Diamond Princess crew and captain - fantastic

[Dena]

Last time we sailed the Diamond, it was clear that the crew were stressed. THis was in marked contrast to the crew on the Dawn Princess who were relaxed and cheerful even singing to themselves. I assumed it was because the Diamond is larger and therefore more stressful for the crew. I was wrong. Diamond's crew is now as cheerful, accommodating, professional and pleasant as the crew on the Dawn was. There was no overly strong pushing of drinks at Horizon court or anywhere else. There was no obnoxious selling of cookbooks and other stuff in the dining rooms. The crew were clearly happy - they sang spontaneously to themselves and laughed with other crew members - so it wasn't just a facade for the passengers.

 

THis must be a reflection of a change in management style. I don't know how much can be attributed to the Captain, but he was certainly more pleasant than our last Captain on this ship and much younger. Hence we were spared the sexist cracks the last captain felt the need to share (women not being interested in details of the propulsion system) and the gneral condescending remarks, "if you want to see whales, you have to be looking at the ocean."

 

We nearly left two people behind in our last Hawaiian port. But the Captain waited for them - we had already sailed a few miles, so they had to take a small boat to meet us. Captain Perrin kept us informed of this situation and told us that those who were nearly left behing had called the port agent - this is what saved them. Earlier the Captain apologized to us for our late departure from LA. He apologized for us having to tender in Nawilili because Norwegian took our berth. Neither was really his fault, so we were not owed an apology, yet he offered one, very refreshing change from the condescending attitude previously encountered here. He handled a security situation during debarkation in LA with calmness. All crew and passengers had to go to the port side of the ship and stay there for around 40 min because of a bomb scare in the terminal.