Saturday, June 28, 2008

From the inaugural department:

When you pack for a trip, you just don’t exactly realize everything you are going to need until you actually get there and actually need it. You just can’t think of everything.

The same is true with a new ship. Literally everything has to be brought aboard in the last month before the ship leaves the shipyard. If there’s something they haven’t thought of, you just don’t have it for awhile.

I’m aboard Holland American’s Eurodam today as it is leaving Southampton for the first time. I just got all settled in bed and decided to watch the news on TV before I go to sleep. There’s a nice flat screen TV over in the corner, but I searched the cabin high and low for the remote to turn on the TV. I knew it had to be here somewhere in some cute little place that has been standardized where the stewards should always return them each day. It was probably right out in plain sight, but I couldn’t find it, so I finally gave in and asked. As it turns out, they forgot to load them for all the staterooms on my deck (and who knows how many others). They say we may get them when we get to Rotterdam.

In the mean time there are buttons on top of the TV. This must be how they had to do it in Abe Lincoln’s day.