Kitchen staff feeling pressure of royal visit

Preparations are ramping up at the historic Dalvay-by-the-Sea, which will host Prince William and his wife Kate in less than two weeks.

Kitchen staff at the resort said they're feeling the pressure.

"Right now, a lot," said Mitchell Jackson, the executive chef at Dalvay-by-the-Sea.

"But I think we can handle it."

The roughly 50 staff members at the inn — part of P.E.I. National Park — have known for a couple of weeks they will host the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

"Everybody signed a non-disclosure agreement and it became 'The Event,'" said Cheryl Paynter, the director of hotel operations for D.P. Murphy Inc.

"We had to ramp up our staff accordingly."

The staff at Dalvay-by-the-Sea will be joined by approximately 70 students and chefs from the Culinary Institute of Canada at Holland College. They will help manage the outdoor party planned at Dalvay, where guests will be able to sample elements of P.E.I. cuisine such as lobster, beef and pork.

The province has come up with a guest list of 1,200 Islanders who have received invitations to come and bring a guest to the party. Volunteers from across the province have been invited.

"We want to recognize them and give them an opportunity to be there, as opposed to focusing on all VIPs who get invitations to everything that happens," said Brenda Gallant, a spokeswoman for the Department of Tourism and Culture.

"This is really about Islanders. This is to ensure they feel they are a part of it."

Shari MacDonald has gotten two invitations — one for being with 4-H and another for the P.E.I. Women's Institute.

"I got one delivered by my MLA, Robert Vessey, on Saturday and one was at my house when I got home from work last night," she told CBC News.

"I wasn't expecting it at all so when the first one came it was like, 'Oh wow.'"

While at Dalvay, Prince William is expected to take part in a training exercise in a Sea King helicopter on Dalvay Lake. There is a platform being built by the lake for Kate to watch her husband learn a rescue technique used here in Canada — known as the waterbird rescue procedure.

Following that, the couple will take part in a dragon boat race.

"They'll come ashore down at the bottom of Dalvay and proceed through a native smudging ceremony, some wonderful Island talent through two or three stages and some culinary tasting as well," said Paynter.

The bands will play rain or shine, she said.

The province already has thousands of rain ponchos to hand out, just in case.