A Look at a Spa Stateroom

Spa staterooms sport balconies overlooking Lido Deck, health waters and other amenities that distinguish them from other accommodations.

Our intrepid correspondent Pam gives us a video tour of one of Eurodam’s spa staterooms.

Superior Verandah Suite

We’re still getting a lot of requests for stateroom photos, so here’s a peek at a superior verandah suite. Guests are occupying most of the staterooms now that the ship is underway, so please be patient if it takes us a little longer to get a specific category.

The superior verandah suite has floor-to-ceiling windows, private verandah, sitting area, a dressing room, bathroom with dual sink vanity and a full-sized whirlpool bath and shower. The sofa bed accommodates an addition guest.

The two beds can convert into one queen-sized bed.

Meet the Housekeeping Team

Meet Chief Housekeeper Tetet (left) and some of his team. They have a big job — from keeping all of Eurodam’s cabins tidy to turn-down service to crafting those cute towel animals adorning guests’ bed.

Meet the Assistant Housekeeper

Sapri Ali is an assistant housekeeper aboard Eurodam. His brother Syafril also was an assistant housekeeper with Holland America Line in 1985.

While Syafril was working on the old Statendam, he met a lovely American guest. He fell in love, finished his contract, married her and moved from Indonesia to New Jersey. Twenty-nine years later, they are happily married and have two children, Steven and Michael. Steven is working on his doctoral degree and Michael is working on his master’s degree.

Sapri followed in his brother’s footsteps and has been with Holland America for 24 years. His goal is to become chief housekeeper.

He lives in Java, Indonesia, with his wife of 18 years and two daughters, Sarah and Risya. When I was interviewing him, his work phone rang eight times in a span of 30 minutes! Sapri said, “My hobby is work and I make my work fun.”

Sapri told me that his birth name was Syafri Alsa, however he was given the name Sapri Ali at age 7 due to a clerical error made in grammar school on his school diploma that he says cannot be changed by the Indonesian government.

Living the Suite Life

Pam was able to get into one of the Penthouse Verandah Suites and snap some photos. Located on Rotterdam Deck, this suite is among the finest accommodations at sea.

The suite boasts a dining room and a butler pantry, making it easy to entertain fellow guests.

The living room is the perfect spot for reading a book or enjoying afternoon tea.

The bedroom area is large enough to accommodate a king-size bed.

The main bathroom, with gold fixtures and incredible oversized tub and shower, is fit for a king and queen. The suite also has a guest bathroom.

The verandah is large enough to accommodate several chairs and loungers, as well as a table so guests can dine outside if they wish.

Imagine relaxing in your private whirlpool tub on your verandah while watching the sunset … heaven!

Deluxe Verandah Stateroom

You’ve been asking to see the staterooms, so we asked Pam to take some photos of the different cabin categories. Here’s a Deluxe Verandah stateroom, which has two lower beds that can convert into a queen-sized bed, a bathtub and shower, sitting area, private verandah and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Prepare to be Pampered in the Spa Staterooms

Above is a rendering of a Spa Stateroom. We’ll ask Pam to take a photo of an actual stateroom and post it later.

Holland America Line just released information on the Spa Stateroom category. Eurodam will be the first ship in the fleet to have these cabins. The 56 spa staterooms are so named because of their proximity to the Greenhouse Spa and Salon and special in-room spa amenities.

Located on the Panorama and Observation decks, each room reflects a nature theme with walls of soft earth-tone hues. Bright, fresh green accent colors echo nature’s own and organic, fern-like patterns adorn the bed runner and pillows. The charcoal-colored carpeting ties together all of the elements, and a water feature in each stateroom provides a natural ambient background sound.

Amenities in the spa staterooms include organic cotton bathrobes and slippers, a Burmese teak mat for bath and shower, and an invigorating showerhead, as well as a loofah mitt and aroma therapy bath salts. In addition to standard stateroom furnishings, spa staterooms also include an iPod docking station, yoga mat, pedometer for use aboard ship, fitness DVD, no-host mini-bar stocked with specialty waters, a cut-fruit tray at embarkation and a spa concierge to book treatments.

Nightly turn-down pillow gifts also reflect a natural theme and include organic chocolate truffles, orchids and a line of chocolates called Elements, herbal-infused chocolates blending delicious Belgian chocolate with specialty herbs known for their calming and relaxing benefits.

Guests booking any of the spa staterooms may order exclusive packages in advance or during the cruise for Greenhouse Spa and Salon services.

An in-room dining breakfast card features a selection of Greenhouse Spa breakfast items including fresh-squeezed orange or grapefruit juice, fresh carrot juice, plate of fresh fruit, bran muffins, a combination of fresh fruit, yogurt and Kashi granola, a selection of eggbeater or egg white omelets, turkey bacon, chicken apple sausage or an organic soy meatless patty.

An all-day room service menu offers Greenhouse Spa selections that vary daily based on selections in the main dining room. Guests also may order from the standard room service menu.

The 56 spa staterooms include two Superior Verandah Suites, 36 Deluxe Verandah Outside Staterooms, four Large Ocean-view Staterooms and four Large Inside Staterooms on Panorama Deck. The 10 Spa Staterooms on Observation Deck are all Deluxe Verandah Outside rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and scalloped verandahs.

