{"id":8038,"date":"2011-04-27T00:45:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T07:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=8038"},"modified":"2011-04-27T00:45:46","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T07:45:46","slug":"celebrity-eclipse-captain-maneta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=8038","title":{"rendered":"Eclipse Captain Destined to Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>You can see him in the buffet deciding what to have for lunch or supper, or clearing security on returning to the Celebrity Eclipse<\/a>\u2026just like everybody else. You can hear his booming voice on the intercom, every day at noon, because the Eclipse is his ship and that’s one of the things that captains do.<\/p>\n

On meeting Captain Dimitrios Manetas, your initial impression night be that he’s a “gregarious Greek” because, well, he is. He has an enthusiasm and passion for his craft that comes across loud and clear, whether he’s dining with a first-time cruiser or being interviewed on the bridge.<\/p>\n

His port of birth is Piraeus, near Athens, but for 16 years he has been guiding Celebrity<\/a> ships in and out of ports all over the world. Come Friday, he will be on the bridge when the Eclipse docks at Southampton<\/a>, its destination on a two-week journey from Miami<\/a>, and he will say what he always says after crossing the Atlantic Ocean:<\/p>\n

“I made it.”<\/p>\n

Not that there was ever any doubt\u2026<\/p>\n

“For me it is more or less the same,” says the personable and approachable master of this Solstice Class ship. “I worry a little at the beginning, I hope to have a smooth ride and at the end I say ‘I made it!’ For me, when we travel all the way from one side of the ocean to the other, it’s amazing. It doesn’t matter how many times we do it, it’s still amazing.”<\/p>\n

As a young boy, he could see ships come and go from the balcony of the house, three blocks away, where he was born. He watched uncles on his mother’s side come and go, too, after being separated from their families for 12 to 18 months. He saw enough to know his destiny.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He was born to be a seaman.<\/p>\n

“We are spoiled now,” he says. “Life was hard for them. But that didn’t bother me because the sea always inspired me. I was always curious for the unknown. I wanted to travel, to see the world, and I knew when I was a teenager, about 15, that I would be on the sea.”<\/p>\n

He worked with an uncle on 100-foot cruisers. He worked on tanker ships. He joined the Greek Navy. He worked on mega yachts. In 16 years with Celebrity, he climbed the ladder and is now one of two captains of the Eclipse, the company flagship, until the Silhouette arrives this summer.<\/p>\n

Only a few of his classmates from the Merchant Marine Academy of Hydra are still on ships for a living.<\/p>\n

“One reason is family,” Captain Minetas explains. “Sometimes you might need to pay the price. It’s not an easy thing when you see the luggage and say good-bye. Some decide to have a family. Some are meant to be at sea and have to make choices. I belong to this category. I want to stay on ships. As long as I enjoy it and as long as I have the same enthusiasm for my job.”<\/p>\n

His fiancee is Saadet Tufekci. She is from Turkey and also works for Celebrity, a company which encourages couples to work together, and is on the Eclipse. Two years ago, they were together on the Constellation during a rough Atlantic crossing via Iceland to Newfoundland. The seas were rough and the weather was bad, but it was only September so there were no icebergs and the ominous word “Titanic” was never mentioned.<\/p>\n

“It was the worst crossing I have ever experienced,” he says. “The water was hitting Deck 9.”<\/p>\n

For Saadet, it was scary.<\/p>\n

“The water,” she laughs now, “was not the spray, it was the sea!”<\/p>\n

When vacation comes around again, in about a month, she and Dimitrios have a rough idea where they’ll be holidaying \u2014 on a ship cruising the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

It’s what people of the sea do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can see him in the buffet deciding what to have for lunch or supper, or clearing security on returning to the Celebrity Eclipse\u2026just like everybody else. You can hear his booming voice on the intercom, every day at noon, because the Eclipse is his ship and that’s one of the things that captains do.… Continue reading Eclipse Captain Destined to Sea<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[71,138,451,86,432,148],"class_list":["post-8038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-celebrity","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-celebrity-eclipse","tag-cruise-ships","tag-ship-captains","tag-transatlantic-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}