Passover Seder - Night #1

Why is this night/year different from all other nights/years?
Because this year for the first time ever, an Oceania ship had TWO Seder nights. The entire fleet is celebrating the first night, tonight, April 1. I "rocked the boat" about 6 months ago when I got the itinerary for this sailing and realized that Night #1 was on a port day in Tonga. Thinking not too many people get to Tonga too often and knowing I wanted to share the Passover Seder experience with as many people as possible, I thought having a 5pm Service on a port day wold exclude many people that had shore excursions, and it would have since the ship did not plan to leave until after 6pm that day. Then I thought wouldn't it be great to celebrate on April 2, the Night #2. Well it took a few "mountains to be moved or climbed in the case of this holiday" to make this happen after getting in contact with Oceania Corporate management in Miami a few times, but they understood and decided to make it happen. Of course this required changes in scheduling and programming, food services, etc and would eventually require coordinating with the ship once it got closer.

So how did we end up with two Seders? The short version is that once we got on the ship and began to coordinate with the General Manager, Cruise Director, Food & Beverage Manager, Restaurant Manager, Concierge and of course the Executive Chef and the Executive Chef that was soon to join the ship, as well as all their departments ... it became a bigger project. All that being said, Oceania finally had everything coordinated, in order and planned and then something unexpected happened.

An Orthodox Jewish couple and an 2 Israeli couples said they had to have a first night Seder and that had been their tradition their entire lives and they knew that Oceania always did the first night and all the other ships in the fleet were doing the first night. To make this happen for them and the few other couples they invited, the cruise line created a carved out area of the dining room and a few Seder plates, matzo and wine, but not a Passover menu since that could only be made in the kitchen once (Night #2) and also since the person that cared most about the food was bringing on food that was prepackaged and provided by Chabad. We made it happen and the Service was short but lovely and followed by discussions about the holiday. Crises averted.Read more