A day at Sea

Captain’s Log, May 31st: What a glorious day. Clear skies, a smooth sea and delightful views of the coastline. I’ve been able to leave a young trainee at the helm, while I’ve enjoyed lounging by the pool with the beauty salon supervisor, Annette.
A nuisance though was the message from Mrs Negibi. She’s not happy about the low number of trips booked for Naples. These trips are an important element of the profitability of the operation, and for some reason only half of the passengers have made reservations. When questioned, many have complained about the prices, but there’s little we can do about that. Naples charges us extremely high port fees, and we have to cover these somehow. In an effort to boost sales, we’ve reduced the price for the trip up the Vesuvius volcano by 10%, but it seems to have had little effect.
Right now, Mrs Negibi is trying to negotiate the port fees down, but they say that due to the ship’s past record, they won’t accept any reduction. This is totally unfair, as when the ship damaged their port facilities last year, it was under a totally different name and ownership.