Rouen was no ordinary port of call for the cruise ship Blue Moon this September. As soon as her passengers disembarked, the vessel – which Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) was rebranding into Azamara Quest to sail under their latest brand Azamara Cruises – was destined for a revitalization and refurbishment Dry Dock in Hamburg.
The total volume to be handled during the Dry Dock was approximately 120 sea freight Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU’s) plus another 100 TEU’s in truck and airfreight, with a revenue of EUR 250,000. RCCL chose Geodis Wilson to handle the project’s freight forwarding requirements.
A time-sensitive project
Although Geodis Wilson Marine Norway took the lead, Project Manager Eirik Sørli, Shipping Supervisor for Marine Logistics in Norway, is quick to point out that this was very much a cooperative effort.
“It was a very time-sensitive project,” he says. “The ship was due to leave the Hamburg Dry Dock in just 14 days to pick up its next set of passengers in Miami. And our offices in Norway, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States were outstanding in their cooperative efforts.”
RCCL painted the entire ship inside and out, and changed almost everything else, including the restaurants, staterooms, carpets, outdoor furniture and more. Geodis Wilson coordinated transports into the Dry Dock and served as a destination agent for pre-loading. Twenty container units – some of them from as far away as Miami where RCCL has its Logistics Headquarters – were immediately loaded on board in Rouen assisted by Geodis Wilson France in (Rouen and Le Havre). Renovations started even as the ship sailed on to Hamburg.
“I travelled down to Hamburg a week before the ship was due to arrive,” says Sørli. “The team there outdid themselves during the crucial pre-planning stages.”
International teamwork
They say that a project is only as good as its ability to handle unexpected situations, and the Hamburg Dry Dock provided many opportunities to test this out.
When the wrong-sized mattresses arrived from Italy, all parties involved jumped on the problem and managed to arrange special truck transport. The new mattresses were delivered on time.
When new carpets were delayed by another freight forwarder hired by the shipping line, Geodis Wilson took over ownership of the container right away. Instead of waiting two days for the container to be shipped to Hamburg by sea freight, Geodis Wilson Marine in Rotterdam cleared it through Customs immediately and the team trucked it to Hamburg, where it reached the vessel on time.
When a barber’s chair was delayed by its supplier, Geodis Wilson air freighted it from Düsseldorf to the United States, where Geodis Wilson Marine Logistics in Miami loaded it onto the vessel before the first guest set foot on board.
Challenge after challenge was met by the same can-do spirit. “We really listened to each other,” Sørli emphasizes. “It was our international teamwork that made this project such a success.”
