Instead, I’m going to share my thoughts on the crew.

We were tour 16 of the season and the crew were absolutely incredible. We were treated like Royalty. We were fed, watered, fed again, entertained, fed some more, educated… and fed some more.

These guys were an incredible team.

But with my HR hat on, this really got me thinking, so I had a chat with Wayne, our ‘Hotel Manager’ (pictured serving us from a hot chocolate buffet)

While Captain Eric had worked with the company for many years, all the other staff, including Wayne, were pulled together at the start of this season. They were recruited from across America and many had families somewhere in the Lower 48 (States), who they were separated from for 6 months.

Almost none of them had worked in Alaska before, although many had worked in hospitality for years. One expedition leader had previously worked in Hawaii as a marine biologist, our engineer was ex marines and one of our head waiters had worked in 5 star restaurants around Florida.

The group had to come together, live together, eat together and work together 24/7 for 6 months. To be able to do that and survive with your sense of humour intact, serving highly demanding passengers with your sanity intact, takes a very special kind of person. From recruitment to training to ongoing support, the staff experience had to be extraordinary. They had no phone signal most of the time. No wifi on the ship. No clothes washing facilities and very little free time. Sharing sleeping quarters with colleagues also meant that there was nowhere to go to escape. They were almost constantly on call.