17:15 NL BB
Some Borealis drivers are a mess. it is a lottery and the way they come in with their demands is both unprofessional and makes the tour harder to run.
Ragnar is generally a nice guy, but he likes to start the tour with "let me explain what is allowed in my bus" attitude. He asked me to sit in the chair and have a seatbelt on all the time. So my presentation was awkward. But then I know, he is right, the law, the law.
Then he also said that we can't use the front row, as he is afraid to get covid. I had to count the seats to figure that the bus had 57 seats. Take away the front row and we would be left with 53, which is exactly how many guests we had. So we had to convince him to let us use the seats, to which he agreed, but still wanted me to sit behind him.
He ran the engine the whole night non stop. The guests came and complained that the bus in the back is a sauna. I had no comments, asked them to take the jackets off.
Later, another Borealis BB pulled in. I spoke with the guide and we got nice separation. As we were about to make a fire, Ragnar came and said that another Borealis BB might come and that we should plan our night and fire so that there is space for them too. But then it might not show up, so he left it to us. I then decided to make a fire closer to our bus.
Then the other driver came over as we were making a fire and called us idiots as we were making it too close to the entrance to the bus. I told him to mind his business, as he was rude. But then he went to our driver and made him concerned about the fire. Then Ragnar came and made an announcement how if the fire alarm goes off in the bus, we would have to kill the fire. Then the two started moving our boxes and people and they were getting ready to move the bus without letting us know. They turned it around and the entrance was exatcly the same distance to the fire. The wind was all over the place, so it did seem pointless. In my opinion the fire was far enough and the guests were blocking the smoke either way. I would have been happy to talk to my driver and come up with a solution, but at that point it was just annoying.
The other driver was staying in our bus for most of the evening chatting with Ragnar. I hope I never meet the guy on one of my tours.
17:30 NL MB
Had a great time with the guests but because of Per it’s not a TA night.
Per: The man has a general spirit of being nice but he was tough to work around. He didn’t want to reverse to the parking for packing. His driving though town was very slow and insecure. During my introduction of the guests he quite awkwardly commented that he has lived in Rio. After my presentation I asked him to turn off the blue light and he accidentally opened the door as we drove 80 km/h on E8. He agreed to turning off the car for two shorter periods in the beginning of the night but then he had enough, didn’t want to get cold so he said there will be no more stopping of the engine. I offered a suit for him to stay warm but he didn’t want it. I talked to his boss and we agreed that next night he will have to be better dressed as we should be able to turn off the car for periods of the night. When he heard that 2x Chenghong live at penguin hotel he offered to drop them off there on the way to his garage, that was nice.