In Person
Logistics at sea
Richard Williams talks to Christian Krempl, hotel director on board the larger of Crystal Cruises’ two ships, Crystal Serenity
OBH: What are the challenges of producing top quality cuisine for hundreds of passengers on a floating hotel? CK: Well, first of all, it starts with having the right crew to deliver this product. You have to have the right crew with the right training and the skills and experience to do it. We make sure ours are well trained. We have a programme of lectures onboard for staff from shoreside experts. We also have an online training programme called Brainex so that staff can conduct their own training in their own time. To keep them up to date, our butlers go for butler training every two years. Purchasing is important and is all co-ordinated by our purchasing department in Los Angeles. It takes a lot of planning. We choose the right suppliers who can provide produce of the right quality all year round, no matter where we are in the world, from the Mediterranean to Africa and Australia to China. This gives us consistency of quality across both ships, Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony, so that if a guest transfers from one to the other, they have the same standard of products.
How much of a problem is re-supplying the ship at smaller ports? Most of our food comes from regular suppliers and is shipped or air- freighted to us at the turnaround ports or the larger ports, which are Piraeus and Monte Carlo on this Mediterranean cruise. For example, we
“We get all our beef from the US and our lobsters are air-freighted in from Maine. Our fruit and shellfish usually come from the Netherlands”
get all our beef and lobsters from the US. At the start of this cruise, in Istanbul, we had a consignment of fresh Maine lobsters air-freighted to us, because you cannot get that sort of quality locally.
Our fruit usually comes from a supplier in the Netherlands, as does our shellfish. They source it from all over the world, papayas from Hawaii, berries from Chile, melons and tomatoes from the Mediterranean. The fresh fruit you just had for breakfast has come from the Netherlands, trucked down to Piraeus.
In the smaller ports we only do top-ups, buying fresh fruit, vegetables and fish. Yesterday the chef from our Silk Road restaurant went ashore in Navplion to buy some fresh fish and cherries, to give the guests some variety. He also bought a small quantity of fresh fish our Italian restaurant, Prego.
Do you always manage to get fresh fish, fruit and vegetables or do you sometimes have to alter the menu? In general it works pretty well. The only problems occur when we have
30
www.onboardhospitality.com
to refuse the fresh fruit and vegetables sourced from the local suppliers, because they are not up to standard. For example the avocados might not be as ripe as the chef would like them to be, so that he cannot use them on the first or the second day. Then the chef has to be flexible, and put them on the menu a few days later. We have large storage capacity and can cruise for 16 days without resupplying the ship.
Do you get any strange requests and do you manage to fulfil them? Yes, especially on world cruises. People want their own particular jam or yogurt, or bread.
We can always comply with their requests as long as we have 72 days notice. We can also offer kosher food or even supply a special kosher chef, if required.
With a passenger capacity of 1070 and a full crew complement of 645, supplying the cruise ship Crystal Serenity takes a lot of planning and complicated logistics. Hotel director Christian Krempl is the man responsible for ensuring that the guest experience remains up to standard at all times and all over the world
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92