TARDIS Toni
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We have been on more than 50 cruises and I don't ever remember any captain making announcements about long lines at the cable car or how many other ships are in port. Actually if you participated in the thread for your cruise, some of that information probably would have been shared before you sailed.
Yes, that's right. That kind of information is usually shared by the Shore Excursions Manager on his daily talk the night before arriving in each port. After all, it's not really the Captain's job to know how long the lines for the cable car in any given port are, is it?
We recently returned from a sailing with Captain Demetrios Kafetzis on the Reflection, and we absolutely adored him. His sense of humor and interaction with the passengers was a welcome change from the usual (sometimes stuffy) cruise ship captain. I've met at least one other Greek captain who had this more relaxed attitude towards his duties, and we found it very refreshing. We really enjoyed his comedy and jokes. I suspect that he uses humor as a way to make his job less of a drudge, as well as making the passengers' cruise experiences more enjoyable. However, we saw his serious side as well, and when it came right down to business, I'm quite sure the ship's safe and proper operation was of paramount importance to him. It's just a different style of captaining, that's all.
Finally, Captain Demetrios DID include current coordinates, along with ship speed, current weather conditions, and anything else that might affect the day's journey, on his daily announcement on this recent (October 2017) cruise. We have met other Captains before who didn't think current coordinates were necessary - one of them, when we asked him why he didn't include this information in his daily announcement, looked at us, puzzled and asked, "Why you want to know that?" Nevertheless, from that day forward, the very same (also Greek) captain always included current coordinates in his daily announcement. It just took someone to request the information. :) Possibly the same thing happened with Captain Demetrios somewhere along the way.
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Just a little update on Captain Demetrios Kafetzis. We were lucky enough to sail with him on back-to-back Mediterranean cruises on the Reflection last October (2017), which included the Greek Isles (and I think that being "at home" really brought out the best in him). We absolutely ADORED him; he's like no other cruise captain I've ever met. Wonderful sense of humor - he even made the navigational talk fun! The crew told us he had just joined the Reflection prior to our sailing in late Sept. 2017, and following the repositioning cruise which was to take place over New Year's (and is probably ending in Florida just about now), he told us he would be leaving thr Reflection again in January. That seems like an abnormally short stint to me for a Captain, but perhaps his presence was needed in Miami for those dreaded "meetings" he spoke of ... ;)
We would love to cruise with Cpt. Demetrios again - in fact, I'd probably take a cruise just because he was on it, if there was any way to find out in advance where he's going to be. He even gave my mom and me a dinner "on the Captain's Club" in one of the specialty restaurants - although, in retrospect, I'd much rather have dined at his table. Not sure what's required to be able to get oneself a chair at the Captain's table...
Cpt. Demetrios really should have his own thread here on CC, if that's allowed, to track his passages and show where he is currently cruising (after his current Reflection stint). I'm sure we're not the only ones who would take a cruise solely to see him again. I may just start such a thread, if it doesn't exist already! I saw his name mentioned several times in an old "Who's on Board" thread, but unfortunately, the thread is locked. :(
Was anyone else on that Mediterranean Reflection cruise?
Dining with the Captain??
in Celebrity Cruises
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We adored Captain Demetrios! We did a B2B with him on the Mediterranean last year. I'd have loved to have dined at his table. Most cruise ship captains are not that interesting, but he is an exception! He did give us a free dinner at one of the specialty restaurants after he liked an answer my mom gave to a question he asked at a Captain's Club event, and although I think we made quite an impression on him - and we got rather chummy with the Cruise Director and the CC Hostess as well - but we were never asked to dine with him. I rather wondered what the criteria was.
Was it Cpt. Demetrios who had his wife and daughter on the ship with him? I'd loved to have met them as well. :)
As for those who ask "Why would you want to dine with the help," I feel sorry for them. We have generally found the ship's crew to be far more interesting and friendly people than most of the other passengers on the ship, right down to the "lowly" cabin stewards. It's interesting to talk to and make friends with the crew, and they will often do you favors and go out of their way to help you when you treat them like fellow human beings, not just as "the help." I've never understood why some people take the attitude that they are better than others just because those others chose to take a service job, and they are in a position to pay for those services.