Wednesday, March 13
Sunny and 15C. We are travelling 50 km off the coastline. We are a bit disappointed that we aren't closer to the coast. The water is 1000 meters deep.
Today we were at sea again. Chile is a long country! To break up the monotony of the At Sea days, this morning we booked a Behind-the-Scenes Ship Tour.
Highly recommended but not cheap! We were told to wear long pants and close-toed shoes. Unfortunately, NO PICTURES allowed on any of the tour 😒. There were 14 of us on this tour, and apparently long waiting lists.
We had a lesson from staff in the Main Dining Room. There are 2 levels of the dining room, and each can serve over 1000 passengers at a time. Each level has 72 waiters and 72 assistant waiters.
We visited the Main Galley (kitchen area) to learn how 15,000 meals are prepared EACH DAY. Anton asked if they ever break any plates? We were told that when the ship is rocky, sometimes a whole stack of 120 plates will fall over and break. All the different waiters wore scarves around their necks, and the colour determined the rank, from yellow at the bottom to black at the top. Also, each specialty restaurant has its own galley.
Provisioning informed us of all the ingredients the ship goes through. They have fridges that are bigger than our house! For example, 10,000 bananas and 8500 pounds of watermelon per cruise. Many people claim that Celebrity provides the best food of all the cruise lines.
According to https://cairnscommunications.com/2021/02/09/cruiseday-tuesday-how-cruise-ship-meals-are-prepped:
At 2500 passengers and a thousand crew, it is about mid-size for modern cruise ships.
In a typical week, it would normally use 20,000 eggs and two tonnes of chicken (whichever comes first), three tonnes of beef, 200 kilos of coffee, and 100 slices of pizza every hour!
Add a tonne of bacon and the same of french fries, two tonnes of cheese, seven thousand croissants daily, and 80 different varieties of vegetables, and you can see it is just a bit busier than the average home kitchen 🙂
After the large storage area that we passed through, they took us to the waste control room. They have a glass crushing machine, and a huge bag (the size of my car) held the glass pieces. The waste is all sorted and processed and some is dumped at sea, but there are rules about how far off land you can dump it. For example, no dumping in the Strait of Magellan.
Next we got to visit the Bridge! We saw the navigation and communications equipment in action. It was pretty quiet up there. Great view! The captain was not there but he has to be there for all departures and arrivals. The captain has the shortest contract of everyone on board the ship: 3 months on and 3 months off.
In the Engine Control Room, we learned about the onboard systems. There are 3 bow thrusters and 2 azipods (a marine propulsion unit). The azipods pull the ship through the water rather than push it, apparently it is more fuel efficient. The ship uses 6000-7000 liters of fuel every hour (200 tons per day).
There are 4 diesel electric generator engines that power the ship. 60% of the power goes to the azipods. 40% is used to run everything else.
We got to stroll along the I-95, the main highway for the crew, running down the center of the ship.
In Laundry we saw machines that can hold 264 pounds of laundry per load.
For some reason, they didn't take us to see the ship's jail, which they call a brig. Here's what a large cruise ship brig looks like:
They also didn't take us to see the ship's morgue, but all cruise ships have them! Ships are required to carry body bags, and the body can stay in the morgue for up to a week. There are usually 3 to 6 compartments:
The whole tour lasted 2 hours and took us right to lunchtime. These are some of the cakes from the "extra vaganza":
After lunch, there was an afternoon matinee where the Production Cast Singers did Broadway stuff. Anton stayed in the cabin to rest, but Frankie absolutely loved the show. Especially when they did Les Mis and Abba. The lead singer (who starred in Topper) has just come off an international tour of Jersey Boys.
We thought we would try something different, so we headed down to the casino. It's only allowed to be open while in international waters. Insert key pass card and bet as much as you want LOL. Frankie tried her luck with $20 and quit when she had $28. Anton tried his luck with $10 and quit when he had $0.
Our last dinner with Bukhari and Jomike! We've been with them since the beginning of the cruise.
The evening show was an acrobatic show: Duo Vvo (Vladimir and Veronica). They are a Ukrainian couple who have lost their coach and training facility.
Some of the crew came to say goodbye.
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