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During the past two years, I've traveled across the Atlantic to Europe and around the Pacific to Mexico and Thailand. Joining the Queen Victoria
Posted by: robertmpratt in Untagged on
Nov 18, 2008
I joined the Cunard Queen Victoria yesterday after a very long series of flights from Sacramento. At the airport, I met the ship's youth coordinator, a nice British guy in his 30s named Paul Trotter, who has worked aboard the Queen Victoria since its first voyage a little less than an year ago. We shared a taxi to the hotel, and the driver turned out to be crazy. He flashed his lights at cars driving too slow, angering one driver who tried to hit us. That turned into a yelling and honking match between the taxi driver and the driver of the other car, and both drivers kept swerving, trying to hit each other.
"This is Greece," Paul told me, and I relaxed to enjoy the ride.
However, when the other car turned down a side street, and the taxi backed up in traffic to turn and follow, I got concerned. Thankfully, Paul told the taxi driver he should remember to take us to the hotel. The driver quickly cooled down, turned around and took us where we needed to go.
Besides the crazy taxi ride to the hotel, the sign-on process went smoothly. The Queen Victoria is a smaller ship than 3,000-passenger vessels I served on for my two previous contracts. She carries some 1,900-odd passenger when full -- the ship's typical load, Paul told me -- and 1,000 crew. My taxi to the cruise ship terminal in Piraeius, Greece (the port of Athens) arrived before all the other taxis and buses with joiners, so the crew pursers processed my paperwork quickly and turned me over to the band master, who showed me my emergency station and led me to my cabin within 30 minutes of my arriving at the ship.
Here are my first impressions of the Queen Victoria:
- Compared to the grand class ships I've served on, this one feels a little smaller -- but not as much as I expected. The Queen Victoria runs in the neighborhood of 90,000 tons displacement against the grand class displacement of around 110,000 tons. Public areas don't seem much smaller, but they do feel closer together. The ones on grand class ships are like suburbs connected by stretches of highway while the Queen Victoria's are shoulder-to-shoulder, as in a city.
- The musician's corridor is close to the middle of the ship and below the waterline. That makes the background noise and the feel of the ship a little different while at sea. And since they're not near the mooring decks, I haven't (yet) been waked up by noise from mooring winches or anchor chains.
- I ended up in one of the larger cabins allocated to musicians, and it's still about 40 percent smaller than the cabins on grand class ships. So far, that hasn't been a problem. I packed a bit less gear for this contract and used collapsable, soft-sided luggage. I think bringing less stuff has helped so that I don't feel crowded. Thankfully, my cabinmate also packed light.
- The main service corridor, called "the M1" on grand class ships, is called "Burma Road" on the Queen Victoria. The musician's corridor is right off of it and directly below the crew mess. The staff mess is only a few additional paces down Burma Road.
- The linen keeper provides all public-area uniforms (except black suits and tuxedos, which are required for musicians). I was given a grey suit, a pair of khaki slacks, a white button-down shirt, a pair of logoed polo shirts, a weave belt and a dark tie.
- The crew office offers mobile sims for crew use, which is a nice touch. It only works at sea, and the rates seem a bit pricey (a fat $0.50 to send an SMS message, which is the only rate I know right now). But signup is free, and I love the idea that family and friends can call me directly while I'm on the ship. I picked up a sim today, and I'll write more after I've had some time to use it (and pay for topups).
- Overall, the ship has a more starched-shirt vibe than the Princess Cruises ships I worked on -- surely a feature of the Cunard brand. But it's not a big deal. Musicians don't get priviledges to hang out in pubic areas and eat in passenger dining areas. But that's not a big problem for me. I never spent a lot of time in public areas on Princess ships, and unfettered access to all-you-can-eat dessert tables is probably better for my diet.
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