Day 6 - At Sea - Ultimate Ship Tour!
ok - well I said I wouldn't post unless there was something noteworthy - this was definitely a noteworthy experience!
This will be a reasonably big post - unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos - otherwise I'd have taken lots.
Some background - a couple of years back Princess introduced the "Ultimate Ships Tour" - however not many people outside of die-hard cruisers know about it - it's not advertised, basically you have to sign up at the start of the cruise and they only let 12 people attend. I tried to sign up on the first day, but they didn't have anything organised at that point - I put Dave and my names down as soon as they could take a list. Apparently it was quite popular; they had to have a lottery type draw for the places. Thankfully both of us got on the tour - it was awesome! Well worth the $180 cost. It was great to see a side of the ship that only the crew do - I'll do a little summary of the places we visited..
The Bridge - this was the first stop, it's actually amazingly close to the passenger cabins on deck 12. The controls looked more like the flight deck of a plane than a ship! Lots of computers/dials/etc, it was quite spacious. We got to meet the Captain and had some photos taken - the Captain is a great bloke, really easy to talk to and quite friendly. Then we got to go out and look at the starboard side sail - this is the bit of the bridge that juts out from the ship to allow the person steering to see the line of the ship easily - what a view! They even have a glass floor so you can look straight down. The bridge crew were very friendly and happy to answer questions.
The Galley - Immaculately clean and gleaming metal is the first impression of the galley - we were shown the different stations responsible for the food preparation, it's like an assembly line when it comes to preparing the meals. The Executive Chef gave us a tour and we had some snacks and such.
M1/I95/Highway - this is a big corridor running the length of the ship - the Stores, photo processing and management offices seem to hang off it - it's very cool, although as space is a premium, not much headroom (I almost bumped a light or two).
Stores - It's easy to forget the logistics involved in having a massive cruise like this, the massive storerooms, some chilled with tons and tons of food was an impressive sight.
Photo Processing - We got to see the massive machines that produce the photos sold in the photoshop - half a million dollars per machine (they have 2) - and can produce very nice photos (on nice glossy paper).
Printing - This is the area that produces all the paperwork for the ship - from the menus to the princess patter newsletter - two big printing machines that were put in back when the ship was first launched (13 years ago!) - Although we were told that the inside bits have all been replaced over the years. Amazingly there are only 2 full time printers in this office and they produce everything printed on the ship - right down to the business cards!
Laundry - Hot and steamy place to visit - several meters below the waterline! It's amazing the amount of laundry that is processed every day - they showed us lots of the machinery, some of it quite impressive (I like the sheet drying/folding machine - put a wet sheet in one end - the other end a nice dry & folded sheet comes out). Whatever the guys who work here are paid isn't enough - it's a REALLY hot place to work and they all do very long shifts.
Anchor Room / Bow - This is right up the front of the ship, they have all the ropes/etc and it's where they lower the anchor from! Quite a nice big workspace - we got to look out from the very tip of the ship - Gives you some idea how complex it is to tie up a ship - they have lines going everywhere!
Backstage - We got to see the backstage area for the Princess Theatre, very low headroom - I imagine it's like most backstages, just enough space to get things done. After the backstage we visited the area where they store the costumes - literally it's bulging at the seams, they're doing more shows for this cruise than any other - so they have twice the number of costumes in storage. We visited the cruise director - Warren and he explained his job - we met a lot of his staff and then he made a lot of people happy when he explained he'd just finished negotiating to get the 3 State of Origin Rugby League matches to show on the big screen - Dave was ecstatic (as were a few other people on the tour) - apparently it's costing them well over $10,000 for the rights to the games!
Afterwards - we had some Champaign and canapés in one of the lounge areas - the Captain and Cruise director also appeared and we had a nice chat with them for a while. All in all it was a very nice day - more is to come, we get some gifts as well - a Chef's jacket, a Terry Cloth bathrobe and some personalised stationery is going to be delivered later tonight.
Our tour guide was Colin - he was excellent, very informative and friendly. I'd recommend this tour to anyone who gets the chance - there's so much more going on behind the scenes than you'd think!
This will be a reasonably big post - unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos - otherwise I'd have taken lots.
