that wave of water was coming done faster than they had anticipated, so there was no way for us to go through.
Then the cruise director got another option. One of our sister ships, the Visionary, was docked in Bingen, on the other side of the lock so to speak. The plan was to transport the guests from our ship to the Visionary by bus and have their guests come to us. So our guests could at least go on to Amsterdam, to be there in time to get on their flights home and the Visionary guests would come with us to Basel…
Of course everyone was disappointed over this, but they could see we had done everything we could to help them. They were to leave on Thursday, so on Wednesday evening we went ahead and gave them our crew show anyway.
And guess what?! Yes, yours truly was doing the honors again…and then some!! Haha
Last week our Cruise director Katy was doing some warming up with the guests in the form of a story about Cowboys and Indians. The last couple of days and this Wednesday she had been talking a lot already and she didn’t feel like talking anymore. Our HM said he wasn’t very good at reading stories out loud, so I told them I would give it a try….
So for this part you need to divide the group into several groups, all with their own noises to make. And then when you mention the name of the group, they have to give their noise..
At first I thought it was going nowhere, but in the end it was a lot of fun! I started making the groups in the back of the lounge, working my way toward the bar…where the noises that were made grew louder as I came nearer the people sitting at the bar…which of course I had to comment on!
In the end it was fun to have a little fun with the guests and they really seemed to enjoy it! Just to show that we really did feel bad about having to send them away, we gave them a big send off with this crew show and a glass of champagne at the end!
The next morning Katy had everyone on the bus around 8:30 am. Then as soon as everyone was gone we had to clean the ship to receive the new guests in the afternoon. The plan was that they would arrive around noon, have lunch and then leave for an excursion at around 2pm. Check in would be when they came back or around 3 if they weren’t going…
Of course we did our very best to have everything ready on time, but some people just can’t appreciate hard work….some people can be so unreasonable, it is unbelievable! We managed to get everyone in the room before the excursion started, so at least an hour and a half before the official check in we began to put people in the rooms…but still, complaints about the room not being ready, being the last ones to go into the rooms..
Of course it was a bad situation, of course they had been on a bus for 3 hours before they came here, of course they wanted to get into their room. But what they forgot was that we had guests that only left that morning too..
Fortunately we have an HM that stands by his crew and he made it clear in a friendly yet understandable way, that the complaining should be thanking the housekeeping for being able to put them in their rooms before they went on their excursions…
Unfortunately we had a cruise director that was a bit lost! I had worked with him before and it wasn’t such a hassle then, but now…he kept asking us the same question over and over, then changed his mind a lot and you had to ask him for everything…on Saturday he had a disembarkation system that no one seemed to understand but him.. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if he hadn’t been clear to his guests, only after they started complaining did he mention that as in a hotel you couldn’t go to the rooms before 3 pm…
Anyway…we were stuck in Strasbourg for at least a week!! Now I haven’t been to the city centre, but the part we were docked in was very depressing! The buildings depress me, the windows are soo small, you wonder if people get any daylight in (which is probably why they are all so rude and depressed!), there are shutters in front of the windows, as if they are afraid of a little sunlight and everything is just old and not taken care of! Not my favorite part of Strasbourg! Plus they take every opportunity to close their shops!! Public holiday here, public holiday there, it is unbelievable!!
So to be able to keep our schedule, we received the guests that were supposed to go to the Visionary last Saturday. The Visionary was in Amsterdam and they received our guests, then somewhere in the middle we would swap again.
Now before that cruise began, I got a rooming list from our Operations department, very nice…so we used that to make the keycards and all the administration…
The layout of the two ships is different, here we have the CRD cabin on the 3rd floor, in Visionary it is on the 2nd floor. Not until we were checking people in did we realize Operations had done something to our rooming list!
We had some surprised and even angry guests from the 3rd corridor that they had gotten a different room than they had booked…some had specifically booked a certain room and now they had gotten the room opposite…turned out that Operations had moved everyone back one room, because of the crd cabin!!!
So instead of being in room 310 they were now in room 311…which we could explain and it was understandable, but totally unnecessary!!!
The next day I wrote an email to Operations to let them know about what happened and to ask them what went wrong. Then as I was writing this email, a couple that was in room 318 brought us the wine and chocolate that we had to put in there as a giftorder, because it was clear to them that it wasn’t meant for them….minutes before we realized that the guests that this gift order was meant for, had also moved up one room!!! Operations had send us an email with the updated rooming list and the gift orders, but forgot to mention that they had to go to a different room! I was soo happy to have honest people on board that I gave the lady the chocolates!
