Hotman at the helm

15 May 2002 by
Hotman at the helm

Shipboard in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. It's good to be back on board our favourite ship, the QE2.

One of the world's great hotel managers is here, too, as he has been every time we've sailed. John Duffy oversees a staff of 830, looking after as many as 1,750 guests at a time. For four to six months, he has few days off and endures long separations from his family, yet he has been in the job for 21 years - and still loves it.

It shows. Ask John how he is, and the answer is a great beam of a grin and, "Never better, thanks," or, "Just wonderful. How are you?" I've never seen him look frazzled or tired, and he always has time to stop for a brief chat along any part of the several miles of corridors he patrols every day (five times round one deck equals a mile, and there are 12 decks under his supervision).

Duffy is a Liverpudlian and that shows, too, in down-to-earth good humour and a feet-on-the-ground approach to all the haughty and the naughty who come into his orbit.

What has kept him in the job this long? "There isn't another ship like the Queen," he says. "And there are no other guests like the Queen‘s guests. I've got to know so many of them over the years, and it's my job to make sure they don't want to go to any other ship."

John faces the same problems and challenges as every other hotelier: maintaining standards and attracting the best staff in an increasingly competitive market. "The ship has the greatest name afloat," he says, "but that's no longer enough to attract the best people - crew or passengers. You must keep standards high, and the best way to do that is to have a great team around you, to discuss with them continuously ways to keep the product good, and to keep control of the costs."

What's the biggest difference between being the "hotman" [Duffy's e-mail abbreviation for hotel manager] at sea and ashore? "Your captive audience," says John. "They are with you for five meals a day and as long as four months at a time. You accommodate them and feed them, you entertain them and look after their health and wellbeing. And that's just the passengers. There are 1,000 crew to look after, too, some of them on the ship for nine months at a stretch.

"Every hotel or restaurant ashore has busy nights and quiet nights. Diners arrive separately, over two or three hours. We get up to 1,800 dinner guests entering our restaurants within an hour."

Wise, but no monkey
It was the T-shirt that stopped us: "Seen it all. Done it all. Forgot most of it." The wearer was napping peacefully on deck until one of us tripped over his shoe. An apology revealed him to be Warren Thomas, aged 92, enjoying an extended honeymoon with 87-year-old Bonnie, his bride of almost two years.

Born in a Philadelphia ghetto - where he used to get beaten up daily by "youngsters who thought I was white. I'm not white, I'm red. Native American, to you" - Warren made his mark in industrial design before becoming an academic, then taking Holy Orders.

He's retired now and loves to travel. A couple of years ago he nearly died on a cruise ship, got put off in Manila and spent six weeks in hospital there. "I felt fine, no pain at all, but they told me I was in bad shape," he recalls. "The lawyer sharing my cabin said I would probably die and made me dictate instructions for shipping my body home care of the flight attendant on whichever airline took me on as cargo."

He moved into a retirement facility and, over breakfast with Bonnie, a fellow resident, was struck by the realisation: "She really likes me!" They married soon after, and the four-month world cruise is their wedding present to each other.

You and whose navy?
The Japanese fleet followed us into Manila harbour. We weren't sure it was the Rising Sun on the flag until we spied a group of elderly Japanese ladies on our deck waving what appeared to be their underwear at the sailors. Closer inspection revealed that they were waving coloured scarves…

I admit to a kind of déjà vu when one, then two, then more frigates glided alongside the QE2. Last time I saw that many I was wearing a tin hat, ready for business on our own battleship, HMS King George V. But this, we were assured, was a friendly visit.

The rewards of hospitality
Tim Anderson and John Taylor are making the most of their last few days on the QE2 before disembarking in Hong Kong. "Must be home to get ready for Easter," they explained - to their busy 10-bedroom B&B in Bournemouth, the Shoreline, which they've run since 1985.

"We love it, of course," Tim said, "but thank you for realising we do work hard. Our guests often think it all just happens, and say they can't wait to buy a seaside property and start their own guesthouse. ‘Meeting nice people,' they say, ‘cooking all your favourite things, getting to bed by 10pm - must be a lovely life.'

"I told one of them, ‘Of course it is. You know, we have this conveyor belt from Sainsbury's with lovely ready-cooked meals flowing in continuously for us to set on the table.' The couple just looked at me and said, ‘Do you, really? What a great idea.'"

A BTH reunion I hope my presentation on the 18 hotels I worked in, "Revelations from a life in grand hotels", got the facts right. After it was over, a member of the audience came up to shake hands. It was John Servian, who worked with me, or just after me, in most of the British Transport hotels. John and his wife, Pam, now retired after selling their Royal Marine hotel in Brora, Sutherland, are enjoying the entire four-month world cruise.

Our meeting is some compensation for missing the annual BTH managers' reunion at the Great Eastern hotel.

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking