Turnaround Day in Seattle - interesting newspaper article

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/cruise-turnaround-feature/

Interesting account of a HAL ship's "turnaround day" in Seattle.

It’s 5:45 a.m., and Elliot Bay is quiet as the first glimpse of morning light greets the arrival of the Eurodam, the biggest cruise ship Holland America Line sails out of Seattle. It pulls into Smith Cove like a floating skyscraper, dwarfing the longshoremen who stand ready to tie it off to Pier 91.

 

Inside the 936-foot-long vessel, there’s a whirl of activity on the third of the ship’s 14 levels. Provisioning master Herman Hermawan and his team are cleaning the passageways and tidying bare storerooms in preparation to take on about 350,000 pounds of food, beverages and supplies.

 

The ship docks in Seattle each Saturday morning during the May-September cruise season for what the industry calls “turnaround day.”

 

For the more than 2,100 guests aboard, it’s the end of a seven-day journey that includes several stops in Alaska, a sail into Glacier Bay and a stop in Victoria, B.C.

 

But for Eurodam’s 856 crew members, it brings the busiest few hours of the week.

 

“For hotel staff, turnaround is a heck of a day,” Hermawan said.

 

The ship is scheduled to depart at 4:00 p.m. Eurodam’s hotel crew has four hours to clean and sanitize 1,052 staterooms, and less than nine hours to transfer more than 8,000 pieces of luggage and load some 350 pallets of provisions for another weeklong journey. Coming aboard will be 147,500 pounds of fresh produce, 35,000 eggs, 1,375 gallons of milk and 16,800 cans of beer and soda, just to name a few items.

 

Thank you, Gardyloo; as a frequent Holland America passenger, I found the article to be not only interesting, but even mostly accurate:D, based on my experiences out of Pier 91.

Thanks for posting the link to the full article. The photos added to the interest of the article.