What Goes On Below Stairs

I have just read an article about “turnaround” days on the Royal Princess. You do tend to forget as a passenger just how much work goes on below stairs as it were. With the new TV programme on now following the Regal Princess you will get a glimpse of what goes on, but of course, only what they want you to see.

Did you know (or guessed) that staff only have about 12 hours to dock, clear and clean the ship before new passengers get on?  As you are probably aware, the night before you disembark, your suitcases are left outside of your cabins. These actually start coming off the ship early morning then of course in various stages “you” the passenger. The ship then has the usual HMRC inspection and clearance.  Then from about 0700 it will take about 6 hours to load all the new goods onto the ship. In the kitchen the planning and work going on is tremendous. Your looking at making bread, pastries, croissants, doughnuts to name but a few. Then there is the main lunch and dinner to be prepared. Alongside this you are looking at floor to ceiling rooms been filled with wine, whisky etc.

In the medical suite the Doctor on board is expecting drugs, dressings, vaccines to come up. This needs to be done quickly as a lot of medication needs to be kept in the fridge.

The engineering crew are busy making sure the heavy fuel and diesel oil is on board along with all the drinking water.

As we are all arriving in the main check in lounge our suitcases are collected, scanned and then await to go on the ship. On the ship we have teams of domestic staff, cleaning. The staff usually have about 15 or 20 cabins to look after and 15 to 20 minutes in each cabin. I bet they love the fitted sheets!

In all this time you also have any handovers of crew. You will have crew leaving the ship, new crew arriving and all the paperwork that goes with that as there are so many different nationalities working on board.

It must be a very stressful time for the Captain and his officers when passengers are embarking on the ship – so much to make sure is right, along with passenger safety – tensions must be high.

Next time we are all sitting in the cruise terminal, waiting to get on board, just have a think about all this work going on so we can have a good time, I know I wont moan about waiting so much, what about you?