So I also put this in my email…the reply I got was that because of the crd cabin they had moved up all the rooms and that it was a nice gesture to give the chocolates… I wrote back that we already figured that that was the case, but for next time it would be easier for us to just leave it the way it is, so we only have to move one cabin!!
Of course I never heard anything after that! A lot of unnecessary trouble!
Then of course the guests we had on board had to go back to the Visionary, so we had another swap last Wednesday!
This time the Visionary was in Bingen and we were in Mainz, wich is only an hour by bus. We said goodbye to that group and to the “lost” cruise director. Who actually said it was a good week… Anyway, the group that came to us had Isabel for Cruise director. We have already worked with her in the beginning of the season. I had heard some stories about her, which I believe to be true, but in the end we didn’t have any problem with her and she even said she would love to come back. Now she’s back with us and we’re doing fine! She’s really a nice person, she’s very organized, which I think is a good thing!
Normally we would do the crew show on Wednesday, but this time there was no way that we could do it. Everyone was tired and we just wanted to take a rest. So instead of Wednesday, we all voted to skip it for one week, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Instead we moved it to Friday. Again I was the MC. Didn’t feel like doing it at all, but I got the job done again! I even managed to impress Isabel!! The first time she was with us, our HM was MC and she hadn’t seen me do it before. She also wanted to do something, so when she asked me what I was going to do in the show, I told her I was going to introduce her…when I was done and she came “on stage” she said she was very impressed!!
18th of May 2015
So last week we got our guests in Mainz and we were lucky to be able to move on! Friday we were in Breisach, like we were supposed to be! As usual when we are there, it was raining!! For me, they can skip this town, I mean, really everytime we come here (ok which has only been 3 times until now!) it was raining! I did go out this time, to buy some stamps, Isabel also went out and she showed me where the postoffice and trainstation was and so on.
Then as we walked back to our ship, an ambulance drove by and we were both wishing it wouldn’t be needed for our ship,…but unfortunately it was! One of our cabinstewardesses had a severe asthma attack. No one knew she had asthma and when asked where she had her medication, she said it was in her cabin. She didn’t have it with her and even her roommate didn’t know she had this until 2 days before!!!
It is really stupid that she didn’t carry her medication in her pocket for emergencies like this. The ambulance brought her to the hospital for observation and she came back at around 3:30 in the afternoon.
Then that afternoon, while I was on my break, my second had to call the ambulance again, because one of our guests had a heart attack!! It really was her lucky day!
We had to leave these guests behind in the hospital, because we were about to leave for Basel.
And yes, finally we were able to sail to Basel!! Not that it is a city we can go into, the place we are docked at is more an industrial port. But it meant that we were on the move again!
Disembarkation last Saturday in Basel didn’t go all that smooth, because the bus that we needed to bring people to Dijon, to go on their next cruise in the South of France, broke down and they had to wait for another bus.
But in the end everyone was off the ship around 10am, so we could start cleaning the ship. This time we had until 3:30 in the afternoon before the new group came, so we are back to our regular schedule.
I got a compliment from one of the guests of the last group, she said I was a natural, at the job and also at the crew show…which was really nice and I think she’s right. It does feel like it all comes natural… I’m interested in people and that shows, plus I like to have fun and that shows too I guess!
Sunday we were back in Strasbourg, but that was according to the schedule, so it was okay. And today we are in Speyer, this morning people could walk around in the town and this afternoon they will go on an excursion to Heidelberg.
Yesterday Isabel said she just loved my laugh!! Which I’m glad of, because I’ve had another CRD tell me to put a lid on it!
Our HM was going to the restaurant for dinner when he told me to guard his office and the tipbox. I told him that wasn’t a problem, I’m Dutch, there’s money in there, so rest assured!! That made us both laugh and mostly for me it comes from somewhere deep down, so of course Isabel heard it and that’s when she said she loved hearing it. I told her I couldn’t do much about the volume, but that didn’t bother her, it was real, genuine, that’s what counted!
Tomorrow I will be on the ship for 2 months already…somehow time flies, but these last two weeks were also pretty busy. I still have about 2 months to go before I go on vacation…which really seems like a long way away…on the other hand, this cruise will be over on Saturday and then we’ll have new people and before we know it, that cruise will be over too…so it does fly by..



Love Linda