Waiting for float out of Dr3am

To beat the crowds in cars we rode bikes in the rain to watch the float out.  Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Early morning anticipation

A few of us rode our bikes over to see the festivities. Hundreds of campers are lining the parking lots.The float out will be in the evening so we can only guess there will be fireworks.



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Blog that has public information about the Dr3am launch

Here is a public blog that lists the upcoming schedule for the Dr3am.

Chuck Schmidt writes for the Staten Island Live website


This is from a D1sney press release:

After 20 months of construction, the D1sney Dr3am cruise ship floated out of the enclosed building dock at the Meyer Werft shipyard today, completing a major construction milestone. The ship was greeted by thousands of visitors lining the shore to see the newest Disney Cruise Line ship, which features the first water coaster at sea and other cruise industry firsts designed to build upon Disney’s commitment to delivering unparalleled family cruises.
The “Float Out” is a special maritime event that celebrates the ship’s final stages of construction, where exteriors become complete and final touches are assigned to interiors. In true D1sney-style, the celebration was punctuated with a fireworks display and the appearance of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The D1sney Dr3am is scheduled to sail its maiden voyage on January 26, 2011, from Port Canaveral, Fla.
“Today marks a monumental milestone and begins the first of the finishing touches for the D1sney Dr3am as we prepare to welcome guests aboard our newest ship,” said Karl Holz, president of D1sney Cruise Line. “Our guests are counting down to the maiden voyage, and in just 88 days, they will get to experience all that the D1sney Dr3am has to offer.”

AquaDuck

I cannot show it to you but I can link to the official Disney webpage. This thing is so cool.

http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/ships-activities/ships/dream/pools/aquaduck/

Day 3 and I have only been up to deck 10 looked around from up top and went right back to the computer office.  It is real busy out here, we are working on getting systems up as fast as we can.  Crew are expected to board in the coming days.  The float out is Saturday so everyone is putting on the finishing touches.

Not what you want to see; I know

This is an Aida ship not the Dream. This one is in hall 1. Aida ships have this trademark lips on the bow




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Cold wet morning

The wind is blowing hard, luckily the rain just stopped. The loaner car has to be parked in the employee lot which is about a quarter mile walk to office.

My new coat and motley tube are working great.
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This is Gumbo in Germany

Tonight we went to the Greek restaurant along the canal. I think it is called Olympia's.  On the door I see a sign that says Special Gumbo all you can eat.  When we order the waiter excitedly tells the special of the day being Gambos. I thought that sounds good. What they were saying and what was on the sign was Gambas which means Prawns in Spanish.  At least it was all you can eat.

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Car or bike?

Of course bike! I left Brian at the office tonight; he gave me an escort this morning to the yard. As I was heading back to the hotel via my rented two wheels I came across these two locals who were going my way.  Local law says bikes must be ridden with lights and the lights must be dynamo powered, meaning no batteries. 
Bikes also have the total right-of-way so you just keep moving through intersections. I stopped once at an intersection and traffic stopped in all directions until I moved through. Odd, odd feeling.

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Block mover

This machines moves large blocks that are built down river and brought up on barges. Large cranes drop the blocks on this machine which moves them around in the yard. This one has a driver between the front wheels practically on the ground sometimes the driver uses a remote control and walks around the mover.

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Rode a bike into the yard

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Breakfast in Papenburg

Could not sleep this morning, awoke around 4:20am so I wasted time reading the news online and then came down to breakfast. This will be my morning ritual until I move onboard.

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Being driven from Dusseldorf to Papenburg

The yard sent a driver down to pick us up. Guenter is our driver and he is in a VW van with a 6speed tdi. It was hard to see but he had us going 150 kmh for awhile.
Weather is low 60s not cool at all. In my polo shirt and khakis I am warm.
The VP for my area is in town and is taking us out tonight at my favorite restaurant.



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Frankfurt Airport

This airport has the majority of planes sit on the tarmac and passengers get ferried around by long buses. After our ride to terminal we walked what seemed like forever, went through customs and then another complete security screening to get to our gate. Once at gate we boarded a bus like cattle and drove 15 minutes to our little 737 that will take us to Dusseldorf.We passed a A380, that thing is huge. The largest Airbus has two sets of windows down the complete side.  I guess it has a dual deck the complete length of the fuselage.

Life is all about change and I was put here to help manage it so onward I go. I am seeing emails about some itinerary changes coming up.

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Over Europe 7:15hrs from takeoff

In seat display

This is the 1st time I have taken this flight to Frankfurt from Orlando. It flew NE straight across the pond with a A330. After dinner I went straight to sleep and woke up with about an hour and half to go. Breakfast and 30 minutes on my laptop was all the productivity I could manage.
Left Orlando with 83degrees and Frankfurt is 48.



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Landing in frankfurt

Approach pictures



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I off on my next trip to Papenburg Germany

Flying Lufthansa Airbus 330 to Frankfurt then to Dusseldorf.


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Family goes to Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Two days before I leave for awhile; we took the family to Universal Islands of Adventure to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Sally and I call this forced family fun or FFF.  Stephanie was like a ten year old giddy and happy as can be. It was quite an impressive theming of this section of the park. The Harry Potter ride was by far the BEST theme park ride in the United States.  There are no words to describe it, it was built on automotive robotic technology.  I was disappointed in the size of the section (it is NOT a separate park) and the operation.  Clearly the park was laid out from a visual perspective with a fixed size and no thought to guest flow. 

Stephanie in front of Hogwarts Express

Waiting in line to go into one of the stores, this one sold wands and scarves! The stores are attractions and have long lines to get in.

 The Castle is impressive towering over the park.  I read it is 15 stories tall.

