People---Part 1

The next few posts are about the people.  Without that ingredient, travel becomes solid food without wine or dessert.  The first group of people we dealt with on a daily basis were the Viking crew members.  These people are endlessly polite, happy, caring, and even understand English on a basic level.  Their wages are unknown to me, but since staff attitude is one of the primary ingredients that allows Viking to charge so much for their cruises, I am guessing that is why passengers are encouraged to add a generous tip.  Staff treat you as if they depend upon you, and perhaps, they do!   In 2015 Viking (which is Swiss) announced it was going to change all pay to Euros which resulted in a 13% pay cut.  They are blaming this on the minimum wage law in Germany which includes staff on vessels.  Odd since most of the income comes in pounds or U.S. dollars!  I did not know about this until I returned and did some research.  I would not have changed my purchase, though, I am considering writing a letter.

This sweet lady worked behind the desk and we later found she was married to the Chef, who himself was a handful!

 

 

Here is her husband guiding us through an oyster tasting.

Viking is based in Basil and handles 40 river vessels and 2,000 staff.  They are now adding ocean vessels to the mix (I will most likely never take one of those as I hate big cruise ships). I do know that the upper level staff work about 3 months on and then 2 or 3 weeks off.  They are on 24 hour call, so eventually need such a break.  I am guessing it is unpaid leave?  But I do not know.  Higher level staff are paid decent wages, it is those that work in the bowels of the ship, which are of concern to us all.

Think about having a job where you must be polite to stupid elderly Americans that forget what you told them, do not read their brochure and booklets carefully, assume they can walk cobbled streets and in some cases (a future post) are privileged enough to feel that staff should behave as personal servants expecting perfection and in other cases (perhaps a future post) drink too much and miss the boat.  These staff earn it!

During one of our mooring experiences I saw the woman crew member rushing off and decided to follow and get pictures.  These are for Mage who loves the operations on ships.  This gal (no spring chicken) tried twice to throw the bow line over the dock pipe without a using any pole.  Photos taken from inside the terrace room windows!

She threw twice and failed to capture both side hooks on the mooring bollard.  Immediately the big "guy" shows up to assist.  They seemed to be speaking in German.  He took the rope from her with an air of confidence.

I am sure he thought he was going to do it better than she, but after four failed attempts he looked up and smiled at me and I politely quit taking photos and went back to my wine.  We must have eventually gotten docked correctly as we soon disembarked for our afternoon tour.

Next a post on other people.