Day 15 – 24 July 2023 – at sea – Stavanger to Skagen, Denmark

A later start this morning & another fine breakfast before listening to Clare, the Cruise & Travel Director, have a personal chat about herself & what sort of work she does. She was born with a rare genetic skin condition were a protein in her skin is missing & she got bad & painful blisters on her feet, hands & face. Despite this she learned to dance, even though it was very painful & won a scholarship to a dance, singing & acting school at the age of eleven. At fifteen she won her first contract to sing & dance in a show in the West End of London & also later on Broadway in New York. Clare ended up with a contract singing & dancing on Holland America Cruise ships for five years before applying for the role of Cruise & Travel Director.  She had tears in her eyes a number of times, it was a very emotional roller-coaster for her as she had come from a simple background, her father is a painter & mother worked at a school. She still suffers from painful feet, but seems to be a very determined & successful young woman.

Afterwards we went to the front of ship Worldstage & Clare presented on the workings of the city that is the “Nieuw Statendaam”, with 2,400 passengers & 966 crew. The presentation consisted of videos, slides & talks with some of the senior ship crew, including the Captain. The ship uses its motors only to generate power, everything else on the ship is electric, even the propellers are powered by big electric motors. The drinking water is all processed seawater with minerals added & the sewerage system is just as elaborate, with vacuum toilets to reduce water consumption. There is around 25,000 toilet flushes per day on the ship & using this system they save on around 150,000 litres of water per day. There is a large bakery on board that produces all of the ship’s breads, buns & rolls plus all of the amazing pastries each day. A huge laundry on board washes all of the sheets, towels, table clothes & serviettes, plus the crew & passenger clothes. They even have tailors to make the crews uniforms. Plus lot more amazing happen on board so that passengers

Time for lunch & we try a ship pizza for the first time, not that good. So we head to the Lido dining area & have a good lunch. We watch a movie in the afternoon. We take some photos of some ship art &  try out our creativity with the camera. Dinner we sit & eat with Petra & Pascal, two Belgium women we have met & befriended on the trip. We chat for ages & before we know it is time to head back to the World Stage & watch Cantare again, four males singing love songs this time. They are very good singers & they also have good choreography, it was a pleasant way to finish another good day.