| Carnival |
BRINGING OUT THE
SPLENDOR
by
Richard H. Wagner
| CARNIVAL SPLENDOR |
There is more information on Carnival Splendor
and photos of the ship on the Carnival Splendor
Profile Page
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE PROFILE PAGE
and photos of the ship on the Carnival Splendor
Profile Page
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE PROFILE PAGE
A Splendid Team: (Left to right) Housekeeping Manager Carmo
Gonsalves; Hotel Director Gunasekaran Chellam, Chief
Engineer Luciano Tortorici; Capatin Giorgio Pagano (Master of
Carnival Splendor); Staff Chief Engineer Francesco
Quintavala; Food and Beverage Manager Francis
Mekkattukulam.
Gonsalves; Hotel Director Gunasekaran Chellam, Chief
Engineer Luciano Tortorici; Capatin Giorgio Pagano (Master of
Carnival Splendor); Staff Chief Engineer Francesco
Quintavala; Food and Beverage Manager Francis
Mekkattukulam.
On 2 July 2008, Carnival Splendor embarked on her maiden voyage. However, that
was not the beginning of her story. The largest ship built for Carnival Cruises Lines
up to that date, she reportedly cost half a billion dollars to build. On a voyage on
Carnival Splendor, I had the opportunity to speak with some of her officers about the
building process.
Carnival Splendor was built at the Fincantieri shipyard in Sestri Ponente, a suburb
of Genoa, Italy. In some respects, it is more accurate to say that the ship was
assembled in Sestri Ponente. Modern cruise ships are put together in sections that are
constructed elsewhere in the shipyard or, indeed, at another location altogether. For
example, Splendor’s trademark winged funnel was built in Trieste, Italy and then
brought to Sestri Ponente. Similarly, Splendor’s 1,503 staterooms were pre-
fabricated and placed fully assembled into the ship. Her six diesel engines came
from Wartsila of Finland.
The initial assembly was done in a large drydock. Cranes lifted whole sections of
the ship so that they could be fitted together with other enormous sections. Once the
construction took the shape of a ship, the drydock was flooded and the vessel was
“floated-out”. Carnival Splendor reached this milestone on 3 August 2007. She was
then moored to a quay to have her internal and technical outfitting completed.
Throughout the building process, Carnival executives performed inspections. As
each system was completed, a Carnival professional inspected it to ensure that it was
functional. Other Carnival managers were resident at the shipyard to oversee the
work of Fincantieri and the various contractors involved in supplying components of
the ship. Carnival likes to maintain tight control over shipbuilding.
Furthermore, “in the contract they have items marked: ‘owner supply,” points out
Captain Giorgio Pagano, the first master of Carnival Splendor. “It is a huge amount
of things, especially in housekeeping. It is up to us when to put them onboard. A lot
of it comes from the States, some form Europe. It is brought onboard and put in place
by our people. It is a huge operation - - 24 hours a day.”
Much of this work is performed by the ship’s crew, which begins to arrive at the
shipyard long before the ship is handed over to the owner. “The first persons to come
onboard a new ship are the captain and the staff captain. They are in the yard four
months in advance to oversee the development of the building and everything else.
Then slowly, the chief engineer comes in, the staff chief, and the hotel director come
on as well. So, you don’t just get the crew all at one time. You get the crew in
batches,” explains Hotel Director Guna Chellam
Assembling a crew and building it into a team is an especially important part of
bringing out a new ship. “Carnival is famous for its hospitality and its friendliness.
When you look at Carnival Splendor, we are sailing with 1,800 repeat guests every
cruise - - that is [half] of the ship’s total capacity. People come back, not because
they want to see us or because they want to go to St. Thomas. They are here because
they enjoy the service and the hospitality. It is the crew who make the people want to
come back and back.”
When bringing out a new ship, some cruise lines assemble a crew by taking large
numbers of people who have had experience on the similar ships that are already in
the line’s fleet. The idea is that such experienced crew members know how things
are done on that type of ship and thus the new ship will have an easier time getting up
to speed when it enters service. However, Mr. Chellam points out that there is a
problem with such an approach. “We don’t do that because the other ships are going
to suffer. Imagine if you took a large portion of the crew from the Carnival Freedom,
that ship is going to suffer. We choose like ten from here, ten from the Carnival
Pride, maybe five or six or one from the others. We don’t want the other ships to
suffer. We want to make the guests feel like each Carnival ship is the same, not like
one ship is better than the other ships”
“We don’t hand choose the crew for new ships. Some are people who are coming
back from vacation. Also, we take requests from the crews [of the existing ships]. A
lot of people in those crews wanted to see Europe [where Splendor spent her first
summer season]. Some wanted to be near their families in Estonia - - the ship was in
Estonia every other week.”
