6th, and final, Day at Sea

Sat Nov 7, 2015

6^th, and final, Day at Sea

9pm

I’m tired. It hasn’t been a particularly busy day. Breakfast, reading on the back porch, a double cappuccino, more reading, a spot of time in the casino…

Kyle and I, along with a few hundred people, took a tour of the ship’s galley. I haven’t done that in years. 134 people, working 24/7, keep the food supply going so that none of us ever goes hungry. 90% of the food served is made onboard. 12 people just wash dishes….alllll day long…3000 dinner plates, 7000 dessert plates, 2000 mid-sized plates, 5000 glasses and all of the assorted silverware, plate covers, platters and ramekins that goes with all of those. Each area has its own work area…room service, breakfast preps, the cold kitchen [cheeses, fruit, salads], the hot kitchen [soups, hot appetizers, grills, fryers] and the bakery [20 different kinds of bread, 120 loaves of French bread 4000 dinner rolls, 800 croissants, etc., all made daily] and the pastry shop [making pies, cakes cookies, scones, for high tea, etc.] There’s so much more! The crew have their own chefs [1 Filipino and 3 Indonesian] who prepare their meals in their quarters. The ship averages 11,000lbs of meat, 4000lbs of chicken, 3000lbs of fish and 2500lbs of seafood, per cruise. 24,000 eggs, 7600lbs of potatoes, 13,700lbs of fresh veg….The list goes on! And all of the waste MUST be recycled or properly dealt with. Some is mulched, dried and burned with dry waste in an incinerator. The cans and bottles are crushed into bricks and recycled on shore. Stuff that cannot be recycled is compacted, boxed and put in cold storage for disposal in port. It really is a fascinating place.

We did our final Canaletto dinner with the Wade sisters, from Canada. We only made it as far as the appetizers and pasta course. We had no more room for a main course! Of course, we had dessert! I only managed a few bites of my Tiramisu, which was a very large piece!

I checked out back and the air is very tropical, almost muggy. It should be another warm day, tomorrow, in port.

I did a little more packing, putting away the things I’ve worn the last 2 days. I have enough dirty clothes for another load of laundry, but there’s not enough time left. The last of everything goes in tomorrow night. We got our disembarkation and Customs paperwork. We are ‘independent travelers’ [Pink 1] and must be off the ship by 10:30am. That gives plenty of time for people, rushing to get away, to clear out.

10pm and time for bed. We want to get to town ‘early’, cuz rumor has it, some shops will close t 1pm. I also think out cheap cheap cappuccinos have come to an end. We’ll see how much they cost in the real world!