It was Saturday, February 1st, the day before we left the ship.

We went to an interesting coffee chat – perhaps the most interesting of all the interesting coffee chats!  This chat was with the hotel manager on the ship.

There were 740 crew members on board and more than 500 of them were under the leadership of the Hotel General Manager. That includes housekeeping, medical,  food and beverage, entertainment and more.

He said that they generally work on supplying and provisioning the ship four months in advance. In North America and Europe, that is pretty straightforward.  This ship mostly travels in Asia and provisioning is more challenging.  The Westerdam has been in the South Pacific this year and that is challenging in a completely different way. Australia and New Zealand have very strict bio-security laws and their laws sometimes conflict with each other. (He didn’t address the lack of Bailey’s issue and we didn’t ask.)

He spoke about changes he has seen in his 29 years as a hotel director on board ships.   The change he highlighted was that in the 1980s,  it was common to just open up a door and dump garbage out into the ocean. That would never be OK now.

The manager was asked about being on the Holland America ship, Volendam, when it became home to Ukrainian refugees.  The government of the Netherlands contracted with Holland America to provide housing aboard the ship in Rotterdam.  It was hard at the beginning because of the refugees’ trauma and hard at the end of the six months stay because the refugees and crew had become community.

When a Holland America crew person is hired, they attend HAL academy to get trained and certified.  The company gets the necessary visas and permits for the crew member.  The process takes six months.  Because they are so well trained, other cruise lines, (he mentioned Viking) like to poach HAL staff with signing bonuses.

Ian did one last port presentation- this one on Sydney. We already had our excursions planned, but learned about more we could do on another visit – someday.

Then we watched a program called City on the Sea, which described all the various behind the scenes areas.   We had seen this presentation before on a previous cruise, but went again thinking this one was specific to Westerdam.  The nice thing was, at the end, a whole bunch of the ship’s  staff and crew came on stage to accolades and cheers.

We were invited to a final Mariner Society lunch. We are three star Mariners. When we get to four star,  we will be able to eat at a table with an officer and hear his or her story.  We look forward to that.  We have one more cruise as three star and then will make four star.

Instead, the cruise director and captain had a brief chat right next to our table.

This lady, Roice, had a smiling face every time we walked into the main dining room. It was amazing how fast she learned names! We’d love to run into her again someday on another “dam” ship!

Randy ordered beef and I ordered halibut for lunch. Yes, halibut is fish but I had heard that halibut was a decent fish for people who don’t like fish. It was OK. It had good texture and tasted just a little like fish. It was free, and I wasn’t very hungry, so it didn’t hurt me to try it.. I won’t have it again.

Randy went to his last Mixology class, which he thoroughly enjoyed. I went back to the cabin to begin packing.  

The scales were out, so people can weigh their luggage to meet airline limitations

We went to one last educational lecture with Ian.  This one was about the treatment of the aboriginal people in Australia. He said to consider the aboriginal peoples much like the peoples all over Africa.  They spoke different languages, lived in different areas and had their own customs.  The aboriginal population was mostly killed off by colonists and their diseases. 

In 2008,  the Australian government issued a formal document of apology.  The Australian government is making a specific point to own their history with regard to indigenous peoples, in hopes of doing better going forward. We respect that.

We had one last drink at the Ocean Bar. 

As we walked in, bartender Augustin, called out “Randy” from across the room.  The Ocean Bar, where everybody knows his name!

We went to one last cocktail chat with the cruise director interviewing the vocalists from The Rolling Stones band.  We had only seen them once because their first set usually conflicted with other shows and the later ones were past our bed time.  

It was an interesting talk anyway.  They, and the four musicians, were all hired individually.  They met for three weeks in New York to learn the music before boarding the ship.

Our last show for the cruise was Melbourne magician, Tim Ellis.  He was very good!

Then it was time for bags out …:(

We didn’t see them again until we disembarked the next morning.

Next up: We arrive in Sydney, and then in Cairns.