Thursday - ship tour

Thursday was our last sea day before our first port, Ponta Delgada, Azores.

We booked a "shore excursion" for a "Behind the Scenes" tour of the ship.

We started with a tour of the backstage area of the theater. We were able to see the dressing rooms, where the costumes are stored, and the back of the stage area. We heard that the costumes are not washed often but they are cleaned with a spritz of vodka that removes stains and odors and freshens!

Then to the main galley (kitchen) for the Grand Pacific Main Dining Room and for the Magenta (smaller main dining room). The head chef escorted us and provided us with a great view into the preparations of our food.

One of the preparation areas -- there are separate prep areas for foods provided for those with food allergies so there is no cross-contamination.

The washing up area -- he gave us insight into how the dirty pots and pans come in and how the clean ones are taken out in order to avoid any cross-contamination.

The area where the waste is packaged in preparation to be offloaded at port. I think they indicated that it will be kept until our final port in Italy.

The food wastes are separated and cut up into very small pieces (1cm max) and discharged from the ship if we are 6-8 miles offshore from any land.

Down one deck was the supplies area -- one of (I think) 14 refrigeration rooms...

... looking inside the refrigeration room.

One of the freezer rooms

Meat preparation for dinner Thursday night - this was the prep area for beef and pork (red cutting boards), there is a separate area for chicken (yellow cutting boards) and fish (I don't remember the color of cutting boards!).

Next to the ship's laundry...

All the laundry for the ship is processed here.

The master of the laundry showed us a steamer for taking wrinkles out of clothes by inflating them with steam.

He also showed us the labeling machine that they use to label guest laundry to ensure that it gets back to the right person (no picture of the machine).

Big washers and driers....

... and huge washers!

Another view of the huge washers

Sheet ironer... entry point... damp sheets are fed into the machine...

... at the exit point - ironed, folded sheets (down under the blue box on the left)!

Beach towel folding machine - the head of the laundry area demonstrated, and one of the passengers made an attempt to put a towel through the machine -- it looked easy when the laundry head did it, but the passenger's attempts made it clear it wasn't so easy!

We visited the crew area - I-95 is named for the major N-S interstate in the US as this is the major corridor for the ship. No pictures allowed there. We also visited the engine control room and bridge, but no pictures allowed there either.

After the tour, walking around the outside deck we found a massive shower! Carl was acting like he was going to try it out... this is on the sun deck, so I guess if it is really hot, the shower may be used to cool down.

We returned to the Grand Pacific Dining Room for dinner and were seated along the windows aft where we could see our wake disappearing into the sunset.

For dessert, Carl had Apple-Pear Crisp with ice cream...

... and I had a caramel flan (it wasn't called flan, but I can't remember what it was called!).

We went to the show by Peter Antoniou, "Psychic Comic". He claims to be a mind reader, and certainly appears to do a good job at it!

We've enjoyed our sea days -- so much to see and do!