NORWEGIAN STAR DIARY
Bunny and Wendy's excellent adventure

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Travel Editor

Advertiser travel editor Wanda Adams is on a Norwegian Star cruise around the Islands. This is the fourth of her daily diaries.

ABOARD C6FR3, off Kona town, Wednesday May 14 — During a private bridge tour of the Norwegian Star's command center yesterday, we learned that the ship's official designation for emergency purposes is C6FR3. If we were to get into trouble for any reason, the captain would radio those numbers and the nature of our emergency to centers around the world who would determine the nearest source of aid and send it. Comforting thought, though emergencies are the farthest thought from most of our minds as we enter our third full day of sailing.

As Turtle Bay Resort slipped by on the port side, Capt. Sverre Sovdnes and first officer Jarl Sortehaug explained the workings of the ship's elaborate computerized systems, which not only assist in navigation but keep track of every mechanical device in the ship, down to the temperature in each stateroom (for fire tracking purposes — any rise in temperature above a certain point automatically triggers an alarm).

In this large, many-windowed "room with a view," three officers are always on duty: the officer of the deck/navigator, a copilot and a quartermaster who acts as lookout, his head constantly swivelling around the floor-to-ceiling windows protected by Mylar screening.

Before Sortehaug moves away from the bank of controls and TV screens, he says to the co-pilot, formally, "you have the con." Even as Sortehaug leads me around the deck, showing me various control systems and the daily paper log that is the required, official register of the ship's activities, the co-pilot calls out each action he takes.

Despite the advanced technology being employed, this is a place governed by tradition and time-honored practices, designed to protect the safety of the ship.

Auwe!

I reported earlier that few of the passengers seemed disappointed when a mechanical problem made it impossible for us to reach Fanning Island on this trip, but there was one party that almost left the ship after that announcement Monday afternoon in Hilo. This was a group led by Sen. Kalani English of Maui, who was making his first trip ever to Fanning Island, a place his family left in the 1870s when the British took over the small island country.

The Englishes had emigrated from the South Pacific to the islands once known as the Gilbert Islands, now Kiribati (pronounced "key-rey-bas," the island pronunciation of Gilbert). After the British assumption of rule, the Englishes moved on to Hawai'i, the senator said.

Maui cultural specialist Akoni Akana had planned an elaborate ceremony for the arrival, where they were to be greeted by officials of the Kiribati government. Norwegian Cruise Lines offered the English party the opportunity to disembark in Hilo but they elected to stay on at least as far as Maui and are now enjoying a little rest as English contemplates the place of the Norwegian Cruise Lines in Hawaii's tourist industry.

"This right now is the third largest hotel in the Hawaiian Islands," he said. During the bridge tour, when the senator learned that Norwegian Cruise Lines would be paying a fine of $300 per passenger (nearly $1 million), English eagerly asked where the money would go.

The U.S. Customs department was the answer.

"Shucks," he said, explaining that he'd hoped such funds could go to assist the state with port improvements requested by the cruise industry. "We have helped other segments of the travel industry," English said. "We have to find a way to balance the state's needs with the needs of the tourist industry."

A clean well-lighted place

Yesterday, I discovered what is so far my favorite place on the ship: The Reading Room. It is a whisper-quiet space on the port side of Deck 12, lined with windows, furnished like a living room or the library of an English manor house, with desks into which are tucked Norwegian Cruise Lines stationary and postcards, comfortable overstuffed chairs and sofas. Almost no one goes into the place. My cabinmate Bonnie and I spent an hour reading, working our cruise journals and watching the islands as we cruised aimlessly yesterday morning.

There are many such spots on the ship, however. The Spinnaker Lounge overlooking the bridge area is quiet through much of the day, with comfy chairs. And we ran across the Red Lion Pub with its 24-hour large-screen TV yesterday (another side effect of not going to Fanning is the sports fans aboard get ESPN 24/7 for the cruise).

We also found the basketball court on top of the ship (entirely enclosed in mesh to avoid stray layups from flying overboard) and a golf driving range (ditto), which I'm going to try out today.

Bunny and Wendy?

We have begun calling each other Bunny and Wendy. Why? Because these were the names mistakenly given us by the spa aboard ship when we went for our appointments. We're having fun with it.

Time running out

If my reports have given you a hunger for cruising aboard the Norwegian Star in Hawai'i, you should make your reservations: She'll leave Hawaiian waters for drydock and then Alaska next spring.

Much shuffling of Norwegian Cruise Lines ships will happen in the next year as a pair of American-flagged ships come into use and different itineraries are introduced, according to hotel manager James Deering. This is all because of the action by Congress that will allow Norwegian Cruise Lines to cruise U.S. waters without touching at a foreign port (an exemption from the Jones Act, which requires foreign-flagged vessels to touch at a foreign port during any cruise that includes American waters).

Two ships, titled only Project America 1 and Project America 2, are under construction.

PA1, as she's known to Norwegian Cruise Lines staff, will arrive here in May next year, according to current plans. PA1 will do week-long Hawai'i-only itineraries. A job fair for employment aboard that vessel, which will have an American crew, is set for next week in Honolulu.

The officers, too, will be Americans, so this crew of friendly Swedes will all be moving to other vessels, those that fly under non-American flags.

Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Sky, to be reflagged as an American vessel, will come to Hawai'i in the fall to cruise the Islands. And the small classic cruising vessel (without much of the frou-frou of this floating shopping mall) Norwegian Wind, now in Florida, will begin cruising in Hawai'i, doing 10- or 12-day itineraries that will include Fanning Island.

So many cruises, so little time (and money!).