Monday, September 17, 2007

How Hard-Working Crewmembers Spend Their Time Ashore in Bar Harbor, Maine

Ever wonder what crewmembers do during their time off? Sleep... shop... read a good book? It might come as something of a surprise, but MaineCoastNow.com reports that some are doing volunteer work this month in Acadia National Park while their ships are docked in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Amy Powers, director of CruiseMaine, who is credited with the idea of offering volunteer opportunities to crewmembers, has confirmed that crewmembers from Royal Caribbean International's Explorer of the Seas will participate on Sept. 19 and crewmembers from the Celebrity Cruises' Constellation, are expected to join in on Sept. 29. While their participation is tentative, Holland America Line's Maasdam crewmembers could be set to kick off the program as soon as this Friday, Sept. 14.

MaineCoastNow.com also shares that "Some cruise lines provide incentives for their crews to contribute in some way to the communities they visit. Celebrity Cruises, for example, contributes a certain amount of money to a Crew Activities Fund for every hour of volunteer work by crew members."

Probably the last thing you would expect is that some of your favorite crewmembers might be wielding hoes to clean out ditches while they are ashore. Keep that in mind the next time you're contemplating how much to reward them for the hard work they perform to make your cruise as pleasant as possible. We applaud the crewmembers' efforts to "give back" something to the ports where their ships call!

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