“A lot of the senior management here have experience doing new ships. For
example, [Food and Beverage Manager Francis Mekkattuklam], did two new ships
when he was an assistant and he brought out the ship when he was a bar manager on
the Carnival Liberty. So he knows the concept of a new ship, he knows the
philosophy and what is going on on a new ship.”
In addition, at the same time the crew members are bringing the furnishings onboard
and getting the ship ready for sea, “there is rigorous training that goes on from the
beginning in a brand new ship.”
While Carnival seeks to provide a similar product across all of the ships in its fleet,
the training on a new ship cannot be so rigid that the crew cannot respond to changing
circumstances. This was especially important for Carnival Splendor inasmuch as her
first year itinerary included cruises in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, across the
Atlantic, in the Caribbean, around South America and finally cruises from the West
Coast of America. Such a varied itinerary involves different types of passengers with
different nationalities, tastes and habits. “We adapt ourselves to the needs of the
guests. We make changes to cater to their needs,” explains Mr. Mekkattuklam of
Splendor’s Food and Beverage Department.
The need to be adaptable is also there with regard to shipboard entertainment.
Gustav “Goose” Neumann, the Cruise Director notes: “A lot of the creation of the
programming and activities is done onboard. We manipulate the program as the
cruise is going. If we see guests really gravitate towards something, we mutate and
try and figure out how do we make this something special. If we have a lot of bridge
players, card players, we’ll do something special for them. If we have guests who
love scrabble, we can have a big scrabble tournament. If we see that we have a big
karaoke crowd, we can switch that to another [larger] venue.”
Work on Carnival Splendor went smoothly. “This was one of the best ships, I
think. No challenges,” comments Chief Engineer Luciano Tortorici. This is not
surprising. While Splendor represents a new class for Carnival Cruise Lines, she is
actually a near sister to Costa Concordia and Costa Serena of Costa Cruises.
Moreover, the design is actually an evolution of the design used for Carnival
Destiny. When a shipbuilder has had the benefit of building other ships of the same
class, the work tends to go faster and more smoothly than when the yard is building a
prototype.
Splendor performed successfully on her final set of sea trials in April 2008 in the
Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Sicily. This was a sort of road test where the
builder and the new owner see whether the ship performs up to the specifications in
the contract. After that, it was back to Sestri Ponente for finishing.
The ship was ready to be turned over to Carnival on 30 June 2008. “Actually, I
would say it was ready to sail even a few days earlier,’ remembers Captain Pagano.
“Structurally, it was a very good ship. It came out very well. We are very happy.”
was not the beginning of her story. The largest ship built for Carnival Cruises Lines
up to that date, she reportedly cost half a billion dollars to build. On a voyage on
Carnival Splendor, I had the opportunity to speak with some of her officers about the
building process.
Carnival Splendor was built at the Fincantieri shipyard in Sestri Ponente, a suburb
of Genoa, Italy. In some respects, it is more accurate to say that the ship was
assembled in Sestri Ponente. Modern cruise ships are put together in sections that are
constructed elsewhere in the shipyard or, indeed, at another location altogether. For
example, Splendor’s trademark winged funnel was built in Trieste, Italy and then
brought to Sestri Ponente. Similarly, Splendor’s 1,503 staterooms were pre-
fabricated and placed fully assembled into the ship. Her six diesel engines came
from Wartsila of Finland.
The initial assembly was done in a large drydock. Cranes lifted whole sections of
the ship so that they could be fitted together with other enormous sections. Once the
construction took the shape of a ship, the drydock was flooded and the vessel was
“floated-out”. Carnival Splendor reached this milestone on 3 August 2007. She was
then moored to a quay to have her internal and technical outfitting completed.
Throughout the building process, Carnival executives performed inspections. As
each system was completed, a Carnival professional inspected it to ensure that it was
functional. Other Carnival managers were resident at the shipyard to oversee the
work of Fincantieri and the various contractors involved in supplying components of
the ship. Carnival likes to maintain tight control over shipbuilding.
Furthermore, “in the contract they have items marked: ‘owner supply,” points out
Captain Giorgio Pagano, the first master of Carnival Splendor. “It is a huge amount
of things, especially in housekeeping. It is up to us when to put them onboard. A lot
of it comes from the States, some form Europe. It is brought onboard and put in place
by our people. It is a huge operation - - 24 hours a day.”
