We’re just one full day into the Windstar Cruises & Porthole Magazine Caribbean Celebration but it feels like we’ve been with them far longer.  The amount of things to do on these tiny ships is surprising if not staggering.  How so, you ask?  Fast forward to this morning for a moment.

It’s a bit before 4AM. I wake up and the clock starts ticking: there needs to be coffee inside me rather quickly for everything to get going correctly, sort of like priming the pump I suppose.  Picking up the phone in my nicely appointed stateroom,  I call room service and get something that has never, ever happened to me before on a ship: a recording answers the phone.

If you are a frequent cruise traveler and have done this, you might think this is nothing new.  While the overnight room service crew member is out delivering coffee to the other person on the ship that gets up early, a recording plays over and over. There is really nothing to do but wait…on other cruise lines.

Here, I was invited to leave my order at the end of the announcement, like you might leave a message on someone’s telephone. Let me pause a moment to apologize to my next door neighbors who might have been woken by me exclaiming “Oh. My. God. Why didn’t anyone do this before now??” and i might have said that in my outside voice without thinking. Unlike the Windstar team which was thinking overtime on this topic.

I know, it’s just coffee…but it’s not.  Someone was really thinking, like really hard thinking, about we passengers.  Frankly, I more commonly feel like room service is something cruise lines just really don’t want to have any part of, which kind of makes sense.  It has to be far more efficient to have a bunch of people come to your dining space than to send one crew member to yours.  If you are an early riser or fan of room service, you get this. And it gets better.

Any coffee would do here. More often than not, that ‘any coffee’ turns out to be lousy coffee, like from the pot that has been held on a burner for hours, overnight. This is fresh brewed, came with actual cream as opposed to some sort of white liquid, and was in my stateroom in 6 minutes. Well cut off my legs and call me shorty: this is one is a solid win.  And it still gets better.

Had I wished, I could have just walked up to the bridge and had coffee with the command staff there. Uh huh, that is exactly what I said. Windstar, you see, has an open bridge policy that enables passengers interested in seeing the bridge to do so, at their leisure. With few restrictions, the bridge is open. Talk about relevant entertainment. Larger ships with more people have that space locked down like an aircraft cockpit.  And yes, you guessed: it still gets better.  One word: Granola Biscotti made on the ship and served in the Yacht Club, a space you will want to visit immediately upon embarkation.  

Frankly, I had not intended to begin detailing this experience on this topic.  Still, this simple thing of ordering room service, how it was handled and how it was delivered stunned me. I suspect there may be more of these unexpected moments. I began with this one for regular readers of this space. You KNOW what a big deal room service is to me but here is the best part: there’s still more.

The way this coffee was handled brought all of the above. But it also brought one other element of what Windstar does that should be of interest, early riser or not, even if coffee is not a beverage you care for.  These people are paying attention to details and addressing our needs as they can on ship with a few hundred people rather than many thousands. Windstar is known as the cruise line that is 180° From Ordinary. This is exactly why.

That was meaningful to me but not the most significant reason I am here. For that we turn next to the Caribbean Celebration aspect of this sailing which has turned out to be far more appropriate than I would have ever dreamed. Stay tuned.