Guest blog by Captain Hernan Zini, Captain, Allure of the Seas.

There was a lot of good energy all throughout the ship. And like the rest of the ship, Chief Electrical Engineers Vito and Dragutin were as busy as ever. Small details pending in owner work like IT installation, CCTV cameras, digital signage and electronic mustering systems among others, all required the assistance of our Electrical team. Not to mention our propulsion system is entirely electrical, they really have to Move it, Move it!

We knew that we would be ahead of schedule due to the high speed used to successfully avoid all the different storms, so we decided to stop the last day of our crossing just outside Freeport and use the time to do the final calibration and testing of our DP system. This day was named as the “Quiet Day”, with the aim of allowing the entire crew to relax and recharge their energy before the busy inaugural period started.

The DP is a system used for dynamic positioning that is highly accurate and sophisticated. The calibration and test was mainly electrical and while the majority of the crew was enjoying incredible weather in the Caribbean, the electrical team was working nonstop from early morning till midnight when 70% of the test was completed. I remember being on the Bridge at that time looking at the tired but still positive faces of Vito, Dragutin and Piotr (among others). I was thinking…so much for a quiet day for them…I called the tests off for the rest of the night. I needed them rested for our first arrival to Port Everglades next morning at 0700. The DP test was completed during our 1^st sailing out of Port Everglades on another long evening for the Electrical team… you can’t help wondering… where they get their energy from?

The Refrigeration Team lead by Franco and David had a tough job. They are responsible for the Air conditioning Plant (AC). They scrolled every single AC duct of the ship at the yard and they worked hard to help STX deliver the best AC plant possible. One of the AC compressors broke just before delivery and getting it back in place was not an easy task, as matter of fact they are still working on it. The cleaning of the chilled water system is another never ending story with so many miles of piping; they really worked hard to get the systems as clean as possible before delivery and in operations.

The efficiency of our AC Plant is one of the single largest contributors to our much lower carbon footprint onboard. To achieve that, the AC plant needs a lot of hours for balancing. This is done normally after delivery, not to mention that the ship is transiting from a colder weather to the Caribbean, so that in itself requires daily adjustments. They are still adjusting the plant and getting ready for what we call a Tropical test, when we finally can test the performance of the AC plant in warmer weather. Most importantly for many of us, they are also responsible for keeping the right temperatures in our provision area, where we keep all the food onboard…one mistake and you can say good bye to your Caramel Frappuccino or your ice cream experience. The refrigeration team did a really “cool” job!

The stories continue; equipment training, setting up drawings and documents in our offices, starting with our daily and weekly maintenance routines, going over the many non-critical alarms left in the system at delivery, checking a few leaks in some of our systems, organizing our stores and checking the final details on our 15,000 line items of spare parts ordered, there was a lot of work to be done.

No ribbon cutting, no glamour or grand openings, their stories are more silent. And in this environment you could argue that “No news is good news”. I will go further to say “No news is a job very well done”. Their job has supported in more than one way each one of all the other grand openings, whether it is an electrical installation on a particular venue, the temperature of our food stores, or navigating the ship slowly out of Port Everglades so the Divers can do their act in the Aqua Theater, the marine team has been an integral part of each one of our incredible product deliveries.

I would like to use this opportunity to say thank you and congratulations to the nearly 200 Marine Officers and Crew for their professionalism, passion and dedication. Safety and reliability is one of the most important pillars of our operation, and there is a very clear focus on that. But with their hard work they also support each one of the functional areas responsible for Delivering the WOW.

The marine crew has WOWed me!

My only request now is that they “Keep up the No News.”

Guest blog by Captain Hernan Zini, Captain, Allure of the Seas.

It was a very nice and breezy afternoon in the Baltic. Both Staff Captains Gus and Johan were running the decks as I was spending more time on the bridge. We were watching the weather ahead and I was particularly concerned about a developing storm that would leave very little time for us to pass between UK and the Azores. I promised Lisa Bauer good weather and I was not ready to fail on that promise…but just in case, I decided to test the stabilizers (this cannot be done on the dock), even though they were not needed yet. I guess you know the answer by now…No problems!

