After the beautiful weather of yesterday, Vancouver did not let us down either. By the time the ship docked at Canada Place, the sun was out and indeed it became a nice warm day. Especially on a day like this it is great to be on the West Side of Canada Place as this is the side where the regular promenade is located. The ships bridge wing is normally right on the top of the kiddie’s pirate ship right in the middle of the promenade and the Officer of the Watch can see the world go by right in front of him/her.
On board the ship we call Vancouver day – Change Over Day – as the guests from the past cruise are leaving and new guests are boarding. Normally all guests are off by 09.30 hrs. and the new guests are coming on board any time after 11.30 hrs. In between the Hotel part of the ship has to be turned around and made ready for the new cruise.
The most hectic department during this day is Housekeeping. All cabins have to be changed, all luggage off and all luggage on. Although the other departments are busy as well, such as the provision master with the loading and the engineers with spare parts, repairs and fueling, it is the Housekeeping department who has the smallest window to accomplish all the work.
One of the items that needs attention and is often not thought of, are medicines. Nearly all guests have medicines with them and quite a few have medicines that need to be kept refrigerated. Only the suites have fridges and that means that the other cabins have to be supplied with a small fridge. As a result we have most of the morning a bell-boy running around with a trolley picking the fridges from last cruise and delivering new ones to the cabins for the coming cruise. A small but vital operation.
The luggage trolleys are specially designed for ships use. Height and width prevent damage to the ships corridors and the small wheels at the back, too heavy lifting for the handlers.
The bulk of the work is dealing with luggage. Everything is brought down during the night to the marshalling area and is off loaded as soon as the ship is docked. This off loading is done by local longshoremen who, when finished, continue with loading provisions. As soon as the first luggage bins with luggage have been filled on the shore side they will start loading those again. Not always bins are used, in Vancouver most of the time they use a conveyor belt as it is faster and easier to handle. In the meantime guests are going through CBP – American Immigration. That is done in Vancouver as the Alaskan ports do not have the facilities and the manpower. It helps us as well, as it will not disturb the cruise that we are going to make.
Luggage being gathered as it come into the ship by conveyor belt
So while the guests are being checked, stamped and finger printed, the first luggage arrives on board. Here the people from Housekeeping are already waiting with trolleys. Those go in one of the guest elevators (which for this purpose has received a padded inner wall to protect the cage) and then it is taken up to the deck required. From there the Cabin Steward takes over and will deliver the suitcase to your cabin. This makes it possible that if you arrived early at the terminal, by the time that you come on board, your luggage is already in the cabin.
Occasionally there are delays in delivery. This can happen when the luggage label has been ripped off during the handling or if people have the same name and they have not written the cabin number on the label. Then there can be an issue with luggage coming directly from the airport, unaccompanied. We do not know what happens in the airport of departure or in the airport of arrival and the truck only loads what the airport gives. Sometimes a Taxi has to be dispatched to pick up one or two pieces, forgotten or late arrived. Then we are talking lost luggage and that is another story. We have people in Seattle office who have a constant headache because of trying to deal with this and also the agents in the various ports do their best to solve “the cause of the lost bag”. Most of the time that piece of luggage will make it to the ship in the next port. One just has to hope that the next port is not after a 10 day Pacific Ocean crossing.
Today the Volendam left in a hurry. Seymour Narrows slack tide is around 21.45 and the ship can just make that with full speed. If we would go for the later tide, then it would jeopardize a timely arrival in Juneau, as the cruise schedule to get there on time is on the tight side.
July 3, 2014 at 8:36 pm
Thanks for the information and photos related to the luggage operations. I am always amazed and relieved when my bags arrive so quickly after boarding. Of course it is great to be able to check into your cabin early, but I feel so sorry for the housekeeping staff and how hard they have to work to get things ready for the next guests. Do the cabin stewards have any help from the other departments during the turnover operations?
July 4, 2014 at 10:45 pm
Yes, they do get help from other sections in the housekeeping who are not directly involved with the cabin change over. As a result Housekeeping crew can get ashore on a rotation basis, otherwise it would not be fair. Help from other departments is more diffuclt as they are busy as well, maybe not at the same time, but they make the same amount of hours in the day. Such as diningroom who has a break in the afternoon but work later into the night than the cabin stewards do.
thank you for reading my blog
Captain Albert
July 4, 2014 at 1:57 am
Hello Captain Albert,
I am enjoying this in-depth look at the behind the scenes (or rather, behind the crew-only door 🙂 ) I had thought some of the previous blog posts were detailed and interesting and I was always quite happy reading them, but now that you are not burdened with the zillion-and-one tasks a ship master must take care of, I feel like I’m getting a personal tour of the ship with these new blogs 🙂 I gave up on the email notification long ago and simply check at lunch time every day to see if there are any new posts.
My question of the day is: on some HAL ships, the gym is above the bridge area. Did the designers add enough soundproofing between the two areas, or can the bridge crew notice when someone is up for a 5am run on the treadmill?
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
July 4, 2014 at 10:52 pm
On most ships the relaxation area is above the captains cabin, so there is no noise issue. On other ships the only item that caused problems were dropping dumb bells.That is a penetrating sound that is hard to sound- proof against as it is an impact noise. It was solved by putting the rack with dumb bulls away from the cabins. The bridge can notice the treadmills but it is not annoying, we are just amazed about the fact that right in front of the glacier in glacier bay, highlight of the cruise, somebody needs to work out instead of being out here enjoying the scenery and hearing the ice fall.
thank you for reading my blog
Captain Albert
July 5, 2014 at 6:31 pm
This is one of “those” comments of mine again, Captain.
With regard to floor “13” in buildings and elsewhere – fortunately, some still consider this number just a number. Quite a few of downtown Vancouver high rises still number floor “13”. I would have gone nowhere in life if my being many times number “13” played a roll in ‘bad luck’ (my last name begins with a letter close to the end of the alphabet). AHA, fortunately HAL is not entirely superstitious; the company still has tender boats that carry the number “13” ! 🙂
Then, with your arrival day from Seattle to Vancouver – too bad, Captain, that you didn’t have some peculiar, clear-patched, 100% polymer Canadian dollars on you. It would have not only cost you a lot less, but it would have also taken a lot less in time.
With the 100 kiddies on board northbound, it is a good thing you now travel in disguise and won’t run the danger anymore of getting mobbed by them for a signature …
So much for my “goeie morgen” to you on your first arrival on board. It must be luxury not having to get up at all hours of the day/night anymore ? Thus I only saw your colleague Captain James R-D, his Chief (Staff Captain) and the two Pilots on the bridge. Question: Is it against protocol for you to be on the bridge at all?
Thank you for your explanation of the Wednesday ships arriving in Skagway; that’s why the Volendam could dock alongside the rock wall when I took my first cruise in 2011.
… to be continued … 🙂