We were scheduled to be at sea May 4 and be in Casablanca, Morocco May 5, but Mother Nature had a different schedule.  There is a big storm brewing in the Atlantic she has scheduled to raise havoc in the Bay of Biscay (between France & Spain) on May 8 when we are supposed to be crossing from Vigo, Spain to Britain.  The Captain has decided we need to avoid the storm.  So we must cancel Casablanca, be a day early in Vigo, and be safely in Britain when the storm arrives.  He has then added a day in Portsmouth, England. Probably also it means it won’t be a very nice day in Portsmouth, and even if it were, Portsmouth is no substitute for Casablanca, but ‘it is what it is’ as they say.  Perhaps some year we can do a Mediterranean cruise that includes Morocco.  It’s different from missing Easter Island, which we will now probably never see since it’s halfway around the world and far from anything else.

Meantime, we will enjoy the last of the bridge games and lectures.  Sunday was the last church service of the cruise. There were fewer people, probably for the same reason we were late because it was earlier than usual and we set our clocks ahead yesterday making it even earlier and my alarm time wasn’t synched. Otherwise the number of attendees has increased every week, and Heather keeps telling us she made even more copies of the service than before and still ran out so someone had to run and make extra copies. I’d say there are well over 200 people there usually.

In the Viking Daily we have been receiving one-page descriptions (and photo) of each crew ‘team,’ and they are very interesting—I wish we’d received these at the beginning.  I’ve wondered what the ‘Sanitation Officer’ does and now I find there’s a whole team and they are responsible for all the dishwashing as well as maintaining the high public health standards set by the US CDC.  I’d only heard about the Sanitation officer coordinating with local restaurants who provide meals during long excursions to make sure they are up to Viking standards. 

There is also a Deck Department who clean and maintain the ship from washing the decks to doing carpentry and electrical work.  In addition they moor the ship and provide tender services; they also teach safety procedures and are responsible for security (including screening us on entrance to & exit from the ship) and all insurance, licensing, etc. 

And we have a Crew & Officers Mess team who serve four full-service meals in two venues to the crew!  Also a Provisions Team responsible for ordering & loading provisions, including dealing with Customs. And many more—including those who actually operate the ship.

We have, they announced, during the World Cruise so far consumed 80,000 bottles of wine (500 a day!), 12,000 kg bananas, 200,000 eggs, and 55,000 rolls of toilet paper (the special kind you can use in a ship’s toilet, which is what we use in our van camper as well.)

We already know about the room stewards, the wait staff, the chefs and other kitchen crew, the guest & excursion services folk, the laundry team, the financial folk, the IT guys, the entertainers, and  technical crew for the productions, the lecturers (and bridge teacher), and more…Running a ship is a major operation!