07 November 2018; Nieuw Statendam Building, 23 days to go.

Sunny day today so I do not know what the Italian weather gurus were thinking about with predicting overcast skies with a chance of a mid-morning shower. It was just a very nice sunny day today.  On the ship there is major clearing up process going on and today we saw the cranes in operation with containers hanging at the side of the ship and yard people filling them up with debris coming from the inside. At the same time materials were going in and the ship’s crew was assisting with loading deck furniture for the cabins.

Chairs go up in a much faster way now, than human labor can deliver.

With the Koningsdam each stretcher and chair had to be hand carried from A Deck up to the cabins but now a removal loader was in use. One that we see for removals with apartments. A cruise ship is not much different to an apartment building and as long as you have one that goes high enough it works very well. It had the full approval from the HAL crew helping out as most of them had also assisted with the Koningsdam and remembered the long walks and the climbs.

If I was the ware house master here, I would have a bike as this shed goes on forever and ever.

In this case the stretchers (officially called Sun-Loungers) came directly out of the truck and that is now happening a lot. If Hotel has already the space available on board for storing then it does not have to go into the ware house. That ware house is slowly getting fuller and fuller, as the arrivals are sometimes earlier than the space on board is available. At the same time there is a lot of owner- supplied material in the ware house which will still be installed by the yard and thus it stays there until the yard is ready.

This is the Marshaling area where we normally receive the stores and luggage. As spray paint is used for the walls, everything that should not be painted white has been covered over.

With the ship being cleared up, there is more and final painting going on in area’s which were not accessible until now due to the work being carried out in the area. Installers need benches and locations to store their tool boxes & materials and as now more and more is removed, the painters are moving in.

Although the Nieuw Statendam has the same Music Walk as the Koningsdam, the setup has changed a little bit. We have a new venue called the Rolling Stones Rock Room which has become part of the Music Walk. For full details please see the HAL blog but it boils down to another addition to the music options on board. Lincoln Art Center which was occupying the space opposite the Bill-Board on Board is moving to the Queens Lounge = B.B. King Jazz Club and they will play their normal hours as they did before. Once they clear the stage, BB King will take over. The Rolling Stone musicians (nothing to do with the Rolling Stone Band but everything with the Rolling Stone Magazine) will then alternate with the dueling Piano’s in the same area. (Playing at the same time would not make sense…………………..) This gives the option that there will always be music somewhere on the Music Walk even if one group of Musicians go on break.

“Italians being  bored ????

Delivery continues and somebody must have been in a mellow mode as I found one corridor today where several cabins were delivered “upside down”. At least according to the door sticker. (see also one of the previous blogs). Not all cabins have been finished yet but we are coming very close that the contractors are busy with the wall paneling and the electrics. That goes very fast so nothing to worry about.

One last thing for today. We lost our stairs with the glass bottom platform halfway up. This was introduced on the Koningsdam so you could walk outside the ship when going from Deck 9 Seaview Deck to deck 10 behind the Tamarind. I had already heard rumors about our guests not being irrevocably in favor of it and now you can still walk outside the ship but on a nice teakwood staircase.

Work will continue tomorrow and the weather should be nice. I am not looking at the weather forecast anymore but doing my sailor thing and look at the sky. We have had un-interrupted nice weather clouds this afternoon so it will be nice tomorrow. Good for a lot of paint jobs to be finished.

More Painting. Now the underside of the Magrodome. One of the reasons why we all wear a helmet while in the yard.