The line I work for is – as most of you know – one of the more conservative in the industry. We don’t cater to the party crowd and we really don’t try to. If this were the old days of cruising, we would be much more along the White Star Line model (er…only with better luck). But perhaps twice a year, even on the flagship, we find ourselves in a position where we have to make an exception.
Y’see, the ship can’t sail empty. I’m not sure exactly why, I will never understand the red tape of it all, but it can’t. So when we have one day ‘left over’ at the end of the Panama Relocation Cruise, the company sells that night. Just that night.
$50 a head for the overnight trip to Seattle.
Ladies n’ Gents welcome to the (unofficial) booze cruise.
At least that’s how we often think of it.
Really, there’s not a great deal for the passengers who are only on for the evening to do, so we open up the bars, open up the resteraunts, and once we hit the international highway between Canada and the states, we open up the Casino, the upstairs lounge turns into an all night party.. and we just kind of…let them play.
The first time I encountered this phenomon was on the smallest ship in the fleet several years ago now, and to be honest I was so wrapped up in my debark (that was the contract from hell for me) that I didn’t really give it much thought except for the fact that the slowness of the passenger turn around was between me and my plane home (dangerous place to be, between disembarking crew and our way home after 6 months!). The next time I worked a one-nighter was at the end of the GWV in 2011. We had a different cruise director that year, and it was before the days of prohibition, as I recall his statement for the evening went something like this:
Ladies n’ gentlmen, cover your name tags, tonight you’re not on show.Tonight, you’re not crew. Behave yourself, don’t go wild…but …have fun.
Not often you hear your boss say something like that.
This year though, I find I’m not really in the party frame of mind. I might swing by the nightclub upstairs and see how it’s going…but I’ve got a long couple of days ahead of me while the CD is away…and, party or not, I think it’s best that I get my sleep while I am able…