Who is Current Mariner Captain?

[ElBano]

Will be on the Mariner sailing 6/18/06; can anyone tell me who the captain is? And what is he or she like?

Thanks!:)

[wolfcathorse]

Capt Svein Pettersen is your master. He will be retiring in August after this rotation, Mariner was his first ship. I haven't sailed with him but I haven't heard any bad about him either.

 

P.S. - liked your futuristic prediction of "she"!

[heylu]

Isn't it Captain Johnny? He was on the Mariner 2 years ago and my DH and I with 4 of our friends had the pleasure of getting invited to dine at the captain's table with him. What a great guy. If I remember correctly, he's married and has 2 children and a Harley. (Maybe he was on vacation when the previous poster answered)

[mrgabriel]

Captain Johnny is on vacation. I recall reading that he returns in August. I know that he is scheduled to be Captain when we cruise on September 17th.

[nlcentralchmps03]

Yup, Petterson is the captain on the Mariner right now.

 

He was a really nice guy.

 

"Attention, Attention pleeeeeease. This is your captain speaking."

[herecomesthesun]

Aww, I was so looking forward to meeting Captain Johnny. What national background does Petterson have? What is he like?

 

Also, who is the cruise director, and what is he or she like?

[Alysia]

Herecomesthesun,

 

The cruise director is Becky. She is great. Never had a cruise director that was everywhere on the ship. Also, I will be sailing with you on the 6/18 cruise. Not too many people signed up for the cc party. The last time I check, there were 9 and 7 was from my group. Oh well!

[kittyg]

Aww, I was so looking forward to meeting Captain Johnny. What national background does Petterson have? What is he like?

 

Also, who is the cruise director, and what is he or she like?

 

He has been involved with sailing for 50 years and is from Norway. He has been a captain of these ships since the early 70's, after serving in the norwegian navy. I heard his wife either resides or travels often on the ship. He enunciates very clearly and seems genuinely concerned that you enjoy the trip.

 

At Q&A, he makes jokes before answering such as one woman mentioned he had captained another ship she had sailed on and how often do they stay captaining one ship. He prefaced his answer by saying in his accented, slow cadence "I knew you were coming so I arranged to be available for this ship". He comes across as probably one of the most skilled and qualified captains around. I don't know if he is as personable as most captains as this was my first cruise in 15 years.

 

We bought the video about the designing, building and launching of the Voyager class ships and he was the on-site manager so he is featured prominently. FASCINATING video for those interested in how these ships are built. A lot of behind the scenes looks at parts of the ships you can't see.

 

Becky was high energy. At the shows, she looks very young and pretty from a distance, but on the tv tapes they show, she looks much older. In person, she is in the middle. She's british and her standard quips are to say "hello loves", "bye bye loves" with a kick of her leg. And "whatever you do, do it with a smile". She has short blond hair but usually adds hair pieces. Perfect dancer's body.

 

She opens and closes every show, is at every parade, hosts every pool contest. She also hosted QUEST, Love and Marriage and probably a lot more I missed. She is always appropriately dressed to the nine's and makes a lot of self depracating jokes.

 

Sometimes she gets very bawdy which you just don't see coming. She comes off as very off-the-cuff, but I saw some tapes of other cruise shows and she says many of the same lines at the same moments. I guess after doing hundreds of QUESTs and L&M shows, there are only so many things the guests will say and she is ready with a quip for every one of them.

 

At Q&A she said she was originally a dancer and started working some cruise ships. One day she was a guest and the cruise director stopped her because she was crazy and full of energy and hired her on the spot. In the last 7 years she got promoted and moved around due to others quitting until she ended up in the top spot on Mariner.