Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
As the crew has to be on board early to ensure a smooth handover with the crew who are going on vacation, it means getting up early.* Too early to take an early morning –same day- flight into Rotterdam.* Although I am not relieving anybody I go with the flow so I flew last night into Schiphol Amsterdam and spent the night in an airport hotel.* We left that hotel this morning at 07.00 with a coach full of crew for the one hour drive to Rotterdam.* Although things are cramped with the street lay-out (that has always been so since 1901) everything is very well organized and without much delay we could get to the ship.* As my school class is arriving tomorrow I had the day to go around to talk to everybody and figure out in general what the best approach is for this training period.* To give the students the best of everything hinges on finding synergies between the training schedule of the ship and what I can do, and what I am allowed to do, in the various ports. In the meantime the ship was in change over mode and it was one of the less easy Rotterdam port days as there were two cruise ships in at the same time. At the main dock of the passenger terminal was the Norwegian Star which meant that the Rotterdam was at the dock further in. Nothing wrong with this dock but it makes it a bit more complicated with the gangway situation.* This meant some ingenuity had to be brought forth. Ship and port operations together had to come up with something that would work safely throughout the day. *An alternative set up was put in place and thus the passenger disembark and embark could take place without a glitch. Supplies and stores could go on; parts for repair and recyclables could go ashore. *Then there is always the larger number of visitors on board, not only from family, but also school visits as Holland America is continuously promoting careers at sea, for engine, deck and […]
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As the crew has to be on board early to ensure a smooth handover with the crew who are going on vacation, it means getting up early.* Too early to take an early morning –same day- flight into Rotterdam.* Although I am not relieving anybody I go with the flow so I flew last night into Schiphol Amsterdam and spent the night in an airport hotel.* We left that hotel this morning at 07.00 with a coach full of crew for the one hour drive to Rotterdam.* Although things are cramped with the street lay-out (that has always been so since 1901) everything is very well organized and without much delay we could get to the ship.* As my school class is arriving tomorrow I had the day to go around to talk to everybody and figure out in general what the best approach is for this training period.* To give the students the best of everything hinges on finding synergies between the training schedule of the ship and what I can do, and what I am allowed to do, in the various ports. In the meantime the ship was in change over mode and it was one of the less easy Rotterdam port days as there were two cruise ships in at the same time. At the main dock of the passenger terminal was the Norwegian Star which meant that the Rotterdam was at the dock further in. Nothing wrong with this dock but it makes it a bit more complicated with the gangway situation.* This meant some ingenuity had to be brought forth. Ship and port operations together had to come up with something that would work safely throughout the day. *An alternative set up was put in place and thus the passenger disembark and embark could take place without a glitch. Supplies and stores could go on; parts for repair and recyclables could go ashore. *Then there is always the larger number of visitors on board, not only from family, but also school visits as Holland America is continuously promoting careers at sea, for engine, deck and […]
Click here to view the article.