Passengers

This ship is labelled as English-speaking, which means many of the staff speak English, and many passengers too, but not all of them. There are five groups of passengers by language: English, Spanish, German, Danish and French. Each group has at least one guide who speaks their language plus Russian.
On-board announcements are made in each language, so everyone gets the message. Of course, many folks, staff and passengers alike, have more than one language. One guide, Olga, is native Russian, but is also proficient in English and French. I think I heard Italian too, but not as a separate tour group. Anyhow, we are quite a multi-national ship. When we took lessons in Russian folk songs, we were all speaking the same words to the songs--even tho we did not understand the meaning. Our music instructor called us an international choir. The English  speakers were fromall over the world--US, UK, Australia, New South Wales, Scotland.
There was a small gray haired woman from Scotland-she appeared to be in her 80s. Her hair was thinning. Her companion was her adult grandson. She took his arm when we were walking, but otherwise was very independent and kept up with the group despite some very long and tiring days. We spoke with several couples and some single folks from time to time. We especially connected with the guide from the Danish group, Tatiana. She sat near us in the restaurant and David struck up a conversation about how difficult it must be to serve as a guide and try to keep everyone satisfied. She agreed. She is in demand because she is fluent in Russian, her native language, but also speaks English and has lived in Norway/Denmark for several years. She has to turn down requests to guide in order to have some off-duty personal time, or she would be constantly on cruises.We met a couple from Toronto, Sandy and Frank. She is a retired nurse. Diane Barry from New South Wales, will be in Budapest visiting a friend at the time we will be there, so maybe we will see her again then. Of course a common theme among the passengers is where we have travelled and where we plan to go next year.
The ship assigns dining room seating by language, so folks can more easily communicate. When we leave the ship for tours, the busses are also divided by language. I imagine the logistics for staff to coordinate all this are quite a challenge. Sometimes two groups are merged, so the guide then needs to be tri lingual--spanish, english, and russian, for example.