A Shipboard Tour

During our cruise, we did a ship tour. We had to pay for the tour, but it lasted for four hours and we received several gifts from the departments we visited, drinks and canapés and a photo with the captain so we were well pleased.

Behind the scenes on a ship is absolutely fascinating. We started in the Princess Theatre and learned about the lights, the dancers and singers and the costumes. During the course of the cruise, we saw four cabaret-type shows. The sheer number of costume changes amazed me, and when I saw how small the changing rooms were I was even more impressed. Many of the costumes were very heavy as well.

We visited the laundry, which is below the water line and is a very busy and steamy-hot place. The laundry is in action twenty-four hours a day to keep up with all the onboard washing and ironing.

The anchor is immense and has several backups so it doesn’t become loose at the wrong time. The printing shop where they print everything from menus to daily newspapers and the ship newspaper (The Princess Patter) to TV guides is also small and staffed by two people.

During the course of a cruise, a team of photographers and videographers constantly photograph the passengers. The place where they print the thousands of photographs is also small, and it’s amazing that they manage to get the prints done. All repairs to the photography machines are done onboard, so the head of department needs to be a jack-of-all-trades.

Next was the galley, which is spotlessly clean and incredibly busy during service times. It’s a very delicate balance trying to work out how much food it will take to last the length of each cruise. On the cruise we were doing food and supplies were taken aboard in Sydney and Honolulu. There was a fair amount of consternation amongst passengers when the ship ran out of bananas. Most of the passengers came from Australia and it seems Australians love their bananas! The store rooms and chillers were crammed with meat, fruit, vegetables plus raw and canned goods. The workers are rotated to avoid boredom.

We visited the engineering department, where they generate electricity for the ship, before heading to the bridge to meet with the captain and his officers. We finished with drinks and canapés.

During our visit to the galley, we received a chef’s jacket each. I put mine on today while I was cooking vegetarian chili for dinner. It made me feel very “chef-like”. I even managed to get it dirty when I opened a can of kidney beans. The juice shot over my chef’s jacket, my face and glasses, so it’s now officially christened!!

Here’s a photo of me in my chef’s jacket.