04/30/04

The main atrium is a three story structure and is the heart of the ship with shops, Tastings, guest services, and the piano player.  The staircase circled around from floor to floor which presented a bit of a problem for us. You simply could not avoid one of the primary smoking areas if you used the stairs to get from the top to the bottom.  A minor irritation.

The person at the desk below was extremely nice and deserves special recognition.  Unfortunately she really did not want too much publicity so I will refrain from giving everyone her name here.  Let's just say that she is from Canada.  This brings me to a interesting point about the Century.  Unlike Holland America where most of the crew are from a limited number of countries, the Century crew were from all over the world.  Each person had their name and country on their badge.  It was fun trying to catch the accents and placing the people based on their accents before looking at their badges.

The picture below left was taken at night.  Without the outside sunlight shining through the windows, the atrium was dependent upon interior light which gave it more subdued colors.