Ola from Santander. We're up early (our guide doesn't meet us for another hour)and it's too early in the day (even for me) to hit the bar; so I will do a quick post.
We had a delightful dinner last evening with the Cordon Bleu cooking creatures. At our table were the lovely Clearance Officer (in charge of passports and such, not sale items at Macy's) and Franck Galzy, the Asst. F&B Manager. He is a charming guy (not to mention quite good-looking) who has been on RSSC for six or seven years, as I recall (my memory of our discussion becomes a bit hazy as the evening stretched - must have been the pasta going to my head...). In any event, he had some interesting dope (no, Masaki, that refers to good info, not good ganja) about staffing issues on the ships. First, he claims (and he is quite convincing in his earnest, soft-spoken manner - RSSC has a loyal spokesman in Franck) that the change to a single cabin stewardess is a positive one. The stewardesses are nearly all Asian and now have only half the number of cabins as they had when they had the male assistants. There is now a much higher level of accountability (yikes, what a corporate-speak word that is) for the care of their assigned cabins. I don't know whether that is all entirely accurate; but our stewardess, Ariane, is delightful and does not appear to be exhausted. Her service has been impeccable.
Some changes of note in the restaurants (for the inquiring minds and gullets which want to know): In Signatures, they are moving to an entirely French waitstaff. In Latitudes (with the Indochine menu which we enjoyed enormously), the waitstaff is all female and Asian. And in La Veranda, they will move to a waitstaff which is all European/Mediterranean. Has anyone seen the pattern? Yes, Marc, you guessed it correctly - the plan is to have the waitstaff reflect the region of the cuisine. Regent also plans to do more cross-training of the hotel and ship staffs. (I forgot to ask Franck whether that means they'll be sending the hotel lifeguards onto the ships - "Baywatch" Regent-style!!)
MUSH is already being discussed among the management staff. Franch knew that our little band of banditos and raucous revelers was scheduled to take over Deck 7. It seems that they are doing a few things in anticipation of our week aboard Mariner, as follows: They will be doing a series of sensitivity training for all members of the staff to show them how to gently guide MUSHers who have overindulged back to their cabins with the least disruption to the rest of the passengers. The provisioning people will be ordering several extra pallets of Cosmo ingredients (they will use the Conference Room for the extra storage required - sorry, Friends of Bill W. - no meetings on that cruise). Finally, the bartenders will be receiving from the ghurka security staff some special training in self-defense to prepare them for Suzette.
Enough for now. Santander, Santillana del Mar, and tapas await...
Cheers, Fred
