Our second “at sea” day, heading back towards the USA; we managed to get on the Behind The Scenes tour of the ship! First stop, the huge main kitchen that supports the “general” restaurants … Our pre-lunchtime tour meant that a lot of prep work was happening, ready to feed up to a couple thousand people!
Further “down” in the ship we passed the garbage and sorting areas – a presentation told us that about 98% of the ships garbage is sorted and eventually recycled, often via contracts with specific USA based companies (a label on a massive tank of used cooking oil had the name of the company destined to receive it):
Then on and past the cold stores – this one for ice cream, and there’s still lots in there considering it’s nearly the end of the cruise!
By now well below the waterline, on deck one, we reach the laundry area – central there is a perhaps 20ft square machine that irons and folds bed sheets; two men feed the sheets one by one, and at the other end either nicely folded sheets, or crumpled failures, emerge! I do not want this job …
The final part of the tour took us to the bridge (right underneath our stateroom!) which was very blue; I saw the webcam that had been providing views “back home”; we were then shown one of the control stations used to maneuver the ship at port – off to the side of the bridge, with a glass floor view of the sides!
We were told that this the last picture is the Captain’s chair (though unsure if it’s a joke or real!)
M&I / GBMINI 