Lugging Luggage — A Look Behind the Scenes

There are many aspects of cruising that most guests don’t even think about how those services are coordinated, and perhaps they assume that it just gets done somehow. While many aspects of the cruise experience can be managed with a touch of a button, there remain many elements of cruising that still require the human touch.

For a majority of guests, at the end of their cruise they place their luggage outside the cabin door the evening before disembarkation. Always remember, however, to keep something to wear for the next morning. You would be surprised how many naked phone calls I’ve received at the Front Office on disembarkation mornings.

Upon disembarking the ship, guests’ luggage is already ashore, organized by color-coded disembarkation tags.

It’s the crew from the Housekeeping Department that takes great care to get your bags where they need to be at the right time within a complex, carefully orchestrated and time-sensitive system.

The longer the cruise, the more luggage there is to handle. However, for the average seven-day Eurodam cruise, there are approximately 5,000 pieces of luggage to be brought on board and taken off each cruise. At the end of a voyage, the housekeeping crew handles every piece of luggage by hand, collecting it from the cabin door and loading it onto luggage carts.

Once those carts are full they are taken to the ship’s marshalling area located on A Deck. Luggage is then sorted and placed into luggage bins that are colored coded to correspond with the color-coded luggage tags. Housekeeping crew load each bag into these bins until the wee hours of the morning. On disembarkation morning the luggage bins are off-loaded by a forklift and brought ashore. Then Longshoremen from the port transfer the luggage to the terminal building.

The luggage bins are placed in the marshalling area in a predetermined pattern, beginning with the bins located immediately behind the “break door” (a door in the side of the hull) where luggage is loaded and unloaded. Bins are arranged behind those and others behind them, in lines that continue across the ship to the other side of the marshalling area.

Since there are two break doors — one in each side of Eurodam — Housekeeping is told in advance which side the ship will dock on to ensure the luggage bins are offloaded in the correct sequence.

It is not prudent to ask the captain as the ship is docking, “Er, can you dock the ship on the other side? Please, sir?”

I have always found that many of the behind-the-scenes processes are fascinating to see, as it gives you an insightful appreciation of how everything comes together. Although this particular behind-the-scenes aspect is not available to guests — unlike, say, a galley tour — behind the walls of any ship there is a city of people and procedures that make up a tapestry of events that comprises the overall cruise experience.

Love In Bloom

Floral designers Callista den Hartog and Eddy de Groot

Shipboard floral designers Callista den Hartog and Eddy de Groot are the dynamic duo that designs all of Eurodam’s fresh flower arrangements, including all public rooms, guests’ preordered floral gifts, special requests and deluxe suite flower arrangements. They arrived on Eurodam June 4 as newbuild veterans, having helped bring out the last new ship, ms Noordam.

The creative couple works for Dianthus in the Netherlands. They met in high school and have known each other for 12 years. Their experience includes six years of training in floral design in Holland and aboard numerous Holland America ships — they have traveled to every continent except one. “We have only South America to see,” Eddy said. “We even just did this past world cruise.”

So, how many flower arrangements are there on Eurodam? The two-person department is responsible for 350 small floating arrangements, 15 large arrangements, 18 countertop arrangements and 30 arrangements of various sizes. All of the flowers are received on the first day of every voyage and arrangements must be designed and cared for so flowers last the length of the cruise.

What is it like to work on board? On a ship where space is limited, they have no fixed area in which to work, unlike a land-based florist shop.

“The most challenging thing with a newbuild is that our plants get moved everywhere after we have already set them in a specific spot,” said Callista. “Once everything is settled and all of the crew know where plants and flowers should stay, the time comes when new crew arrive and we have to start all over again.”

I asked them what are the most frequent questions guests ask. They both smiled and said, “Are the flowers real?”

Eddy and Callista said the amusing thing is that usually when someone asks that question, they have a watering can in their hands.

The most unique floral request they have received: “We were asked by a penthouse guest to make a floral elephant as a table arrangement,” said Eddy. “Another guest wanted a Hawaiian lei. Remember while at sea, you cannot just go and get more flowers for such specific requests.”

“We enjoy working on ships because we have so much creative freedom,” said Callista. “We have to be creative with what we receive from our flower delivery every cruise.”

