Maasdam by the Numbers

(1 )- Horn Player

The ship orchestra has the rather odd 7-person lineup of one bassist, one guitarist, one drummer, one (mostly useless) percussionist, one pianist, one synthesist (who would rather be the pianist), and one sax guy. One reliable source told me that the reduction in horn players is Holland America’s attempt to look and sound “hipper”.

The acronym for this cruise line is HAL (Holland America Line) and the orchestra is called the HALcats. In fact every HAL ship has a band called the HALcats. Every HALcats band reads music and backs up the comics, singers, ventriloquists and other such “guest” entertainers that perform in the main Showrooms.

The Maasdam HALcats are sometimes deployed to a lounge up on Deck 12 called the Crow’s Nest where they get a chance to demonstrate their hipness. A young black female singer is added to the group, they read her charts. They are then billed as “Kalyka and the HALcats”

Oops. Make that “Marisha and the HALcats.” Kalyka got off the ship recently.

(2) - escalators
An up/down pair running from Deck 5 to Deck 6 near the middle of the ship. Passenger escalators are rare on ships, so it‘s very cool if you happen to be in that area. I like it because there never seems to be any waiting time, you just hop on. And you don’t have to hear inane elevator talk from confused old people from Iowa.

(3) - sunny and clear days that I’ve seen in the 38 days I’ve been on this ship
Not the ship’s fault of course. But don’t ever visit Nova Scotia in May or June.

(4) - stripes on the shoulder of an IMPORTANT officer.

There’s only a handful of these 4-stripe guys - the staff captain, the hotel director, the chief engineer, and the master of the vessel…. Basically the equivalent of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. (was there a piano bar on the Enterprise?)

(5) - departments the passengers are asked to evaluate at the end of their cruise
Food and Beverage
Culinary
Housekeeping
Front Office
Entertainment
Yeah I know “culinary” sounds like it belongs with “Food and Beverage”. But culinary is responsible for how the food tastes. Food & Beverage has to do with how it’s served.

(6) - pianists on the ship
The two aforementioned pianists in the HALcats, plus the Filipino pianist in the ballroom dance group, the chamber group pianist, the piano bar guy, and one “utility pianist” who get deployed here and there to do cocktail music.

(7) - pianos
Rembrandt Showroom (black)
Rotterdam Dining Room (black)
Explorers Lounge (dark blue)
Crow’s Nest (black)
Ocean Bar (raspberry)
Piano Bar (raspberry)
Half Moon Room (black - nice practice piano, room not used much)

(8) - Whistle blasts signaling the general emergency drill (7 short blasts followed by one long blast)
First day of every cruise - 4:15PM. Put on life jacket with “Traffic Director” apron, go to stairwell that almost nobody uses during this drill. Bring written song lyrics to memorize, to break the boredom. Whole thing last 45 minutes.

(9) - Bars on ship. Best one of course being the piano bar

(10) - Minimum hours worked per day by cabin stewards, culinary and bar/food svc. people. These Filipinos and Indonesians don’t get much time off. “10” is also the typical month-length of their contract.

(11) - Deck 11 - the Lido deck buffet, where all musicians go to eat and angst over the tons of food available there

(12) - laps around the walking deck, amounts to a 3-mile walk
Almost every day - my way of dealing with the abovementioned angst

(13) - decks on the ship
Actually, there’s a deck 14, but only because the labeling system skips “13” -- same triska-deckaphobia (get it? triska - DECK -aphobia ? HAHAHAHAHAHA) that you see in NYC buildings.

(14) - ships in the HAL fleet
The newest, called the Eurodam, just hit the water two weeks ago

(15) - age of the Maasdam
Christened by “godmother” June Allyson in Fort Lauderdale in 1993.

16 - tons, whaddaya eat?
Another year of this, I won’t see my feet