Most Stateroom Safes Can Accommodate Laptops

Today’s travelers like to stay connected with home and work, and many won’t sail without their laptop computer. To accommodate this growing trend, Eurodam will be the first ship in HAL’s fleet to have stateroom safes large enough for laptops. These safes are in 60 percent of the staterooms and are located in the closet. The other 40 percent of staterooms have a standard-size safe. Due to the ship’s structural design, stateroom location determines whether the room is equipped with a laptop-size safe or standard safe.

All safes are operated by using your own four-digit pin so you can access your valuables at your convenience.

Solving the Puzzle of Crew Cabin Assignments

One of the biggest tasks to be completed during a newbuild process is assigning all of the crew cabins. It is a difficult task and is very much like putting together a giant puzzle. What makes it so intricate is that different factors have to be considered in every decision. You must keep in mind different departments, ranks, functions, changes in number of personnel, crew nationalities and gender while working to integrate locations and maintain an efficient mapping system. This is all compounded by the logistics of a new ship layout.

Before starting with the cabin assignments, we need to have a final Table of Personnel, or TOP, that is to say a count of the total number of crew in each department and function on board. As you are already aware, the Eurodam is the first of a new class of vessels for Holland America Line, the Signature class. This means that although the Eurodam is still very similar in appearance to our Vista-class ships, there are significant changes in some of the internal layouts, including the crew cabins areas. Additionally, with several new venues offered, such as the Tamarind and Canaletto restaurants, there is an increase in the number of crew on board.

After receiving the final TOP from our Seattle Human Resources Department we started with the assignment project. We brought along a box full of Noordam deck plans and files to aid us in our comparison. As you can see from the picture below this project required a lot of space to spread out the deck plans while Purser Marantha Aryaguna and I worked.

Some crew cabin areas were not affected by any changes and could be allocated easily, however, there were also many crewmembers that needed relocation. The first task we concentrated on was assigning cabins for key engineers and officers. We wrote their functions in the appropriate cabins on the deck plan, while simultaneously inputting the information into an Excel table on a laptop. This system provided us with a way to doublecheck all information and ensures that the cabins assigned are correct.

In addition to this, certain functions were also upgraded or downgraded in status. Any changes in status result in crew moving from inside cabins (without windows) to outside cabins or vice versa. All such changes have to be verified with the relevant planning manager in Seattle to ensure consistency.

Once we finished with the cabin allocation of engine, navigational and hotel officers, we moved on to petty officer berthing. Petty officer berthing is complicated by the fact that some are contracted to share rooms while others are not. All petty officer cabins, both single and shared, have private bathrooms and are entitled to daily cleaning services provided by housekeeping attendants.

We carefully mapped the areas that we needed to consider, concentrating as well on the distance to their working areas. This is especially important for petty officers involved with emergency duties (i.e., firefighters, etc.). We then grouped everyone by department, function and according to nationality. Many of the petty officers supervise large numbers of crew and have to be placed close to their team for efficient coordination. An example of this is the boatswain who is in charge of sailors and boatman, another one would be the engine foreman who is in charge of the wipers and fireman greasers.

An additional challenge this time was the increase of female crew on board and the newly added staff compared to our other class ships. This makes cabin assignment more complex because a change in one section automatically affects the entire plan. With the increase of female crew, an area was needed where they could be blocked together, allowing them more privacy and comfort. Finally, after several attempts and revisions we were able to finish allocating the large number of crew cabins, keeping them close to their department with groups of other crew in the same functions and together with crew of the same nationality.

After head office approval, the final task in all of this is to insert the finalized cabin assignment table into the Crew Administration Payroll, or CAP, system. This system is connected to the Fidelio security system where all crew data is updated according to relevant cabins. This final task is the responsibility of the human resources officer who prints and activates the room key cards which also serve as crew ID cards.

Staterooms are Rigorously Inspected

At certain points during the construction of a stateroom, inspections are done by both CCS (Carnival Corporate Shipbuilding) and Holland America Line. These inspections start at a very early stage of the newbuild and continue until the date of the official delivery of Eurodam.

The inspections by the inspectors of CCS are very extensive; every aspect of the ship is examined (technical, electrical, construction, architectural, etc.). A detailed process is followed to ensure nothing is missed. Several inspections are performed by the CCS inspectors before the ship is judged to be ready to be occupied by our guests.

A technical inspection is performed before the ceiling is closed. There is a huge amount of pipes and wires behind the ceiling.

Another example of an inspection — before the carpet is installed the cement floor is inspected.

The inspection starts with basic functional checks. Sapri Ali is checking the power supply to the outlets above the desk.

Tetet Prihatnoko checks the quality of the curtains in the stateroom while Sapri Ali writes down his comments.

Mustika Katon inspects the bathroom. Here he is inspecting the signage to make sure is it the correct sign and is properly installed.

Sheryl Manalo inputs all inspection results into the computer.

Housekeeping Department supervisors include (from left) Herman Lantman, lead chief housekeeper; Agnello d’Souza, assistant housekeeper; Stan Kuppens, hotel manager, and Mustika Katon, chief housekeeper.