Callista and Eddy sometimes experience a wide range of “flower emergencies.” When they don’t receive their entire flower order before departure, they have to make a “flower run” in a port of call. One time on Noordam they didn’t receive the full order due to weather delays. They received special permission from the captain to go ashore in Manhattan and get as many flowers as they could and return within 30 minutes before the ship sailed!

“We came running back with hundreds of flowers in the February cold from one shop that was very happy to see us,” said Eddy.

Eddy has a ship mobile phone so he can be reached around the clock. Emergencies can be last-minute requests for an almost-forgotten birthday or having to get up in the middle of the night to secure plants and flowers during rough seas.

I asked them what was the next goal on their to-do list. Not surprisingly, they are circumventing the globe again as the on-board floral designers on the 2009 world cruise.

If you’re sailing on Eurodam, take a moment to stop and smell the flowers. And if you see Eddy or Callista with a watering can in their hands, you know that the flowers not only are real, but are cared for with love from Holland.

A Team Effort

All stateroom deck furniture arrived and was loaded on Lido Deck aft, Deck 9. A production line of crew was formed that included numerous departments to help out, including beverage, spa, culinary and many others. They passed deck furniture hand to hand from Deck 9 down the staircases to Deck 5 and then down the coridors to be placed on stateroom verandahs.

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.

The Crew Gets Uniforms

On Saturday, June 7, all crew started wearing uniforms.

Therefore, in preparation of this, on Thursday, June 6, Tetet Prihatnoko, the Eurodam chief housekeeper, pressed and handed over uniforms to Captain Jeroen van Donselaar (right) and me so we could get ready for this important day.

Tetet confirmed that all uniforms have been handed out to all crew on board. The uniforms have been washed and pressed and we are ready to start wearing them.

Now with us all in uniforms, the ship looks even more complete and the Eurodam Team is ready for action.

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.

Housekeeping Department’s Newbuild Setup

With approximately one more month to go before the official delivery of Eurodam, it is a good time to inform our Eurodam Blog readers about the newbuild set-up conducted by the Housekeeping Department.

One of the largest assignments of the Eurodam housekeeping newbuild team is the inspections of the staterooms. I will go into detail about these stateroom inspections in my next post, but first I want to briefly describe the way a stateroom is constructed.

All staterooms consist of two main areas: the bedroom and the bathroom.

In the photo you see some prefabricated bathroom units located on the pier, ready to be lifted on to the ship.

The bedrooms are constructed inside the ship. First, all wires and pipes are installed; after that, the walls are put in place.

After the walls are in position, the ceiling is installed.

When the ceiling and walls are in position, the larger pieces of furniture are placed and mounted to the floor or wall. After that, it is time for the carpet.

All smaller pieces of furniture (beds, nightstands, sofa, etc.) are placed in the stateroom. In the photo you can see the parts of the sofa are still in boxes.

At this point the staterooms are almost ready. Mattresses are placed and smaller items like artwork, bed lights, curtains, etc., are installed.

Once the signage and outlet covers are installed, the stateroom is ready to be turned over to Holland America Line.

Eurodam has 4,528 Keys

Did you ever wonder how the different doors, pantries, lockers and spaces with doors are being locked on board? Of course, you need things to open these spaces and that is the beauty of a key. The Eurodam, being the first in its class, boasts a huge collection of keys. All in all it has 4,528 keys (four sets total). Organizing, tagging and labeling the keys to match the correct door is a huge undertaking.

This has been done on the previous ships and it is done by the guest relations manager in collaboration with the chief officer who, in the end, is responsible for safekeeping the keys. The keys were manufactured by Trioving, a company from Norway that has been supplying the ship’s keys for many HAL newbuilds and is also doing it for the Eurodam delivery.

The first step is to ensure that all tags were ordered via the chief officer. Every department has its own color of key tag.

