February 18, 2012
Cruise ships are often described as floating hotels. In simplest terms that might be a convenient way to grasp what we are trying to deliver to the marketplace. But the reality is that our product is as different from a traditional hotel as water is from land. First, space is at a premium. If you are building a hotel in the middle of swampland in Florida or undeveloped desert in Nevada, land is relatively cheap. So, your goal is to create things as big as possible, where ours by nature is to keep things as small as possible while giving you the impression of size. Additionally, what we often is far more than a traditional, upscale hotel. We are a complete floating resort, with pools, casino, a full theater, sports courts, two levels of shopping districts, a movie theater, a disco, and countless restaurants and bars. Think about taking a resort the size of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and floating it on water. See how that works.
Our resort is over 1000 feet long and weighs 122,400 TONS. Our ‘building’ is actually 18 stories tall. We include all the aforementioned amenities, including sleeping quarters for over 4000 people (guests and crew), and office space for a large number of the 1200 plus ‘below decks.’ Take one luxury resort, maybe even the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and just add water. But when you add water, the whole dynamic changes. For example, we invite you on a luxury getaway to forget the worries of life and the first thing we do is insist, by law, that you attend an emergency drill. Yes, we do it with grace and gentleness, but see how Marriott guests would feel about that, every time they rented a room.
And Mother Ocean can be a fickle host. Most of the time we have fair winds and following seas, but generally at least a day or two every cruise is met with rolling seas. That is simply the nature of sailing. Most of our guests understand it, but not all. The other night, just before Laura and I reached our respective crew stateroom areas, we were stopped by a man who was very upset that the ship was rolling so much. He felt that we should have avoided the weather. We could have, I guess, if we didn’t have a destination in mind. He failed to understand why we subjected him to that. Having viewed the weather report, I predicted that by the next afternoon things should be smooth as silk. They were, and I looked like a genius. The reality was that I was just damn lucky. But the ocean can affect any of us. Generally as we steam out of New York and head down the East Coast, we have a full day of high seas. Both crew and guests are equally affected. Even if your stomach braved the assault, imagine being a waiter carrying trays of drinks or food. Imagine our singers and dancers performing without knowing exactly where the deck will be next. Imagine our officers trying to be pleasant and charming as we stroll (not lurch) down the corridors. Think of it as our non-stop earthquake on those days, and you get the idea. If you can imagine an earthquake lasting 24 hours.
Then there is the Bermuda Triangle. Each morning and evening I briefly turn on the navigation channel to see where we are. Imagine my distress this morning when it said “Unable to determine destination. Unable to locate satellites.” That certainly got my day off to a memorable start. And we transit the edge of that corridor a couple of times a week.
Or what about strange and mysterious creatures appearing from nowhere. The last time we pulled into New York Harbor at 7am, to begin our immigration process, three of the female officers asked me if I would come into Sky Lounge A to remove a ‘moth.’ Okay, this moth was ‘mothzilla.’ With a wingspan of over eight inches this dark brown beast was laying on the floor of the conference room. Please note we had been out of the tropics for three full days. Where had our stowaway been all this time? Well, I calmly wrapped it in napkins and put him to rest. But seriously, how they heck did he get there and nobody had noticed him on the ship? That never happens at home.
And yet both the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the downright irksome are handled with our crew with great equanimity. I think this group of people would simply be bored by the commonplace of a job on land. That’s why we are here.
And the adventure continues . . .
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