Some background - a couple of years back Princess introduced the "Ultimate Ships Tour" - however not many people outside of die-hard cruisers know about it - it's not advertised, basically you have to sign up at the start of the cruise and they only let 12 people attend. I tried to sign up on the first day, but they didn't have anything organised at that point - I put Dave and my names down as soon as they could take a list. Apparently it was quite popular; they had to have a lottery type draw for the places. Thankfully both of us got on the tour - it was awesome! Well worth the $180 cost. It was great to see a side of the ship that only the crew do - I'll do a little summary of the places we visited..
The Bridge - this was the first stop, it's actually amazingly close to the passenger cabins on deck 12. The controls looked more like the flight deck of a plane than a ship! Lots of computers/dials/etc, it was quite spacious. We got to meet the Captain and had some photos taken - the Captain is a great bloke, really easy to talk to and quite friendly. Then we got to go out and look at the starboard side sail - this is the bit of the bridge that juts out from the ship to allow the person steering to see the line of the ship easily - what a view! They even have a glass floor so you can look straight down. The bridge crew were very friendly and happy to answer questions.
The Galley - Immaculately clean and gleaming metal is the first impression of the galley - we were shown the different stations responsible for the food preparation, it's like an assembly line when it comes to preparing the meals. The Executive Chef gave us a tour and we had some snacks and such.
M1/I95/Highway - this is a big corridor running the length of the ship - the Stores, photo processing and management offices seem to hang off it - it's very cool, although as space is a premium, not much headroom (I almost bumped a light or two).
Stores - It's easy to forget the logistics involved in having a massive cruise like this, the massive storerooms, some chilled with tons and tons of food was an impressive sight.
Photo Processing - We got to see the massive machines that produce the photos sold in the photoshop - half a million dollars per machine (they have 2) - and can produce very nice photos (on nice glossy paper).
Printing - This is the area that produces all the paperwork for the ship - from the menus to the princess patter newsletter - two big printing machines that were put in back when the ship was first launched (13 years ago!) - Although we were told that the inside bits have all been replaced over the years. Amazingly there are only 2 full time printers in this office and they produce everything printed on the ship - right down to the business cards!
Laundry - Hot and steamy place to visit - several meters below the waterline! It's amazing the amount of laundry that is processed every day - they showed us lots of the machinery, some of it quite impressive (I like the sheet drying/folding machine - put a wet sheet in one end - the other end a nice dry & folded sheet comes out). Whatever the guys who work here are paid isn't enough - it's a REALLY hot place to work and they all do very long shifts.
Anchor Room / Bow - This is right up the front of the ship, they have all the ropes/etc and it's where they lower the anchor from! Quite a nice big workspace - we got to look out from the very tip of the ship - Gives you some idea how complex it is to tie up a ship - they have lines going everywhere!
Backstage - We got to see the backstage area for the Princess Theatre, very low headroom - I imagine it's like most backstages, just enough space to get things done. After the backstage we visited the area where they store the costumes - literally it's bulging at the seams, they're doing more shows for this cruise than any other - so they have twice the number of costumes in storage. We visited the cruise director - Warren and he explained his job - we met a lot of his staff and then he made a lot of people happy when he explained he'd just finished negotiating to get the 3 State of Origin Rugby League matches to show on the big screen - Dave was ecstatic (as were a few other people on the tour) - apparently it's costing them well over $10,000 for the rights to the games!
Afterwards - we had some Champaign and canapés in one of the lounge areas - the Captain and Cruise director also appeared and we had a nice chat with them for a while. All in all it was a very nice day - more is to come, we get some gifts as well - a Chef's jacket, a Terry Cloth bathrobe and some personalised stationery is going to be delivered later tonight.
Our tour guide was Colin - he was excellent, very informative and friendly. I'd recommend this tour to anyone who gets the chance - there's so much more going on behind the scenes than you'd think!
Comments
you mentioned warren as your CD I presume you are talking about warren smith... we had him at xmas and he is so much better than Gavin Chandler who was advertised...
many thanks for your posts
Joanne
Sure this will be the first of many wonderful experiences for you.
Have a great time
What are you talking about? Warren Smith is so much better that Gavin Chandler??? What didn't you like about him? Probably you prefer the 'out there/fake' cruise director's, however, our group, that traveled on the Dawn Princess, found him to be a 'real person', both on and off stage. However, we are all entitled to our own opinions, and ours is that Gavin is probably one of the best cruise directors afloat and we have travelled with P&O/RCCL/Princess/Star cruises.
David