The next days were going to be busy on the Bridge and in the Engine Control Room, sailing inside the Baltic, going under the bridge and navigating the restricted waters around Denmark, watching the weather ahead and transiting the English Channel always adds a bit more healthy stress to the Bridge Team. But they were ready and proud to navigate their new ship. I remember our 1^st Officer Ryan recently promoted to Chief Officer coming to talk to me with a worried face and asking if he could delay his promotion for a few days. He wanted to have the chance to navigate the ship before he moved to the Chief Officer position that works more time on the decks. I think that captures the proud feeling of the entire Bridge team. Ryan remained on the Bridge until we passed the UK. I was personally very happy to see the professionalism and attention to detail of our team. You could argue that I was a bit biased, but this was also commented by the Danish Pilots that came onboard to assist us with the navigation under the Bridge. They were impressed with the Bridge team and they took time to let us know that.

While this was going on, our deck crew was ready to start washing the ship, but there was a small problem. All the pipes for the outer decks were shut down at the yard. During the month of October sometimes you can get freezing temperatures and there were concerns about pipes breaking. So all pipes were drained and valves were closed. Mikael was watching the weather and as the temperature increased he gave the go ahead to Tommy to start opening the valves. These valves are located in not so easily accessible areas, but nothing was a problem for Tommy…checked his drawings, found the valves… job done… no problems…and the washing started…washing the ship is like washing your hands, once you finish doing it you are almost ready to start doing it again. That was our grand opening of the never ending washing process.

The first week of washing is particularly hard, as there is a lot of what we call “flying rust” on the ship hull. The deck team did a great job on Polishing the Gold of our ship and after the first week at sea, Allure was glowing. They went over every surface on the open decks, stainless steel polishing, window cleaning and treatment, deck scrubbing and final touch up painting. Our Bosun Nick, a veteran and experienced seaman, was leading the troops on deck….and no details will escape his well trained eyes. Their main priority on their minds… “Safety First”… they even found time to celebrate this way of thinking by painting their own artwork at the mooring deck.

Speaking of Safety First, we trained and trained our crew before departure and during the crossing. Every 3^rd day at sea we would have a full drill. We did over 20, 000 hours of Safety Training and by the time we were done with that the crew would have walked over 7,000 Kilometers or 3,800 Nautical Miles. Incredible when you think that we sailed 5,300 NM from Turku to Port Everglades. You can almost literally say that we “Walked the Talk” on safety….Our Chief Officer Safety Mikko and Lou Costello, with the help of our 10 shore side safety trainers, were the leading force on all these efforts. No surprise we passed the US Coast Guard inspection with no deficiencies and very good compliments regarding our crew training.

The security team, with our Security Officer Mula at the helm, was also walking the talk, going around the ship day and night, conducting their safety rounds while finding small details that needed attention on remote areas of the ship that we normally do not visit every day, setting up all the security equipment for gangway operations, working with the issuing of all keys to the different departments and checking every one of the over 1,000 CCTV cameras onboard. I could see they were doing a good job!

The Engine team was busy polishing the engine compartments. The machinery spaces are always hard to keep clean and while STX does a good job at it, it is never to the standards of our Chief Engineers. If you ask Staale, he would like to be able to have dinner on the decks of the engines spaces at any time. That is how clean we keep our ships. While operating all the systems onboard, they also found time to bring their spaces up to par and by the time we arrived at Ft. Lauderdale the engine spaces were looking the part.

On the environmental front our two Environmental Officers, Andy and Peter, were taking the lead together with the engine team. All systems started as planned; incinerators, oily water separators and our AWP (Advanced Wastewater Plant). By following strict company policies and practices and using innovative technologies, we conduct our business Above and Beyond Compliance. Believe me, this task is not easy. Our AWP plant cleans the wastewater generated onboard to such standard that far exceeds all international ship wastewater discharge standards. Our team did a great job starting and operating our plant. A large amount of training and inspections were also going on during the initial weeks to ensure all of our Save the Waves policies were fully implemented throughout the ship…no time was wasted onboard in all our environmental efforts.

