Hidden from view, maintenance steps and personnel activities on a cruise ship are non-stop. Often unseen and unheard, crew members and staff are busy performing myriad tasks to ensure that guests enjoy a dream vacation. Here's a peek at four cruise lines and their elegant ships – MSC Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line and Crystal Cruises – and how their daily operations contribute to a blissful cruise.
Cruise Ships' Public Areas Are Well Maintained
You ride the ship's public elevators but did you ever consider that those elevators are continuously maintained?
"There are 10 guest elevators on Celebrity Cruises' Constellation, and the ship's engineers regularly inspect the steel ropes," said Bernhard Stacher, Constellation's hotel director, in an onboard interview on April 30, 2011. As the hotel director, Stacher is the overseer of everything that goes on, from maintenance to inventory to housekeeping.
A lamp bulb or ceiling spotlight burns out. Who changes the bulbs? According to Holland America Line's Public Relations Department, different departments observe and report items that need attention (i.e., dining room staff report that a bulb needs replacing in the dining room; housekeeping attendants and housekeeping supervisors monitor and report items needing repair or replacement in guestrooms).
There are almost 34,000 lights onboard MSC Cruises' Fantasia, according to the cruise line's Public Relations Department. Lamps and ceiling lights are checked every day during the afternoon and at night by all housekeeping operators who report to the Housekeeper. The same procedure is repeated by all officers during inspection duties.
According to Susan Wichmann, spokesperson for Crystal Cruises, the electrical assistant from the Engine Department on Crystal Symphony is in charge of replacing light bulbs throughout the ship. He can easily replace about 300 light bulbs daily.
Whether it's a luxurious couch, a cozy chair or an end table, shipboard furniture and furnishings may tear or break. Behind the scenes, ships have carpentry departments to make necessary repairs.
On Crystal Symphony, the Deck Department is in charge of maintenance of the ship's interior and exterior. Wichmann says the carpenter and bosun routinely check public areas so that any upholstery tears or furniture damages are quickly attended to. Similarly, the condition of tables and seating in public areas on MSC's ships is checked on a daily basis, and furniture is repaired in the carpenter laboratory onboard.
Cruise Ship Galleys Run in an Orderly Manner
In a cruise ship's dining room, you enjoy nimble service, great food and conversation with tablemates in an elegant atmosphere, but when you place your food order, you probably have no idea how the waiter is getting food from the kitchen to your table.
On each of Holland America Line's Vista class ships (Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, etc.), about 110 people make up the wait staff. There are two kitchens, one for each of the two dining room levels, which makes it convenient for waiters to get, bring and serve food to guests.
On Celebrity Cruises' Constellation, guests in the two-level dining room never see the escalator that waiters ride to speedily get to and from the kitchen. That escalator sure beats walking up and down a staircase while carrying a tray.
Speaking of kitchens, a ship's galley must operate smoothly and with precision, to optimize guests' dining experience. A menu chart is posted in the food preparation areas of the galley. The staff follow the menu chart's photos and instructions – guidelines from the Executive Chef – that show the kitchen staff how and what to prepare.
After mealtimes, you leave the dining room feeling full, satisfied and finished, but in the kitchen, activity continues. Huge commercial dishwashers are at work.
About 12,000 dishes are washed onboard MSC Fantasia after every meal. Three dishwashing machines continuously wash dishes on a Holland America Vista class ship. On Crystal Symphony, approximately 1,600 plates end up in the dishwasher after a dining room seating. A separate dishwasher washes about 800 glasses.
You drink from the glasses in your guestroom, but where do they go after you've used them? On cruise ships, a closed door in guestroom corridors conceals a pantry equipped with a refrigerator and dishwasher. Room stewards take used glasses, plates and silverware from your room to these pantries to be washed and sanitized.
On Crystal Symphony, there are two pantries on each deck forward and aft (except on deck 10, which has three pantries). Each pantry has a dishwasher for the glasses, and two refrigerators for daily storing of food, fruits and dairy products that are brought to guestrooms.
Cruise Ship Laundries Wash Thousands of Linens and Towels
What happens to all those linens and towels that guests use? On a 14-night Celebrity Constellation cruise, bed linens are changed after every three nights, towels are replaced each morning and evening, and duvet covers are replaced once a week and when soiled.
Between the guests and the crew, that amounts to about 9,500 sheets, 35,000 towels, 24,000 pool towels, 20,500 pillow cases and 6,500 duvet covers! Constellation's hotel director Stracher says the linens are washed and folded by about 16 crew members in the ship's laundry room located below deck 0.
On a 7-day cruise on a Holland America Vista class ship, about 20,000 guestroom towels and 5,500 sheets, plus pool and beach towels, are washed in six washing machines in the ship's commercial laundry.
On MSC Fantasia, the onboard laundry facility washes more than 85,000 kilos of linen and towels per week. Room stewards change bed linen twice a week in standard cabins. In the MSC Yacht Club area, they change bed linens every day or twice a day if needed or requested by the guest. That's something to marvel about the next time you lay your head on a fluffy pillow and slumber on cool, clean bed linens during your cruise.
Behind the Scenes, Cruise Ships Function Methodically
Cruise ship passengers are generally oblivious to a ship's safety features, which include emergency monitoring and response technology. There are thousands of smoke detectors and hundreds of fire dampers and fire doors onboard. Often unobserved, ship personnel constantly make certain the devices are in working order.
Even a cruise ship's live production numbers in the theatre depend on smooth-running components. Backstage, away from public view, boxes, cubicles and hangers hold an array of clothing and shoes, and above the cubicles, assorted wigs sit on Styrofoam heads. On Crystal Symphony, the female dancers have a dresser whose job it is to help them to quickly change costumes.
Often, the cast is dressed in layers, so that a buttoned or zippered garment conceals another costume underneath. For male cast members, costume-changing has to be speedy and efficient in the absence of a dresser. As a female dancer on Symphony describes it, "The boys live in a world of Velcro."
And the guests? They revel in the orderly, indulgent, entertaining and relaxing ambiance of a cruise vacation, never imagining the behind-the-scenes activity as staff and crew work around the clock to ensure that guests have smooth sailing all the way.
Roberta Sandler - Roberta Sandler has written more than 1,000 articles that have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers including Miami Herald, ...