The sorting hat; I should have taken a video. The hat was talking and telling the muggles where to go.

Train station and train were quite authentic.

This is the entrance.

Happy Stephanie leaving the park.

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From our picasa web album

Best Tools for communication in my nerdy opinion

I think there are many great ways to communicate. There is chat or sms text for very short communications, email for more verbose communication or voice for that personal one-one communication. Well the last two years in my travels I have tried many forms of communication.  Below are the tools I use. I know there are many reasons to use others but this is my list:

Prerequisite - I use a Blackberry (BB 9700 as of September 2010) with T-mobile and International BB plan.  Data is free and unlimited in the US and abroad, International voice  calls are .45cents a minute and International SMS text are .45 cents each. My current Blackberry allows me to tether (use) my phone as a modem for my company T400 laptop.  It works fine for syncing email and chat but that is about it.  Not fast at all. My personal Macbook has many of the tools listed below as well.

With that said no T-mobile voice or SMS for me when I am international!


 Text while International - - I loaded Google Talk on my BB and Sally's Android powered phone.  This allows us to text for free.  Google talk is also incorporated within Gmail so if either of us are on our laptops we can chat there as well. Again no charge since this is going over the data plan.

Voice --  Again Google Talk on a laptop using Gmail or stand alone Google Talk has video chat which Sally and I have done a couple of times.  I even did video chat with my mother back in Statesboro. Skype is a great alternative but we always seem to be on  Google Talk before we decided to do a video conference.  My travels take me into the middle of oceans so bandwidth is a challenge.  If I am at sea or tethering my BB I cannot do any form of video conferencing.

UMA-- is a feature that T-mobile and BB have that allows voice calls to go over a wifi network. The call is then free. I love this feature and if AT&T had implemented it on the IPhone  their network usage and bad publicity would have been reduced.  At home I have a T-mobile router that is allowing me a home phone number for cheap and then my cell phone calls go over the internet.  {in 2012 after the Fantasy launch I plan on dropping this and build my own Internet SIP route for increased savings)

I went the route of Google voice but since Google has not implemented the SIP functionality there still is a charge associated with using it. I use a Google voice number for my personal cell phone number it allows me freedom to get calls at different places but it is not really saving me money.

Social Media -- You can stay in touch with a lot of people using Social Media sites.  I am on FaceBook, I have a Twitter account but do not use it that often. We use Yammer at work but like Twitter (fjwagg) I do not use it much. This Blog is another way I show my family what I am doing and where I am.  Speaking of where.... Foursquare is a mobile application that allows you to "Check-in" places. I was a late adopter and not many of people use it but I find it fun.

Where am I-- nothing beats Google maps although the latest version of the software on my BB is driving me mad.  I can walk all around a foreign city and get around without a map.  So what if I look like a total nerdy geek staring at my phone as I walk but I am getting somewhere!  Google latitude allows near real time location beaconing allowing Sally and Mom the ability to see where I am.  It seems to be a challenge with dropping them as friends. Also the GPS on android devices wears the battery down pretty fast. 

Well if you need to get a hold of me and know me shoot me an email because in reality I prefer to respond when it is convenient and email can provide a relief from my constant crack-berry addiction.

The time has come for the Dr3am to slip out into sunlight!

October 31st the ship will float out of the large hall that she has been in since 2009.  The hall is the building that its ends point north and south on the map below.  The new build team has been working since 2006 on the new ships.  MeyerWerft in Papenburg Germany was chosen to be the new shipyard, our current ships were built in Italy.


View Larger Map


Soon I will be traveling back to Germany.  The Dr3am has been floating for at least a month so they can run the engines, turn on the climate control system, exercise the power system and turn the props.  Yes turn the props, they mount large blanks on the shafts to simulate the weight and size but they do not provide propulsion.  This week the ship went dry so the real props can be mounted and final inspections of the hull can be completed.  Crew start boarding the ship the 1st week of November so my team will be there to make sure we can get the applications working and integrated. I will be staying in The Park Inn for the 1st part of the trip and then moving onboard into a crew cabin.  The ship stays alongside the yard for about ten days so testing of the ships marine systems continue.

Once the Shipyard is ready to take her out to sea the conveyance down the river Ems starts. See this Google search for pictures. The first stop will be at a port in Eemshaven, Netherlands. This is where I will be getting off.  Only a few people will be allowed to go out to Sea Trials. I will travel by taxi to Amsterdam and then fly home for 12 days before heading back to Eemshaven for the final crew load and transatlantic.

SugarLand concert

Sally and I at SugarLand concert.

Little Big Town opening Act

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Skippers Smokehouse and Oyster Bar

Before the SugarLand concert in Tampa we went out to eat.  Sally loves Oysters so I found a place via the Internet. Skippers was one of the  quirkiest places I have ever been in! Not sure you can call out a motif, it seems like it should be sitting next to the Suwanee or St. Johns river like Capt. Hirams in Sebastian.

Oyster Bar

Shrimp PoBoy

Sally enjoying 18 Steamed Oysters

Needless to say I will be coming back to catch some of the live music that they host out back. Looks like they could easily hold 3-4 hundred people. There are some deadhead references in some of the band fliers posted so it should be good times.

Wagner Reunion picture sharing at hotel

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Sunset leaving tybee

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Tybee north beach

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Atlantic Ocean feet immersing

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Reynolds square

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Reunion day 2

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Wagner 2010 reunion starts

Our 1st meeting place is the Crystal Beer Parlor a few blocks from our hotel.  Great to go back into such a historic place.  The waitress talked me into trying the The Duck Rabbit Milk Stout. It was quite tasty. 

Date with Stephanie

A night at Flemming's Steak and Wine bar while Sally was away on a girls weekend.



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