Thanks for reading about the different safety operations of Allure in today’s blog. Stay tuned for my last entry of this 3-part blog series!

Guest Blog by Captain Hernan Zini, Captain, Allure of the Seas.

Finally, I have found a few minutes on a very busy schedule to reflect on the incredible journey we have had so far with our team onboard Allure of the Seas.

It is incredible how fast and well things are going. I think we have managed to capture all the hard work done by the crew in order to get all our new products ready, whether it is a new food area like Samba Grill or Starbucks or all the Entertainment options like Chicago: The Musical and the DreamWorks experience. It is all there.

The other day running from one interview to another I called our Chief Engineer, Staale. I felt that we have not been talking as much as we typically do in normal operation and I wanted to know how things were going for him….Staale’s reply was very quick… “No problems…everything is running very smoothly.” .I probably wanted to hear a bit more than that but then I thought that in the marine world sometimes no news is good news. The engines, propulsion system and all the machinery onboard have been running very smoothly.

But we should not confuse no news with no work. The marine team has been working very hard during the past weeks, just like any of the other crewmembers onboard, but their story is silent.

Today I wanted to talk about their story. A story that for many marine Officers and Crew started at least six months before delivery of Allure at the yard (STX) in Turku. They worked very hard walking hundreds of miles on the steel decks of Allure, testing all systems with STX as they were being built. During this period, STX operated the systems and we witnessed they were working as intended.

The day of delivery, when the ship was officially ours at 0856, the marine team started a very detailed and extensive testing protocol called Pre Departure checks. Basically, we tested all the systems that have been tested during the past six months one more time over a 16 hour period. Everything from a Black Out test (when you force a power shutdown on the ship and you start the power recovery process), to testing the propulsion system, including the anchors, navigation equipment, lifeboats, etc. You name it, everything was checked one more time. But that time it felt different, because we owned the ship and we were in charge of operating the equipment for the first time.

This detail might seem trivial, but for the marine crew this is a moment of pride, when you finally get to operate your new ship. There was no ribbon cutting for this opening. It was more like a race start. The ship is ours…go…start testing ….and as the delivery dinner and celebrations were taking place that evening, our marine crew was still silently running with their task. By midnight, all of our tests were completed and we were getting ready to sail by 0500. It was a very long and successful day for them, the first of many more to come.

Watch how the engine team and the rest of the crew managed to move the modern wonder that is Allure:

The departure went very well other than a small delay starting one of the Azipods. But finally I found my keys and we got underway. During the first five hours we were sailing inside the archipelago, a beautiful day. With rocks close to the ship on both sides at all times, this was not a place to have a propulsion failure. The engine team delivered on their task and the navigation went very smoothly.

Once in open sea we were in need to start producing fresh water. Not so much for immediate consumption, but to increase the draft of the ship. If we were going to reach the right draft to pass under the Great Belt Bridge the next day, we were in need of producing 2,500 tons of fresh water over the next 24 hrs. I have to admit that this was one of the few items that kept me up at night. I was sure that we would get the plant working soon, but to do it right away and reach full production in such a short time is another task… Staale’s team answered again… No problem, it is running smoothly…We also needed to fill up the Aqua theater pool (500 tons of water) in order to reach the correct draft for going under the bridge. I remember that we had some challenges to start this because there was air in the piping system. Our Chief Engineer Jr. Tommy took the lead with the Facilities Manager Jacksa and Chief Officer Mikael and they got the task done just in time.

Thanks for reading the first of my three-part blog series - I’d love to hear your feedback here or on Facebook. Also, stay tuned for Part 2 where I’ll be covering more exciting news about the onboard and environmental safety of Allure.