Today we had “Princess Day” in Juneau. Your good old Noordam was sandwiched in between three Princess ships. The Grand Princess, Coral Princess who were there when we arrived and who were later on followed by the Emerald Princess. Which meant that the whole port was taken up by one company. Sort of. Holland America is part of Carnival Corporation which consists of a large number of companies such as Cunard, Costa, Carnival Cruise Lines, Aida, P&O,P&O Australia etc. etc. But we are also part of a sub-division inside this umbrella group called HAG or Holland America Group. This group consists of Holland America, Princess and Seabourn.  It does not mean that we are all the same. Far from that. The products, the Brands, are totally different with each having a distinct clientele and target group.

Two of the three Princess Ship in port today. To the right the Grand Princess to the left the Coral Princess.

Where we are coming together is on the operational side. Here we share the same “Marine Services” under the same Exe. Vice President and report to the same company structure which operates the ships. Everything in relation to Nautical, Technical, Ports, and other operational activities which support the product delivered to the guests falls under this Marine Services division.

And that is why I can say we are sort of the same company. When we go for our nautical training in the Netherlands, we do that at C-Smart which was originally developed within Princess. Classes are made up of officers from all the brands of the Carnival Corporate as the correct logic is that safe watch keeping principles and operation should not vary from company to company.  Operational maters are resolved in the same way at HAL and Seabourn as at Princess. We even have officers rotating through the three brands if needed. The other day we had a conference call to discuss certain procedures and it showed that everybody was on the same page and following the same routine.

The product we deliver to our guests makes the difference and both groups of officers are fiercely loyal to their own company in order to deliver that particular cruise experience to the guests. Also for the overland tours here in Alaska, the two company’s work closely together with good results as it is now much easier to share capacity in coaches, hotels and trains which in the past were kept completely separate. If the Holland America branch needs an extra coach then they can get it from Princess and vice versa. We are now in this process of close cooperation a few years now and my impression is, while only seeing small parts of the whole puzzle that it works quite swimmingly.

What has not changed is that we try to get the best spot for our ships and the best arrival times and that made that the Captain decide to arrive nice and early this morning to ensure that both gangways were out on time and everybody could stream ashore without any delays. Where possible we operate two gangways on arrival as in general all guests want to leave at the same time and then later we go down to one gangway as the return of the guests is normally a steady trickle.

The pontoon and the ship go up and down with the tide. So the guests always have a almost flat gangway to walk over.

With the new dock in Juneau we have that two gangway option as the floating pontoon which makes up the center of the dock is just long enough to cover forward and midships stairway and exit. The rest of the dock is fixed and does not move and that is where the ropes go on the bollards. In an ideal world, we would like to moor completely on a pontoon, so the dock, the ropes and the ship would always move up and down with the tide in a status quo position but then you have to make the pontoon anchoring construction very strong. During windy weather, a cruise ship catches an enormous amount of wind and that force has to be absorbed then by mechanics which keeps the pontoon in position. Thus in Alaska they have opted for a pontoon / dolphin construction with the foundations hammered into the bed rock.

We will stay in Juneau until 22.00 hrs. and then sail for Skagway for an early morning arrival as there will be a whole parade of ships coming in at about 20 minutes intervals. Weather; more of the same, although we had hardly any rain to day,