I wonder how many captains Louis Cruises have on their books for the cruise ships they own themselves.

Chartered in ships often come with a captain already.

With the purchase of mv Opera they will no doubt need a new one as I think it unlikely the one from the Sea Diamond will get the job.

There are agencies from where ships officers can be obtained but Captains on cruise ships often come up through the junior officer ranks of the company, so they are familier with their ships, and remain with the one company or companies in that shipping group.

Even when a company is having a new cruise ship built the appointed Captain and some of the ships officers go to the builders yard to get to know the ship before it has its trials.

One example of changes happening these days, within the large groups of cruise companies such as Carnival, is that QM2 now has as its Captain Bernard Warner who came up through the ranks of P & O Cruises !

He was recently appointed as the new Commodore for Cunard Line.

He joined P&O in 1966 as a cadet and his first ship as Captain was the original Island Princess in 1994 !

Neil ( Bob )

[ 05-30-2007: Message edited by: Neil Whitmore ( Bob ) ]

Bernie (I know him and served with him at P&O) admitted to having to make many adjustments when moving over to Cunard. Thankfully of course for him and indeed others Cunard has now adopted many of the Princess/P&O practices.

Other Carnival companies do operate differently from each other and indeed have a different heritage, however as things move on in the future it is entirely possible that Captains (and indeed other officers and crew) will work for Carnival not P&O or HAL etc. and will all be able to command any of the Carnivals ships, not likely for the hotel crew who need to have a good understanding of the product that has to be delivered but a Captain or Engineer could easily move between HAL and Princess for instance, company procedures are being standardised, navigation is navigation, English is generally the International language used as the airlines do, ok so pax may be surprised to find a Dutch Captain on a Princess ship but will adjust without thinking, Princess already has Dutch Pursers/Hotel Managers and one of them has already served on QE2, it would be operationally more flexible and possibly cheaper so it may only be a matter of time.

Pax don't really care, they want good food, a safe trip and good service, as for who delivers it they do not really care. I bet they wouldn't care if the Engineer was a one legged, black lesbian Turk, as long as the engines ran and the power works why should they ?

Princess used to be proudly British, it certainly is not anymore and yet they are more successful than ever, Cunard is perceived to be British, well that is debatable, by far the majority of the crew including officers are not British, they are American/Israeli owned, their ships are all built and serviced outside the UK, the majority of their pax are not British and what is British is mainly for marketing purposes. They too are more successful than they have been for decades. Other than some of us here and a few diehards most wouldn't care what flag they sailed under either as long as the safety standards were of the highest standard. In fact I bet 50% of the pax on QM2 wouldn't even notice if she were registered in Panama, of course that would not sell well in the brochure so is an extreme example but certainly no one would notice Princess, Seabourne or even HAL as long as the service and product on baord met their expectations.

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Originally posted by mike sa:
...Welcome to Wonderful World of Cruising !

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Mike,

You should write a book

Until then, can you share a little more about your background at sea? It sounds like you had an interesting run.

Some might call me a cynic but all I am is one who recognises that nothing is holy or untouchable and indeed if it were the cruising industry would probably only comprise a few old rust buckets and little else.

5 years Unicorn / Safmarine

9 years with P&O and Princess - mostly Princess inc 2 years at Century City before the move in ops.
Probably the only person in the UK who hated Canberra (albeit I only met her just before her retirement and boy was she ready - if I had met her sooner perhaps I too would wax lyrical).

Then shoreside in UK for 10 years before VERY early retirement back home in SA.

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Originally posted by mike sa:

...Other than that 3 dogs etc. and my own bar that pays homage to the Liners past and present.

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Is that a bar in your house or a public one?

I have one like that in my basement. Anyone traveling to the DC area is welcome to stop by for a drink when in town.

Interesting you should say you did not like Canberra.

One thing I did not like about her was that both restaurants were inboard with no daylight which to my mind gave both her restaurants a very depressing atmosphere.

Oriana of course had daylight in both restaurants.

She could also cruise at higher speeds than Canberra and could still do over 27 knots in her last years of cruising from Australia.

While there is huge affection for Canberra it is mainly for her service and accomplishments, not for her facilities and standards. I never got to see Oriana 1 before she turned into a bad theme park, I did see Arcadia and again although old she has a nice design.

As you said, navigation is navigation but everything else...... As a captain you maybe spend 2-3 hours a day on the bridge, the rest of the work is otherthings from captains hearings, brand quality audits (to be the CEO of the ship).

But of course, people change jobs.

Another problem to move within the Carnvial group is that the salarys and contract varys a lot.

The Carnival ships are well known to pay bridge officers low salarys on a 4-2 contact. Not very tempting.

Sorry to pull you on this Australian Captain for P&O Australia but Michael Fatcham who was the Captain of the Pacific Princess comes from Gawler, South Australia.

He is now Commodore for Princess Cruises and sailing on the new Royal Princess.

Regards,

Yep Mike is Australian although he now lives at Wrexham, North Wales.

He started his career at sea as a cadet with the Adelaide Steamship Company in 1962 having studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

He won the Australian Company of Master Mariners annual prize in 1965 !

He joined P&O as a Fourth Officer in 1966 and rose through the ranks to become a Chief Officer in 1976.

His first ship as Captain was the original Sea Princess in 1993.

Now all non Dutch captains with HAL have there license HAL was able to bring the Veendam under the Dutch flag.

I don't no what the British law said about non British captains.

Disney Cruise Lines have a Dutch captain which came frome HAL.