02 April 2013; At Sea.

Another glorious day at sea with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80’s. Hardly any real wind and that made being on the deck very pleasant as the ship produced a gentle breeze with its own speed.  It was a happy world today. The only ones who were moaning and groaning a little bit were the navigators as with the nice weather , regular and sports fishermen, were out  in force and moving “all over the place”. With not much consideration to a large passengership that comes charging down the road. Thus a careful watch had to be kept and a close eye on these boats to make sure we did not hit any of them. The big problem is that applying the Rules of the Road does not always work, as they are not necessarily keeping to those rules. Thus you try a: to keep a very good distance away from them, so whatever they decide to do next it won’t create a dangerous situation; and b. keep monitoring them to make sure that when they are not moving, they won’t start moving at the last moment. (“Hey honey let’s take a picture of that big boat……………..”) For the rest the bridge had turtles, porpoises and the occasional whale to enjoy.

Although warm, it was not that hazy as the little wind that was out there kept coming from the northwest bringing slightly cooler air to the area as would have been the case with land wind. So while 10 miles off the coast we still could see Zihuatenego and Ixtapa very clearly at noon time and later in the evening Acapulco as well.  If you past this coast year in year out, you can see that Mexico is really a fast developing country. 25 years ago the coast would be dark apart from the few ports and resorts. Now we see lighthouses everywhere and more and more clusters of other lights indicating civilization. It is not as desolate as it used to be. Unfortunately for us, there are only a limited number of ports along the coast that would make a good cruise ship destination for docking. The smaller ports where we would have to anchor do not have a natural shelter for a larger size ship and that would make a tender operation quite awkward with the ocean swell rolling in.  Huatalco is one of the few destinations that have been developed in the last few years and where it really has worked out.

As mentioned before I was going to write something about our more obscure names and functions on board. So there is the AYWD Host. We have two of those on board. AYWD stands for As You Wish Dining. That is the dining option if you do not want to be assigned to a fixed first or second sitting. At the entrance of the dining room is a stand with a booking computer where guests can walk by and reserve a time during the day, or just walk up to in the evening. The two gentlemen there will then book you in for a table at the time of your liking. Their challenge is that it does not always work. Either due to the fact that too many guests want to go in at the same time or because they want a specific table, either in size or in location.  (Especially in Alaska where everybody wants a window seat) If such an occasion occurs then you might have to wait and for that purpose a pager is handed out so you can retreat to the Bar and wait there in comfort until your table is available.

Their challenge mainly lies with the fact that a lot of people who cannot be accommodated in First –fixed sitting go for AYWD and then try to get in as early as possible. That is when the guests are predominantly American or Canadian. With European Cruises we see a slight shift and then the bottle neck is around 8 pm. as the majority of Europeans on board (British and Dutch) tend to go for cocktails at 7.30 pm.  Of course this is not a clear cut science, it is all about numbers,  and that means that the better a feeling these guys have of the group of guests we have on board during a cruise, the easier it is and the better the service. This cruise we must be doing quite well, as thus far no pagers had to be handed out to deal with congestion. (How do I know this, because we monitor that, and I see a “beeper” report coming by each day)

Tomorrow we will be in Hualtalco de Santa Cruz with an arrival time of 10 am. We are the only ship in and so I have a choice of docking. Temperatures are supposed to soar to the mid 90’s and thus the Security Officer has requested if I can dock nose in on the West side so that the gangway is all afternoon in the shade of the ship. Thus making it more comfortable for when the guests come back in big groups and have to wait in line before going through the Security scanners.  ……..Who am I to refuse……………