Below is the listing of all colors and their departments:

DESIGNATED COLORS PER DEPARTMENT
LIGHT BLUE: Engine
DARK BLUE: Deck
RED: Emergency
YELLOW: Housekeeping
WHITE: Hotel/Administration
PURPLE: Food & Beverage
GREEN: Medical
ORANGE: Entertainment/Cruise

MASTER KEYS AND SUB-MASTER KEYS
With the individual keys come the master keys. These are under the care of the chief officer, and he signs them off to the different departments. There are different kinds of keys, as follows:

The EMK is an overall master and is used as an emergency master key. This key will open deadbolt locks on cabins and all lockers, etc.

The GMK is known as the general master key and is for all the doors, offices, lockers, steward stations, etc., and any lock on board that is not a cabin.

The ECO key is the yard-level key for all cabins. Once the ship starts to sail the ECO key should be moved up a notch to the next level, making the ECO useless to add security as ECOs often get lost during cleaning or loading, etc. That is the worst-case scenario, as it is imperative those who sign for a master key treat it like gold and look after it.

Then the next step is to check with the locking plan of the ship and the Trioving Excel file, and compare them. Here, all the spaces that need to be locked that were on the Trioving list, but not indicated on the locking plan and vice versa have to be noted. Afterward the chief officer will be advised of any irregularities and then Trioving will be notified. Other plans like fire door plans of the ship sometimes have to be consulted as well to get the accurate door location and name. Having done that, there will be spaces that will come out which were not in the Trioving list to have keys, but need to be locked as per the locking plan.

Next will come the delivery of the hard product, the keys! These keys come in little baggies, in sets of four per deck. The keys are cross-checked with the Trioving Excel file and the Trioving key delivery file, and most of the time there are some spaces that do not have keys made and Trioving has to be advised of this.

After the entire cross-checking is done, the merging of the labels for the correct keys follows and then the labels will be printed. Following this comes the major task of inserting the correct labels into the correct key tag per department per deck.

For so many deliveries now, the loading team helps to complete this project. A group of four guys from the loading team sits with the GRM and starts tagging the keys. This takes at least two to three weeks for the whole roster of keys to be tagged, provided that all tags are completed, since pending tag arrival could also impede the process.

Once all keys are labeled, they are placed on a ring. All keys are arranged per the key file list per department per deck. Then, the lengthy and careful task of cross-checking again for the final time is done to ensure that each department got the right key on the ring itself before closing off the ring. The chief officer gets a copy of all the keys, plus the cabinet keys and the padlock keys. In totality, all the keys that he gets end up in a huge box due to the huge number of keys.

When all of the above process is done, the distribution of the keys to the different heads of departments follows. Each head of department will sign off that they received their keys. The Engine Department gets the biggest chunk of keys, followed by the Housekeeping Department from the Hotel Department, and the Medical Department gets the smallest number of keys, 12 kinds of four sets, to be exact. This culminates the key project, which basically is the grand task of labeling the right key for the correct lockable space.

First Look at the Galley

Eurodam Hotel Manager and Blog Board member Stan Kuppens has arrived at the shipyard and sent us some new photos yesterday. He gave us the first look at the ship’s galley.

“As you can see, the galley equipment is starting to come in,” Stan wrote in an e-mail. “In several parts of the galley and storerooms the walls are up. They are working hard to get the rooms ready and operational for the sea trials scheduled in March and April.”

Eurodam to Feature ‘Wet Cleaning’ System for Garments

‘Wet cleaning’ is an environmentally responsible alternative to traditional dry cleaning

With environmental concerns taking center stage in recent years and the move toward being more green on the rise, Holland America Line is taking a look at various operations on board that offer more environmentally friendly solutions.

One such area is that of garment dry cleaning, which involves a variety of solvents and chemicals that require strict handling and disposal guidelines governed by international laws. The solution? Change the cleaning system.

Eurodam will be outfitted with an environmentally friendly system called wet cleaning from Canadian supplier Solvent Free Solutions, using detergents manufactured by Winning Brands Corp. The alternative to traditional on-board dry cleaning is already being used on eight other Holland America Line vessels.

The Solvent Free Solutions team designs and installs systems that permit garments labeled “dry clean only‚” to be cleaned instead using Smart Wet Cleaning Liquids, plain water and special Wet Cleaning machines. The systems provide a safer, environmentally responsible alternative to old-fashioned perchlorethylene-based dry cleaning systems.