A user at Imgur has put up a photo essay about an in-depth tour of the cruise liner 'Allure Of The Seas'. She's one of the largest passenger vessels ever constructed, almost a quarter of a million tons by the net tonnage standard, carrying up to 6,296 passengers and 2,384 crew. That's the population of a not-too-small town.
The pictures show everything from the above-deck recreation facilities to behind-the-scenes operating, catering and storage facilities in the bowels of the ship. Here are a few examples, greatly reduced in size to fit this blog.
30 feet of lobster!
The dairy storage room - 3 days' supplies!
Engine room controls
There are many more pictures at the link. Click on any of them to see a larger version. Interesting stuff.
Peter
5 comments:
We have entire counties around here with fewer people than that ship carries. Sounds horrible.
Been on two RC cruises, enjoyed them both. But a long talk with a member of the "motel" staff taught us that the crew isn't always treated as well as you'd think. They don't eat nearly as good as the guests, and they're not allowed to eat any leftovers. He said most of the time all they got for dinner was beans and rice.
Of course, they may have been weedling for a bigger tip. But both my wife and I believed him.
Disney is the only major line "flagged" in the US, so they follow US labor laws. Most of the other lines are flagged with countries that have no or weak labor laws.
Just something to remember when you go on a cruise and balk at leaving good tips: some of the cleaning staff makes about $2.00 US per hour. Food an lodging are free, of course...but still...the hotel staff makes most of their money from tips.
Disney ships are flagged out of the Bahamas, not the US, but they have a reputation to uphold that few other cruise lines needs to maintain.
We've been on the Disney Dream a couple times, not quite as big as the Allure, but still pretty darn large. It's outright amazing what is on these massive ships. I wish they did an "underbelly" tour like this on the Disney ones- the logistics that go into having that many people on board and give them a good time have to be astonishing.
Wow, 104 photos, and none of any safety equipment. Reading between the lines of his photo captions, I'd say he's totally clueless. So typical.
Disney is about the worst of all the cruise lines in terms of crew safety training, standards of professional knowledge and conduct and vessel quality and maintenance. During the summer when they're visiting New York and winters in St. Maarten, I have had the unfortunate duty to manage their refueling operations. The silent-screen standby footage of a 'Chinese Fire Drill' applies, only with Russians and a LOT more drunken conflict. They can't spring for western European engineers, and no Americans will work there, as our deckhands make more than Disney pays their captains.
As for Will's comments, I wouldn't expect much for the author. Most of the comments he got wrong were quite badly wrong. The engine room is not too hot for people. It's mostly automated, and thus called 'unmanned' because it doesn't require 24/7 care. The chief engineer can monitor a lot of things right from his bedroom. The comment about the 3 engines was way out. There are no engines as such- there are many large generators, and these turn electric motors attached to swiveling propellers, which are most certainly NOT in the bow of the ship. The controls are KaMeWa controls for the computer that controls the steering system, not for the engines. It's fly by wire. The comment about the ARPA (radar plotting computer) was outright ridickulous. An ARPA doesn't detect anything. It integrates the GPS, AIS (A radio transponder like an air-traffic controller sees), Gyrocompass and radar to display all these things and simply repeat the radar image and add useful things to know about the things you're looking at, like their course, speed, vessel name, closest point of approach to you, and time to closest approach. It's got all the computing power of a Casio wristwatch, but is a nice item of convenience.
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