Marco Polo Crew, I Salute you…..

Have you all been watching the TV programme about the Mighty Cruise ships?  I have really been enjoying it. The last one I watched was about Cruise & Maritime’s Marco Polo Ship.

The ship itself is 50 year old and was originally called the Alexander Pushkin, after many voyages and being completely overhauled and renamed she now belongs to Cruise & Maritime.  With only 800 guests she does offer a lovely intimate atmosphere, which I think showed on this programme.

The programme itself was all about the ship going to the Baltic, it was the last voyage of the year and therefore bad weather would be one of the concerns of the Captain. It did not start off great as there was a delay in leaving Tilbury due to some crew members being late.  Normally I look at all the “up front” things such as cabins, food, entertainment, excursions etc but this programme actually focused on below stairs and the concerns of the ships officers and Captain. For example sailing into a force ten storm, no pilot to lead them into the port etc.  I normally do not think of things like that, I wake up, get food and start my day and never ever spare a thought really of the guys down in the engine rooms or the officers up on the bridge.

I thought the Captain and his crew handled all the concerns and hiccups on this voyage with such expertise and superb professional skills, they really should be commended for there work.  It must be a very stressful job knowing you have the safety and welfare of all those passengers and crew in your hands. Even when the ship could not dock in a particular port the crew made sure they had somewhere else of interest for the passengers to see, and never once looked stressed!

I know the crew on each and every ship we sail on has the same problems and issues, because we don’t see it, we do not think of it. Perhaps now we should just take a moment when we have a little moan about tipping to think of those below stairs.  What do you think?