What Happens Below Deck on a Cruise Ship
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Cruises Editor
Cruise Ships
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When it comes to cruise ships, the facts and figures can be mind-boggling. The world’s biggest cruise ships can carry almost 8000 passengers and crew – in other words, more than the populations of Castlemaine in Victoria, Mareeba in Queensland or Cooma in NSW. While the ships are at sea, it’s like keeping a small town running.
Next year the world’s biggest ship, Harmony of the Seas, will make her inaugural voyage from Southampton to Barcelona before repositioning to Florida to cruise to the Caribbean. The 16-deck ship will be able to carry 5479 passengers and 2394 crew members. Harmony will out-measure the world’s current biggest ships, her Royal Caribbean International stablemates Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas.
The numbers that go into decorating a ship this size are almost beyond comprehension. As Harmony goes through her fit-out in France, she will require 90,000 square metres of carpet and 500,000 litres of paint. Let’s hope the interior designers choose the right colours and patterns!
But what goes into making a cruise ship run smoothly once she is in operation? A lot of the magic happens on the lower decks, where the kitchens, laundries and crew quarters are tucked away out of sight. The kitchens feature coolrooms, storerooms, pantries, food-preparation benches, stovetops and a dish-washing area. Those who “plate up” the meals often follow photos of how the finished meal should look. The kitchens also prepare separate meals for the crew. As they are usually on board for months at a time, they have their own recreation areas and sometimes even a swimming pool.
Australia’s biggest cruise line, P&O, gave us an insight into its food and beverage operations. On each P&O cruise, some 80 tonnes of food and drink are consumed. Each ship, such as Pacific Jewel or Pacific Dawn, has 93 chefs, cooks and bakers who prepare more than 8600 meals a day for passengers and crew.
Guests are served by 146 waiters – with the 13,000 dirty plates, 10,000 glasses and 15,000 pieces of cutlery cleaned by 29 dishwashers each day. On an average Pacific Island cruise, the kitchens will go through about 50,000 eggs, 1000kg of bacon, 2800kg of chicken, 1000kg of lettuce, 2500kg of rice, 375kg of coffee, 1500kg of pineapples and 5000 litres of milk. That’s some shopping list!
Beverage consumption figures for Cunard’s Queen Victoria, which carries 1997 passengers, make for interesting reading. Each year this ship, which celebrates the golden age of ocean travel, goes through 954,681 cups of tea and 26,789kg of coffee. You could fill 363 bathtubs with the amount of fruit juice that’s drunk, while white wine (119,600 bottles) just pips champagne (119,400) in popularity. Passengers also drink 109,000 bottles of red and 3900 bottles of dessert wine.
On board Queen Victoria’s sister ship, Queen Elizabeth, guests work their way through more than 140,000 toothpicks each year. Passengers are also very fond of smoked salmon, consuming almost 5870kg a year, along with 54,947kg of scrambled eggs.
Some ships that relocate to new home ports have their offerings tweaked to suit their new passengers’ tastes. When Carnival Legend relocated from the United States to Australia in September 2014, she underwent an “Aussification” that included better coffee, the addition of a sushi bar and a pub. Guests on board Carnival Legend for a week typically work their way through 3000 steaks, 2268kg of poultry, 13,700 potatoes, 5320 bananas and 3000 apples.
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