Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
This week, Tina hosts the Lens-Artists Challenge. She writes, “Like many of us, I’ve been fascinated by the people I’ve encountered throughout my many travels, although I’m a bit shy about photographing strangers. So this week, our challenge is to share images of the people we’ve captured along the way.” You can read her entire challenge post here.
Her challenge allows me to share some photos explicitly processed for this post, though more images will be featured in a future Travel Tuesday post. Last November, we were invited to a special tour aboard the Norwegian Bliss. Regular readers are familiar with our love of cruising. We’ve sailed many times on NCL Cruise Line, and as a perk, we were invited on a “Behind the Scenes” tour. My challenge response features photographs of the people who make cruising special yet are seldom seen by cruise ship guests.
The Norwegian Bliss is a floating hotel with a capacity of over 4,000 passengers who are served by over 1700 crew members. The ship’s laundry can handle all the hotel, multiple restaurants, and crew laundry requirements. In addition, the laundry offers laundry and dry cleaning services to the guests. In the opening image, a manager and crew member review a passenger’s personal laundry order. In the image immediately above, two crew members load freshly washed sheets into an automatic folder. Crew members on the other end of the large machine stack the folded sheets for distribution to housekeeping crew members.
The manual laundry pressing equipment is in the background in the opening image. On our tour, one of the laundry managers demonstrated the robotic shirt press. Ship’s officers are always sharply dressed in uniform shirts that are labor-intensive to press. In this demonstration, the shirt is loaded onto a form, and at the push of a button, it disappears into the black housing, where it is steamed and pressed in only moments. A crew member then puts the shirt on a hangar for return to its owner.
When we go on a cruise, we interact with many crew members from all over the world. During this tour, we learned that most of the crew members on the hotel side of the ship start in the laundry area. They can work on their English language skills at Norwegian Cruise Lines and eventually work in positions involving interaction with the guests.
We also visited the special kitchen area, where they prepare meals with allergen-free ingredients. People with food allergies have options that ensure they don’t accidentally receive food that might cause discomfort or worse. Nut, dairy, and gluten allergies can be fatal to some. Cruise kitchens take special care to serve meals free of specific allergens.
On Norwegian Cruise Line, a person with a food allergy notifies the cruise line before their cruise. Once aboard the ship, a dedicated dietician is assigned to meet with the cruiser. On the day before each restaurant meal, the cruiser reviews the next day’s menus at their chosen venue. There are allergen-free offerings on the regular menu each day, all made in the allergen-free kitchen. If the cruiser prefers something more to his or her liking, a pre-order of the guest’s choosing is set up. Allergy sufferers can select from choices not found on the regular menu within available options. At the meal, the waiter confirms and retrieves any pre-orders made in the allergen-free kitchen.
Thanks to Tina for this week’s challenge. Many people work behind the scenes in cruise ship hotel services, engineering, theater, food service, and ship maintenance. I am sure that I have left out categories of workers necessary to support so many guests. We seldom interact with the background support staff in these giant floating hotels.
Last week, Patti encouraged us to share so many beautiful posts from cities worldwide. Next week, Sofia will lead the challenge on Saturday at noon EST. Follow her at Photographias so you don’t miss next week’s challenge post.
New to the challenge? Find out how to join in here.
John Steiner
Flare Legend Adventures
Very nice!
Thanks,, Myrela!
Very good John. I am glad I went behind the scenes too thanks 😀
Thanks, Brian!
First thing that came to my mind was that I love fresh sheets 😀 and just how many people work there to make your trip memorable
It takes a small city to support the guests of these giant floating hotels.
Mind boggling, isn’t it? Fascinated by the steam pressing arrangements. Thanks for taking us backstage, John.
It is, indeed. As guests, we are only truly aware of the crew members we interact with. It was an education to see some behind the scenes processes and the workers who make our vacations enjoyable.
Wow John, I love how you have shown people at work. It is great.
Thanks, Leanne!
Fun post! Thanks for the “behind the scenes” tour of people at work on a cruise ship!
Donna, the mounds of laundry stretched to the ceiling. The crew works hard and long hours.
Amazing! I have never seen a machine that can fold sheets and more, what a work saver. The kitchen is actually beautiful with so much shiny steel.
I can see why they are proud to give guests views of their kitchens. They are kept spotless.
Yes, my kitchen should look so perfect!
Love your narration, John.
Lovely photos!
Interesting to know about these people who make our tour worth cherishing.
Thanks, Philo. So many jobs that we don’t even think about while on a cruise.
Agree, John.
Interesting to see the behind the scenes photos. I am one of those persons, with allergies. It is such comfort to be so well looked after.
I have a food allergy as well, so I was especially interested in seeing this kitchen.
Such an interesting approach this week John! Never having been on a cruise I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes tour. The insta-press of the uniform is so cool!! I think we all need one of those 😊. Also the allergy kitchen – I’d never have thought about that. What an enterprise the whole thing is!
I can only guess what that shirt press cost, but I’m sure its one-person operation saves others for more labor-intensive tasks.
Thanks for showing us behind the scenes of a cruise ship. These workers work long hard hours and are separated from their families for long time periods.
They do indeed. Vacationers should all get to see what goes on to make their vacations special.
😊
Wowwww. Floating hotels are amazing, and I’m surprised at all the automation. We are doing our first NCL cruise, on the new Visa, at the very end of September, Rome-Trieste, insulting Dubrovnik, Split, and others. Can’t wait!
Norwegian Viva, not Visa, and ‘including’ Dubrovnik, not ‘insulting’! 😱😱
Don’t you love ‘Autocorrect?” >grin<
😱😵💫
I’ll be interested to read about your trip, John.
Interesting approach to the challenge! I enjoyed the behind the scene tour.
Thanks! More to come in a future post.
Hi John
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div>I hope you don’t mind if I send you a private message. My husband and I are looking to go
We are just leaving for breakfast with friends, but I’ll be happy to respond to your message, Karen. It will be later this morning.
I enjoyed your behind-the-scenes look at cruising, John. We saw a documentary in Canada about the entire behind-the-scenes operation. Fascinating. 1,700 crew members for 4,000 guests! Are there other tours that you’ve taken about the crew work stations on other cruises?
Automatic folder! Is there a home model?
John, where can I get one of those robotic pressers? How great they are! This was a great post with excellent photos. Seeing inside the ship’s kitchen, for example, was really nice. Thanks for sharing these insights about what we don’t always see.
It looks expensive, Egidio! I would like one my. >grin<
More photos from the tour will post on Sunday.
What a treat! Behind the scenes is always a very educating experience and a way to even more appreciate what is done for us, the customers. Loved your choices and photography – thank you fot taking us!
Stay tuned, as they say. More photos on Sunday.
♥
What an opportunity to get an insider’s view of the workings of a ship and the people that work it. Fascinating!
There will be more photos in tomorrow’s Cellpic Sunday from our tour.
[…] from our Behind the Scenes tour, you can check out my photo challenge response with descriptions here, or I’ve put all of the images into a single Flickr album here. All of these images were […]
It’s always cool to see behind the scenes. It gives a more accurate sense of how things really work. Thank you for the tour, John. I’m glad you had a chance to do it.
Indeed, a fascinating tour. Being the techie that I am, I really enjoyed the descriptions of their automation.
[…] Lens-Artist Photo-Challenge John:…People-Everywhere […]
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