At the time of typing the Queen Mary 2 and her occupants are continuing their South Westerly course across the South Pacific to New Zealand.
The Long White Cloud is how New Zealand has been historically referred to as, from settler's making the 'Voyage Out' observing upon arrival that New Zealand resembled unsurprisingly, a long white cloud. This description mirrors the Māori name Aotearoa, or 'the land of the long white cloud'. I'm not about to take credit for Wikipedia by the way. As we approach New Zealand we've been getting a lot of comms from them reminding us of our responsibilities regarding maintaining and respecting their home, much of which contains reference to their heritage, so I thought it diligent to do a bit of homework. Having visited before, a reminder of the beauty of the islands was welcomed.
Sea days require a switch in mindset from busy port days to cracking on with daily responsibilities and preparing for our upcoming destinations. This is the time for the hotel side of the business to shine. Keeping guests fed, watered and entertained. A world voyage presents unique challenges that what we call track cruising doesn't necessarily encounter. Track cruising involves leaving a port with a well maintained supply chain, sailing with a predictable audience in the knowledge that the ship will return to that same reliable port to restock. Maintaining supplies on a world cruise, waiting until the next opportunity to take on board stores arises, is a game of anticipating the demand on certain lines of stock. As a result of an unprecedented appetite we currently find ourselves sailing the high seas without cheese, fries and chocolate. All stock has been diverted to the guests! I'm sure that our predecessors across the centuries encountered worse issues!!
I've had the opportunity to shift my own focus towards our future ports. To date, we've predominantly sailed through seas that are familiar and welcoming, well charted and offering little in the way of any security issues. Once we leave Australia, and make our way to Hong Kong and Singapore we will sail through areas such as the Celebes Sea where there is an elevated threat towards vessels. As such I have some planning to do to ensure we remain compliant and what measures we take are planned and rehearsed. This is an area of my business that is rarely touched upon thankfully. It's a time to pay more attention to world affairs and act accordingly.
In other news!!! I've found my way into the annals of QM2 history, not just for my legendary pancake tossing skills. Following our historic visit to the Queen Mary, framed photos of our visit now adorn the walls of the Officers Wardroom where they will stay until QM2 is eventually retired. The photos have been framed on board using a mixture of several woods that are used around the ship
The Wardroom is a piece of history in its own right. The walls are covered in numerous plaques from visiting ships, documentation and pieces of Cunards previous vessels. So to be part of that history is an unexpected honour.
Despite the change in workload and priorities the commitment to guest facing events remain and so tonight it's another cocktail party, this time it's held for our World Club where our guests who sit in our loyalty tiers attend to have a drink or two on the house and mingle discussing their various crazy 'days at sea' tally.
So for me, my early evening will involve popping along to chat with guests in the ice cream sellers outfit before maybe popping into the Wardroom after dinner. This will be followed by an early night ready for Monday morning where our Southampton office will come to life... As will my email inbox I suspect. Weekends at sea provide a respite and allow us to concentrate on ship based work with little incoming from our shoreside colleagues. Monday often brings a different story!!
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