Our sea days always start with breakfast in the Pinnacle. There’s just not enough time on port-days to enjoy the experience so we limit ourselves on HAL. It's different on Seabourn because everyday is balcony day, but that's another story.
After we hit the decks for half an hour, getting a few thousand steps in credit before we embark on the ship's "behind the scenes" tour. We've done this several times and always enjoy the experience, as different stories and information surfaces each time. We start in the stores, from dry-goods to frozen meats, and fruit to bodies. We don't actually go in the latter, just walk past it, and I later confirm with a friendly staff member that no-one has died this cruise, but of course it does happen frequently - that's life!
Yos, the provisions manager takes us round this section. We see a bottle of Louis XIII (about $3500 on Land, no idea what the ship is asking) and a case of Grange ($500 per bottle) and several other rather fine wines, plus mountains of staple goods (such as vodka, gin and the kind of wines we're drinking.)
Moving on to the freezer there's mountains of prime beef in all sorts of cuts and other wonderful meats to keeps us going. In the dry store there are several tonnes of rice, flour, sugar and dozens and dozens of bottles of everything imaginable for a respectable kitchen.
We pop into the butchery to see the preparation of fillet steaks for tonight's gala dinner, and someone making Pinnacle burgers (mental note etc ...)
Next we head back upstairs and hit the galley, a sort of repeat of earlier in the cruise, except there's only eight of us today not several hundred. As per, we end up in Pinnacle admiring this beautiful restaurant, and chatting with Chef Leonardo our wonderful Pinnacle chef, and I get to discuss the raw egg situation with which he agrees, before moving on again, on to recycling.
After we hit the decks for half an hour, getting a few thousand steps in credit before we embark on the ship's "behind the scenes" tour. We've done this several times and always enjoy the experience, as different stories and information surfaces each time. We start in the stores, from dry-goods to frozen meats, and fruit to bodies. We don't actually go in the latter, just walk past it, and I later confirm with a friendly staff member that no-one has died this cruise, but of course it does happen frequently - that's life!
Yos, the provisions manager takes us round this section. We see a bottle of Louis XIII (about $3500 on Land, no idea what the ship is asking) and a case of Grange ($500 per bottle) and several other rather fine wines, plus mountains of staple goods (such as vodka, gin and the kind of wines we're drinking.)
Moving on to the freezer there's mountains of prime beef in all sorts of cuts and other wonderful meats to keeps us going. In the dry store there are several tonnes of rice, flour, sugar and dozens and dozens of bottles of everything imaginable for a respectable kitchen.
We pop into the butchery to see the preparation of fillet steaks for tonight's gala dinner, and someone making Pinnacle burgers (mental note etc ...)
Next we head back upstairs and hit the galley, a sort of repeat of earlier in the cruise, except there's only eight of us today not several hundred. As per, we end up in Pinnacle admiring this beautiful restaurant, and chatting with Chef Leonardo our wonderful Pinnacle chef, and I get to discuss the raw egg situation with which he agrees, before moving on again, on to recycling.
There’s a story here ... it’s 2013 and Carnival Corp is polluting the seas everywhere. They get the biggest fine in corporate history in 2016 and now they are the most conservative, considerate and conscientious environmentalists of the cruise world. Like a poacher turned gamekeeper, they know they were found out and now are anal about everything ecological.
We’re now looked after by the environmental officer, who shows us the many different ways things are recycled or otherwise processed for land-based handling (such as cans and tins are compacted and taken away, glass bottles are crushed and packed ready for transport to the local handler.) The company aim is to minimise the amount of waste and ensure they recycle absolutely everything possible - it’s a sound financial goal too, win win.
We move on to the amusingly named i-95 which is to US equivalent of the M1, a huge road. Most ships refer to their primary longitudinal corridor with this moniker. Roughly halfway along we enter the ECR which is as close to the engine room as we’re getting. The Engine Control Room has a look of a power station - monitors, dials and diagrams everywhere with hundred of status lights! The chief engineer gives us a wonderful insight into the workings of his domain, the five engines will deliver around 60MW of power, although consuming only 50% of this under normal circumstances they are not all fired up.
We see the power station analogy is not wasted because of course everything is electric, even the main Azipods. These are the huge screws that are nowadays the most preferred way of moving any water-bound vessel as they can be swung around 360 degrees independently and mean flexibility of movement is amazing (coupled with a battery of bow thrusters to handle the pointy end) and rudders a thing of the past.
Next we’re taken through the staff canteen area which is nice as we get to say hello to some of our special people - our waiters, concierge and a few others who look after us so very well. We drop down three floors to C deck, just below the waterline (there’s two even lower we don’t visit) and pop into the laundry area.
Washing and drying for almost 3000 customers and staff is another 24/7 venture. There’s several (I counted at least three) industrial washing machines which take 180lbs at a time, the drum divided into three sections to make balancing easier. There are two smaller ones for posh linens. Then there’s six tumble dryers, each capable of holding 200lbs.
Next is the exciting specialist stuff - an ironing machine 10 foot wide, and inline with this a folding machine so the sheets and tablecloths pass seamlessly along and come out in perfect stacks at the end! Even more impressive is a trouser steamer which after sealing the waistband and both legs then blows them tight with steam and then cool air so they are dry and pressed perfectly. And the best is a machine that takes in a shirt on a hanger and 45 seconds later delivers it dry and pressed - amazing.
I could have stayed all day, laundry being something of a mystery to me, but we move again, from -3 to +8 and our final stop - the bridge. Third officer Anders is in charge and he talks us through lots of the wonderful switch gear and monitors scattered all around. We concentrate on the starboard arm, it sticks out beyond the footprint of the ship so views all around are possible, including the glass floor to aid parallel parking. Here are controls for everything in triplicate - replicating the ones in the centre and those in the port arm.
We look at navigation, balancing using water stored around the ship, fire controls, suicide cameras (it does happen) and many others systems, Anders is young and enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable (which is handy since he’s driving - in fact there are four on the bridge - Anders’ no 2 and two lookouts as well, so we’re not going to cause a crash being here.) There are some wonderful belt-and-braces systems like an old fashioned steering wheel, a telegraph (the sort with full ahead, full astern written around a wheel - this is still a lawful requirement) although it’s more modern looking.
Captain John comes up to see us and chats a while, before he gives his noon-day speech on the tannoy - a wonderful tradition we’ve missed on some ships recently.
After this exciting tour we hit the decks for an hour before heading to Pinnacle for our only lunch this cruise, to test out the burgers we saw earlier. Happily they are excellent, but we skip pudding and I dash off to a cooking demonstration whilst Hubby chats with Ady the delightful MD who has been so attentive this entire journey.
The cooking turns into a farce when the induction rings won’t behave, the cruise director does a reasonable rescue and Chef Leonardo looks like he’ll happily kill someone but smiles throughout!!
Soon the back deck and pool beckon so we’re getting some rays, a jacuzzi and swim in between me posting the entire tour onto the HAL group that hasn’t banned me. It’s incredible how interested people are in the photos - a real success. I will post them here in a separate album eventually.
The classical programme is ballet music again so we’re giving it a swerve, but after drinkies and canapés on our balcony we hit the company show for a while, and then head to Pinnacle for the last black-tie event of the cruise.
Our lovely Daniel decides we must have an additional course of lobster between the starter and main, so the dinner gets a bit carried away and we don’t bother to return to the show, not that it was very appealing to us.
We check the duelling pianos and then call on our train chronies for a short while and finally stumble home to read and write on the balcony for a while.
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