Foundational Change, Empowerment and Patience on the High Seas
Change isn’t easy. We humans are often resistant to change. We like the comfort of things we know and innately anticipate the extra effort required to do something new. This is especially so in the workplace. There’s nothing worse than coming in for a shift on a Friday night and someone has re-organised the buttons on the POS screen.
So when Birgit Vadlau, director of hotel operations and new build for Silversea Cruises , and her team decided they needed to revolutionise how beverage programs were executed on their ships, they understood pretty quickly that just changing the menus or the glassware wasn’t going to be enough, they needed to change the entire culture of the bar program throughout their fleet.
Part of the Royal Caribbean Group, Silversea Cruises is recognized as an innovator in the ultra-luxury cruise industry, offering guests large-ship amenities aboard its intimate, all-suite vessels: Silver Wind, Silver Shadow, Silver Whisper, Silver Spirit, Silver Muse and Silver Moon – all designed to offer an atmosphere of conviviality and casual elegance. With the inclusion of the expedition ships Silver Origin, Silver Explorer, and Silver Cloud, Silversea's itineraries encompass all seven continents and feature worldwide luxury cruises to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Galapagos, both Polar Regions, and hundreds of fascinating destinations in between. Silversea is also looking forward to the launch of three new ultra-luxury ships: Silver Dawn and two Evolution-class ships.
Because of the nature of cruises, regular guests might only come back once every year, or once every 2 years, or 5 years. This means that creating an environment that encourages guests to remain loyal is, arguably, more important than in any other segment of our industry. Also, the guest experience is holistic. The food must be spot on, the rooms must be spot on, the entertainment must be first class, the monumental logistics behind executing hospitality on this scale have to run like clockwork, and as guests' expectations grow, the drinks coming across the bar must be at that top level too.
Getting the entire beverage program up to a world class level is where John Collingwood from Fling Bar Services enters the picture. Fling is a UK based beverage agency that was started in 2003 and has consulted on projects all around the world. I still remember getting the phone call from John in 2019. His enthusiasm is infectious and that phone call was the beginning of a 12-month collaboration that has seen us at Behind Bars push in to fresh territory to create a piece equal parts function and aesthetic which in many ways is emblematic of the changes Birgit and John are working to implement within the Fleet.
Birgit Vadlau first struck me as quite a serious lady. But obviously there is more to it. She is ultra-professional, has an extremely broad knowledge of F&B and operations, but is also imbued with a wonderful sense of humour and that enthusiasm for the industry that I have found flows through people who have climbed to the heights that she has.
“I believe this really gives me a certain credibility because I know the work. It also allows me to get things done. And, it allows me to satisfy my two loves, working with people and working for the business. ”
As she explains: “My background is pure F&B. The story starts at university. I was studying to be a lawyer, and on the side, a friend and I were running a student bar. My mum told me, you need to choose. I switched to hotel school and then started in hotels and basically worked my way up. This basis really gave me the opportunity to do any job, from making the beds, to making budgets of $100 million dollars. I believe this really gives me a certain credibility because I know the work. It also allows me to get things done. And, it allows me to satisfy my two loves, working with people and working for the business.
At sea, F&B operations stayed my forte and I had the opportunity to lead the fleet F&B operations for Silversea. My responsibilities soon started to include also our new build projects and have grown into the wider field of new build with all aspects related to hotel and operation. Luckily, I can work with a team to imagine the future of food and beverage service, which is a really creative process that I love.”
As I mentioned above, John Collingwood was Behind Bars’ first contact on this journey. His path to beverage consultant shares similarities to mine, in that he had F&B on the side of his studies, working in bars and then finding his way in to the business side of things with Bacardi / Brown-Forman (unlike me).
John: “I was with Bacardi / Brown-Forman as a sales rep and I found my way in to the mixology training team, which I loved, but then 2008 happened. I took a voluntary redundancy package, moved to a desert island in Fiji for 2 months doing marine conservation, became a coral specialist, and while I was there decided I wanted to set up my own cocktail training company, which I did. I then found my way back in to bars, which I loved. In 2012 I answered a Facebook add for Fling Bar Services for a contract in the Maldives (which turned out to be One & Only Reethi Rah property.) This was the beginning of my career as a beverage consultant in the middle east, China, Russia, SE Asia, Caribbean which has led me to Silversea”.
So what do you get when you combine an F&B visionary who has come all the way up through the system, a beverage consultant who has travelled the world modernising bar programs and training the next generation of bar tenders? An ambitious plan to blow apart ideas of what a cruise ship bar can offer. Throw in a bar design agency with a focus on high functioning, high quality bars and the results are spectacular.
