FAQ on the ship

Well DCL released some more public information so I can share it here. I will use this post to post Q&A of common questions.

What Shipyard was chosen?

Meyers Werft   in P@penburg, Germany. Meyer-Werft is a world-renowned shipyard with incredible  attention to detail.Their long shipbuilding history and covered docks along with the incredible technology makes them standout.

Where is Papenburg? It is located in Northern Germany on the Ems river. Population is around 35,000.  Map below is interactive.

View Larger Map
How does the ship yard put the ship together.
  The ship is built in 83 individual blocks which, when finished, are welded onto the ship's structure in one of the world's largest covered dry docks (Baudock). Two ships are usually being assembled at the same time in this baudock. The hull is made in two pieces at a separate facility and brought into the baudock at two different times.  Each cabin is made off site as well and when ready is slid into place as a complete unit.  Wiring and plumbing are then hooked up in a common access panel shared by the two adjoining rooms.  When the ship's ready, half of the building is flooded to float the ship onto the Ems River.  The build process takes almost 15 months, the total project is much longer. A new build team was assembled in 2006.  Right now the Cast living in Germany will return in 2013.

Once out of the building then what?
On Halloween the ship will be floated outside of the baudock and sit alongs side the building.  It is customary for the locals to camp out and watch the sail out.  It will be highly publicized.  It is then loaded with around 500 tons of equipment, supplies and items needed for sea trials.  


Sea Trials?
I have to admit I do not know everything that is done during trials but here is a Wikipedia link with information.

How big is the Dream?
The third ship in the fleet. Boasting 14 decks, a ship length of 1,115 feet and a maximum width of 125 feet, the 128,000-ton vessel includes 1,250 staterooms and has the capacity to comfortably accommodate 4,000 passengers—along with the over 1,458 Crew Members who tend to the needs of every cruise Guest each and every day. (from website) The Magic class ships are 83,000-ton vessels with 10 decks and are just shy of 1000 feet. The Magic and Wonder have a guest capacity of ~2700 and little over 1000 crew members.

Chance went soaring

The picture below is a link to Chance soaring with the birds.  His girlfriend, Angela, bought him a ride on a tandem glider for Christmas.   We showed up at Wallaby Ranch at 8:30 and my parents joined us.  It was a great Central Florida day.  How odd it was for me to reach for the liability form and instead Chance was able to sign it because he is 18.  It was a great experience and the owner Malcolm puts on a great experience.  The ranch is really for solo fliers but they pulled up a lot of tandems today.  Once on the ground Chance's pilot radioed how rough the turbulence was and the day was over. Malcolm came out and worked out a plan making sure the people that had not yet flown were accommodated by coming back in the later afternoon when the winds normally die down. I have been to Wallaby before with the Land Cruiser club I am in.  Malcom's property houses Hummer's and Land Rover's proving courses.   

2010_02_21_Chance_Hanggliding

Family in town

Work is crazy busy as we try to get financing on our final projects.  If this does not make sense you are in good company. As strange as it seems, all of my business units executives agree on our plan to get the new ship up and running.  All the money comes from our business unit's budget. Yet my team has to create complete financial documents to justify our projects; but I digress.
Family; this weekend my cousin came down from Buffalo, NY with his family. His mother came up from Palm Beach area.  My parents came down as well.  We spent Saturday in Epcot and Hollywood studios. The park is moderately busy.   Friday we ate at Angelina's and then downed some beers at the Tavern in Celebration.   My Pennsylvania family is spread out and as I gracefully age I realize it is important to spend as much time with them as possible.

Weather and ships

It is a given that during the hurricane season there is a high likely hood of our operation moving to an alternate port. This is a huge deal as Disney tries its best to accommodate our guests.  This weekend was the first time we moved to another terminal outside of hurricane season.
The Magic pulled into Castaway instead of backing in as usual.  The winds were high.  When she tried to leave the winds and waves kept pushing her into the mooring poles. 24 hours later the winds and waves subsided enough to get out.  This put her behind in her schedule as she arrived into Canaveral with the Wonder.  So our normal team had to tend to the Wonder while people from Orlando managed the Magic. The local Port Authority allowed us to use one of the old casino boat terminals.  In perspective our normal terminal can hold 1100 people this building capacity was 250. 
Shore-side management was asked to help out so we were onsite at 6:30AM.  We (from the president on down) laid luggage down and then assisted guests debarking.  I then worked the Troll station which puts the guests onboard.  Our gangway housed the majority of guests.  Long day and now we are fighting data issues. That will be another story.