Much of this work is performed by the ship’s crew, which begins to arrive at the
shipyard long before the ship is handed over to the owner. “The first persons to come
onboard a new ship are the captain and the staff captain. They are in the yard four
months in advance to oversee the development of the building and everything else.
Then slowly, the chief engineer comes in, the staff chief, and the hotel director come
on as well. So, you don’t just get the crew all at one time. You get the crew in
batches,” explains Hotel Director Guna Chellam
Assembling a crew and building it into a team is an especially important part of
bringing out a new ship. “Carnival is famous for its hospitality and its friendliness.
When you look at Carnival Splendor, we are sailing with 1,800 repeat guests every
cruise - - that is [half] of the ship’s total capacity. People come back, not because
they want to see us or because they want to go to St. Thomas. They are here because
they enjoy the service and the hospitality. It is the crew who make the people want to
come back and back.”
When bringing out a new ship, some cruise lines assemble a crew by taking large
numbers of people who have had experience on the similar ships that are already in
the line’s fleet. The idea is that such experienced crew members know how things
are done on that type of ship and thus the new ship will have an easier time getting up
to speed when it enters service. However, Mr. Chellam points out that there is a
problem with such an approach. “We don’t do that because the other ships are going
to suffer. Imagine if you took a large portion of the crew from the Carnival Freedom,
that ship is going to suffer. We choose like ten from here, ten from the Carnival
Pride, maybe five or six or one from the others. We don’t want the other ships to
suffer. We want to make the guests feel like each Carnival ship is the same, not like
one ship is better than the other ships”
“We don’t hand choose the crew for new ships. Some are people who are coming
back from vacation. Also, we take requests from the crews [of the existing ships]. A
lot of people in those crews wanted to see Europe [where Splendor spent her first
summer season]. Some wanted to be near their families in Estonia - - the ship was in
Estonia every other week.”
“A lot of the senior management here have experience doing new ships. For
example, [Food and Beverage Manager Francis Mekkattuklam], did two new ships
when he was an assistant and he brought out the ship when he was a bar manager on
the Carnival Liberty. So he knows the concept of a new ship, he knows the
philosophy and what is going on on a new ship.”
In addition, at the same time the crew members are bringing the furnishings onboard
and getting the ship ready for sea, “there is rigorous training that goes on from the
beginning in a brand new ship.”
While Carnival seeks to provide a similar product across all of the ships in its fleet,
the training on a new ship cannot be so rigid that the crew cannot respond to changing
circumstances. This was especially important for Carnival Splendor inasmuch as her
first year itinerary included cruises in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, across the
Atlantic, in the Caribbean, around South America and finally cruises from the West
Coast of America. Such a varied itinerary involves different types of passengers with
different nationalities, tastes and habits. “We adapt ourselves to the needs of the
guests. We make changes to cater to their needs,” explains Mr. Mekkattuklam of
Splendor’s Food and Beverage Department.
The need to be adaptable is also there with regard to shipboard entertainment.
Gustav “Goose” Neumann, the Cruise Director notes: “A lot of the creation of the
programming and activities is done onboard. We manipulate the program as the
cruise is going. If we see guests really gravitate towards something, we mutate and
try and figure out how do we make this something special. If we have a lot of bridge
players, card players, we’ll do something special for them. If we have guests who
love scrabble, we can have a big scrabble tournament. If we see that we have a big
karaoke crowd, we can switch that to another [larger] venue.”
Work on Carnival Splendor went smoothly. “This was one of the best ships, I
think. No challenges,” comments Chief Engineer Luciano Tortorici. This is not
surprising. While Splendor represents a new class for Carnival Cruise Lines, she is
actually a near sister to Costa Concordia and Costa Serena of Costa Cruises.
Moreover, the design is actually an evolution of the design used for Carnival
Destiny. When a shipbuilder has had the benefit of building other ships of the same
class, the work tends to go faster and more smoothly than when the yard is building a
prototype.
Splendor performed successfully on her final set of sea trials in April 2008 in the
Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Sicily. This was a sort of road test where the
builder and the new owner see whether the ship performs up to the specifications in
the contract. After that, it was back to Sestri Ponente for finishing.
The ship was ready to be turned over to Carnival on 30 June 2008. “Actually, I
would say it was ready to sail even a few days earlier,’ remembers Captain Pagano.
“Structurally, it was a very good ship. It came out very well. We are very happy.”
After a ship goes into service, the
crew continues to work to maintain
the ship.
crew continues to work to maintain
the ship.
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