The Silversea Cocktail Trolley has been painstakingly detailed to provide the bartender with exactly what is required to execute a specific and ambitious table-side cocktail service. The vision is to give a level of personal service and guest interaction not often seen on cruise ships, and perhaps never seen in the realms of drinks service. The trolley was born out of intense and fruitful collaborative sessions that began with a blank piece of paper and ended with a clear goal and a shared vision. The result is something we’re all immensely proud of.
And creating a piece that satisfies the high level aesthetic ambition of an ultra luxury cruise line as well as the precise functionality that we at Behind Bars are very focussed on, requires a fully immersive process from all sides.
Behind Bars’ Creative Director, Samantha MacRae, and her design team worked closely with Birgit and John from day one to bring their vision to reality.
“The brief really was to create a piece that could travel around the ship as the ambassador of this amazing food and beverage concept that Silversea is building across their fleet. ”
Samantha: The brief really was to create a piece that could travel around the ship as the ambassador of this amazing food and beverage concept that Silversea is building across their fleet. From day one John and Birgit really trusted us to realise their vision. The flow of ideas between the three of us was very organic in that they had a really good, high-level idea of what they wanted and we were able to use our expertise both in design and functionality to guide the journey. Throughout the process we were mindful to keep the original brief at the top of each meeting agenda. This allowed us to explore all kinds of different directions without losing sight of what the Trolley needed to do. The relationship blossomed because we really were all contributing knowledge as a team: Behind Bars as the designers, John, whose team would eventually be using the piece, and Birgit as the visionary who understood what this trolley represented in the broader context of the F&B program and Silversea guest experience. The final outcome was a beautiful, functional bar Trolley that we hope guests will really appreciate.
Sam: “There’s obviously been a conscious decision to change the way the beverage program on your ships is executed, is that fair to say?
Birgit: “Yes absolutely, Silversea is the leader in ultra luxury cruising , but truth be told our bar program and our bar stations were not remarkably different from non-luxury cruise lines. Focus was always on the culinary programs and development. And being an all-inclusive product, kept our bars at a good but pretty standard offering , and unless a particular ship had a real cocktail aficionado as part of the team, quite predictable.
With bringing in an outside consultant, we wanted to completely unpack this way of thinking and take our craziest ideas from our head, to the paper, and then in to reality. We started with one of our ships and wanted all 8 bars on board to be unique in both offering and impression. We wanted the guest to feel that they were entering a specific venue with its own personality and atmosphere, and in the cruise line world, this is quite unique. To help us achieve this, we found Fling and John”.
Sam: “John, I’ve glimpsed your work and seen the ambition of the program and honestly, I would be quite daunted to implement this into a venue with a dedicated team on land let alone on to a ship with 8 bars and a staff that is refreshed every 6 months or so. What was the biggest challenge for you?”
John: “Patience and planning. The logistics of being at sea and the ambition of the project we are building meant that I had to totally re-learn the reality of building a forward thinking cocktail program. As an example, because re-supply points are only at specific ports around the world, you need to do your stock order about 3 months in advance. On land you do it on the Tuesday and receive the goods on the Thursday.”
Sam: “And as a beverage consultant, is there a fear that 1 year down the line, or 2 years down the line, all the building blocks you’ve put in place start to crumble?
John: “For us it’s about following up, of course, but also about empowerment and inspiring people and try to instil the same passion and love of the project that we have, and the second is leading by example and making sure that even in my absence, the staff (and future staff who I may never meet) have the tools and the training to execute the program. What we’ve experienced on this project is an enormous sense of gratitude and pride that the beverage program is being given so much attention. It really motivates people to be a part of something, to be able to grow with something and give it their all”.
Sam: “And Birgit, from an operational side, what would you say is the biggest challenge of implementing a huge change like this?
Birgit: “People. For sure, people are the hardest to change. But people are often very motivated by being given an opportunity to grow, rather than change for changes sake. Our goal is that as the first team who have come through this program eventually spread throughout the fleet, we will change the entire culture in our beverage team and really elevate the program to a world class level, which is what our guests will really appreciate”.
No easy feet. John and Birgit did roll out this revolution on the first ship the Silver Moon this summer to see what works and what doesn’t and take it from there to the remaining fleet and will continue to develop for all upcoming new build projects. I personally can’t think of anything much better than enjoying first class drinks on an ultra-luxury cruise ship.
All aboard!
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