See story here-
wesh news

BBQ not BobBQ

Life is good; Brian picked up 2lbs of BBQ from G-Daddys on I-95 in Georgia. 

EDIT: My favorite BBQ joint has changed owners.  The new owners removed the large smoker from the side.  Removed the tables and the sin of all sins - changed the BBQ sauce.  The Dairy Queen two doors down is in such repair that exit 3 has no more appeal to the Wagner's. 

Size matters

This is a Celebrity ship inside the Baudock II building.  This ship is 50% larger than our current fleet.  This should help you get a scale for how large the building dock is.

Home at last!

I returned to Orlando after 16 hours and 30 minutes of travel.  That does not include the 2.5hrs from P@penburg to Dusseldorf. I will be updating the blog which may inlude some back dated posts so kepp coming back!

This is a photo that is in one of the restaurants in P@penburg. All ships coming out of the yard are towed to the North Sea via the river Ems. There are bridges that offer just centimeters of clearance. Locals come out along the route while the ship is being towed to bid farewell the latest ship.  Some clearings next to the river fill up with campers days ahead of time.

Map of Where I Am

This is my current location on the autobahn as we head to Dusseldorf.

http://maps.BlackBerry.com?lat=52.69599&lon=7.16445&z=4&label=Where+I+Am



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Windmills

On our way to see the Aida Blu ship in Elmden, Netherlands.  There are a lot of windmill farms in the countryside.



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Butcher's do not like cameras

Melanie and I decided to walk around a grocery store.  I took these pictures of the different types of meats and the butcher threw a fit. He spoke no English but let us have a piece of his mind for 3-5 minutes.  Who knew?

 

Abigail (“Abby”) Sunderland

Follow this 16 yr old circumnavigate the world here

European elevators

 

Floor zero? Yes in europe the ground floor is always zero and then each floor based off of that. At the Park Inn I had to take the elevator up to floor 1! 

European Hotel Beds

Here is a grump thought!  What the hell are european hotels thinking? You can only get rooms with two single beds.  Then they do not use top sheets. You get a bed with a flat sheet on the mattress and a single duvet.  You lay between the duvet  and the top sheet.

 

Cast members that are going over to Germany are making the mistake to think that you sleep in the duvet like a sleeping bag. This is an easy mistake if you are not use to such  a setup. 

Duvet pulled back like sleeping bag.

Wise men do not urinate into the wind or on the floor

This post is on the personal side.  I go into what Americans would call the "restroom" tonight after dinner.  The door had a sign called WS with the universal icon for a man.  Carefully I enter and see a row of urinals. Once at the urinal I noticed a fly etched into the porcelain. Here is the story.

But I don't know what WS stands for nor can I google it. Follow this link to a blog that has a lot of info but no real mention of my quandary.

Map of Where I Am/was

This is my current location or my previous location depending on when you read this!
After getting off the train from Hamburg to Leer Blaine picked us up. Blaine recently relocated to Germany and was driving his brand new Audi A4.  The four of us took the road to P@penburg

This is Bob and Melanie on the train:

Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Multiply by 2 and add 32 for F

Jelly Candy

There is a fascination with Gummy bear type candy. At our all day meeting there were two large plates of gummies, in the hotel room there are cans of gummy candy.  It is everywhere!

Edit-1-23-2010
In the train station in Hamburg were more gummies!



This last picture was taken in my P@penburg hotel room where a package of gummie sheep were laid out for me to count myself to sleep.

Groninger Brivat-Brauerei

Great Northern Germany dinner at a local Brewhaus.  Gruenkohl, Sausage, skillet potatoes, beans, ham, turkey and so much more. You buy beer in 10 Liter kegs that are filled with beer brewed the evening before.

Here is Bob pullin another glass from the tap.

Hamburg the culture of Germany

Hamburg the city is home to 1.8 million people with a metro population of 4.5 million. Dirk our Project Manager turned city guide was full of information.  The harbor is what makes Hamburg one of the largest transporation centers, the port here is very large. It was dark but we could make out large ice packs floating in the harbor. The ferry plowed over the ice making loud scraping and clunking noises. The water was almost gelatin like as the swells from large ships moved onto shore.  Dirk mentioned the river here is tidal and is such up to 150 miles to the north. It was about 19F so standing on the dock and our 20 minute walk to dinner was an appreciation of Florida's mild winters.  There were 11 people total and we walked through downtown.Entertainment and media companies are prevelant and like New York; Hamburg has a large number of 'Broadway" type shows.  The Lion King is in a large opera house near the harbor.