Sail of the Century
IF YOU'VE NEVER experienced the feeling of having 545 staff catering to your every need, whim and desire, then you really ought to try it. A life without stress, worry or deadlines is there for the taking - even if there are another 939 of you on board doing exactly the same thing. But then, the cruise ship Crystal Symphony is 51,044 tonnes of sheer indulgence. The pursuit of pleasure is forbidden on board, because that's generally regarded as too much effort for a paying guest: instead, pleasure relentlessly pursues you. Daily rituals are dictated by dramatic sunrises and shimmering ocean sunsets; gourmet breakfast buffets; exquisite four-course lunches, cocktails and black-tie dinners that go on late into the night. The champagne flows, the service is personalised and the atmosphere is celebratory. To top it all, when you wake up the next day you'll find yourself in a new city. As will everyone else, from the bar staff to your beauticians, butlers, butchers, carpenters, casino croupiers, chefs, cleaners, fitness instructors, florist, hairdressers, laundry workers, linen-keepers, masseuses, musicians, theatre company and upholsterers.
This is an operation so huge that every ethnic group in the staff has its own galley with its own chef, serving it traditional fare from home. The ship has a 15-channel TV station, a spa, hair salon, fung shui massage rooms and a gym complete with personal trainers. Add to that a fully-working version of Caesar's Palace, nine bars, two speciality restaurants and a grand dining room, and you've got yourself a luxury cruise. And that's without mentioning anyone who is responsible for actually sailing the ship. 'You need highly specified skills to work on board. You can't just say, 'I've been a shoemaker and now I want to be a dining-room waiter on a cruise ship',' says Crystal Symphony's hotel director, Josef Matt, whose responsibility it is to make sure that his diverse band of colleagues - who hail from 40 different countries - place themselves in the eye of the storm to ensure their guests' plain sailing. 'If a guest asks for something, you try to make it happen. If it's not possible, you try to make it happen anyway. You have to be a high-calibre professional in order to meet the demands of our discerning guests.'
Let alone the demands of Matt himself who has pinned a memo outside his office to all staff asking, 'Is it Personal? Is it Flexible? Is it Beautiful? Is it Luxury?' Resonant questions indeed, in a world where the concepts of 'luxury' and 'travel' are becoming increasingly disparate. Supersonic flights have been replaced by economy class. Pretzels and olives have been sacrificed in cost-cutting exercises. Decent cutlery has made way for in-flight security. In short, luxury travel has never been more tantalising. Today the US$25.4 billion cruise industry caters to 10.5 million people worldwide. Perceptions are changing. Taking a cruise used to be much more of a polarising option: for every traveller who saw it as an ideal way to see the world, there was another for whom the thought of being confined to a ship and herded from port to port, was their idea of hell. And yet if you're someone for whom first-class is the only option - someone who might require a personal on-board delivery of fine wine flown in from France, or, perhaps, a butler - then cruising is the ultimate ticket.
During a typical cruise, the galley of the Crystal Symphony contains up to US$2.5 million worth of fine food, fine wine and enough materials for the ship's 95 chefs to fashion into gourmet meals. 'Planning is everything,' says food and beverage manager Walter Pietschnig, who, along with executive chef Harald Gramm and provisions officer Ricardo Pirro, is responsible for compiling a shopping list of luxury goods that will meet the high demands of nearly 1,000 guests while at sea for weeks on end. 'As is flexibility. When you run out of something, you cannot just call your supplier around the corner and ask them to deliver it.' With that in mind - you name it, they've ordered it.
'The length of a luxury cruise is longer than a mainstream cruise, so you have to have a better quality of produce simply because it needs to survive the trip,' explains Pirro. 'If you're on an 18-day cruise, the fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood have to be in top shape by the time they are served. By day 16, that can be a challenge.'
About 4,500 varieties of item need to be kept track of - including the 250-odd bottles of champagne and the 2.2kg of caviar consumed daily - based on previous records of how much gets consumed according to where in the world the ship is sailing. 'I have to inspect every single box as it comes on board,' he says. Once on the ship, the provisions are transported to specially constructed storage areas below the passenger decks.
Despite the wealth of luxury items on board, however, there are some passengers who require that little bit extra. 'We once had a group that demanded live lobster every day,' says Pirro. 'We had to make sure that every port we went to, we bought lobsters and kept them alive on the boat.' Pirro admits, 'We don't usually take this kind of request - especially when we're serving fresh lobster in the first place.'
There are other things that some refuse to do without. 'We once had to fly in shark's fin,' Pirro continues. 'It was a helicopter shipment because we were in the Caribbean at the time.' He also tells the story of another guest who demanded a supply of soda water unique to Midwest America. The ship's chief sommelier, meanwhile, is Pasquale Gubitosa, an Italian. It's his job to order fine wines that will also survive the constant motion of the ship. 'They say that one year at sea is the equivalent to two years on land, although this hasn't been proven,' he says, adding 'the QE2 has some seriously old wines on board.' The oldest wine in on Crystal Symphony is a Chateau Lafite 1959 - regarded as one of the finest ever made, and selling on board for US$2,950. 'Storing is a challenge,' he says, standing in his 35,000-bottle capacity, temperature-controlled cellar. Although Gubitosa has about US$700,000 worth of wine at his disposal during the cruise, he can't be prepared for every eventuality.
'Once we had a group of Australians who drank all of our Australian wines. They then drank all our New Zealand wines. Then they drank our American wines. They'd managed to get through our six-month supply of Australian wines and so we had to stock up in London again.' Or there was the group from Hong Kong: 'We had Chateau Lafite 1986 at US$150 a bottle - they drank it all. We had to stock up in Hong Kong, which meant that whatever we bought it for was actually more expensive than what we had printed on the wine list, due to Hong Kong's wine tax.'
While guests are enjoying the gourmet fare or attending wine tastings, Berlitz language courses, lectures hosted by former Nasa officials, or simply lazing on deck, the cogs of a six-star seaborne hotel are whirring. For each of the 480 types of bedsheet, pillowcase, pillow (of which there are four kinds to choose from), towel, bathrobe and tablecloth, there are three others in circulation between storage and the laundry, where six men work 12-hour days below decks. One florist is responsible for furnishing the entire ship - flowers are kept in an on-board refrigerator which is re-stocked every time the ship docks. A tailor is on hand to make alterations, not only to the staff uniforms but also to guests' clothes and to the costumes featured in the on-board entertainments.
Then there are the butlers, introduced as the only people on the boat who will not say no to any of your requests.
Igor Babic has been on the ship for nine years, and is one of five butlers on the deck with 55 penthouse suites to serve between them. Requests such as laundry collection and room service are all
part of the repertoire. 'Maybe a lady might call you in to zip up her dress,' says Babic. 'But usually the requests are very straightforward.'
So if the staff are all deployed to ensure that their guests are having a good time, who in turn is looking after them? 'If the staff are happy, then the guests are happy,' says Crystal Symphony maitre d'hotel, Remi Szutkiewicz. 'If the crew is enjoying life on board, then it will only enhance the experience for the passenger - whatever mood you're in, it will always rub off. For the passengers it's a trip of lifetime; for the staff it's a lifetime of experience,' says Szutkiewicz. 'Which is why it never feels like work.'
