Amateur Traveler - A blog about Travel news, travel tips, travel advice, travel videos and travel resources. A companion site to the Amateur Traveler podcast.
How do you feed as many people as you will find on a large cruise ship like the MS Volendam from Holland America? The last time we were on the Voldendam we took a tour of the kitchens on the ship. An impressive number of people man the dining room and kitchen.
The dining room staff includes:
Dining Room Manager
1
Lido Manager
1
Assistant Dining Room Manager
2
Head Steward
7
Dining Room Steward
38
Assistant Dining Room Steward
31
Room Service Steward
8
Assistant Lido Steward
12
Doorman
2
Wine Steward
11
The kitchen staff includes:
Executive Chef
1
2nd Executive Chef
1
Pinnacle Grill Chef
1
Sous Chef
2
Demi Chefs
10
Bakery
4
Pastry
6
Butcher
2
Assistant Cook
20
Apprentice Cook
2
Pantry
16
Crew Kitchen
3
Chief Steward
1
Foreman Service Area
1
General Purpose Attendant
21
And during an average week the ship’s passenger’s will consume:
As the two actors Michael Elich and Christopher DuVal made a pass at each other with swords the audience was perhaps more nervous than usual. Stage fighting requires preparation but how do you prepare for the stage rocking back and forth with the movement of a cruise ship? The actors were performing one of three one act plays that were a part of the Shakespeare at Sea cruise. Shakespeare at Sea was a collaboration between the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Insight Cruises and is part of a growing trend for theme based or education based cruises.
Theme cruises have two main advantages over a normal cruise.
Interesting Activities - Instead of playing shuffle board, bingo or gambling in the casino imagine that you could fill the time at sea with whatever you personally find most interesting. If you are a baseball fan you can cruise with Ken Griffey Sr. and Andre Dawson. If you are a classical music fan you can attend concerts. If you are interested in science you can attend a cruise with writers from Scientific American.
Interesting People - Imagine a cruise ship filled with people interested in the same things you are interested in. On the Shakespeare at Sea cruise we sat at dinner with other people in that program and had interesting conversations with interesting people. Obviously what interests you may be different from what interests me. I have considered a podcaster cruise and attended a Mac user cruise. Perhaps you would rather go on a Betty Boop fan club cruise
Adding a theme onto a cruise may add additional cost depending on the depth of the programming of activities. The Shakespeare at Sea cruise doubled the price of the cruise but for me more than doubled the value as well.
I have not found a great directory of themed cruises yet so if you have a hobby or interest try googling for that hobby and add the word “cruise”.
More information about theme cruising can be found in the Amateur Traveler Episode 113 - Theme Cruise to Panama (Shakespeare at Sea / MacMania).
Here is is a video tour I shot of Holland America’s MS Volendam. I talked more about this particular ship on Episode 113 of the Amateur Traveler - Theme Cruise to Panama (Shakespeare at Sea / MacMania).
Royal Caribbean is working on a what should be the largest cruise ship in the world. The ship, called Project genesis, is scheduled to launch in 2009. The ship will carry 5,400 passengers and will have 16 decks.
The most unusual aspect of the design is a park like interior with green plants. Many of the staterooms will have balconies over looking this area.
Carnival Cruise line announced on their blog last week that they are planning a “Bloggers Cruise” sailing January 19, 2008. This was announced on the blog written by John Heald, Senior Cruise Director. There may be some confusion caused by the way that Heald uses the term “Blogger” as it seems typical for him to address the more than 150,000 readers (Carnival’s numbers) of his blog with “good morning Bloggers”. So they seem to use the term to mean blog readers, but Carnival does promise that “guest bloggers” would also be on the cruise.
Details seem sketchy at this time, but it appears that the seven-day western Caribbean cruise will operate round-trip from Miami January 19-26, 2008, and will visit l: Ocho Rios (Jamaica) George Town (Grand Cayman) and Cozumel (Mexico).
