Have you ever been on a cruise ? I recently went on my first cruise , and it was on one of the biggest ships you ’ll regain . The allurement of the Seas — the 2d in Royal Caribbean ’s haven year and formerly the cock-a-hoop sail ship in the world — is effectively a floating Ithiel Town with a capacity for 5,400 passengers and 2,300 crew members .
The experience apart , the cruise also offered an chance to learn more about the privileged workings of a Royal Caribbean ship . Considering the logistical operation required to secure unruffled navigation , it was an opportunity I could n’t pas up .
From the galleys that supply grand of meals in a individual sailplaning to how the ship handles supply to the locomotive control room and even a quick trip to the bridge circuit , here ’s a behind - the - picture tour of Allure Of The Seas , captured on theiPhone 16 professional .
Feeding the 5,000+ passengers
The spell kicked off in Main Dining Room 5 , and a lack of light instructions left Michael Fisher — aka MrMobile — scrambling to link up the group before the tour commence . It ’s worth noting that if you reserve this tour , the operator have pictures and cabin numbers game for everyone booked on it .
Below is the smallest of the three dining rooms ( it takes over 1,000 staff members to ensure passenger are fed every eve ) .
After signing a discharge human body , it was clock time to give up things off with a tour of the kitchens , of which there are multiple across several levels . To say this is a commercial operation would be an understatement ; the kitchens are basically the heart of the ship and responsible for all of the food serve across the Main Dining Rooms , specialty eating place , and the various vendors on board .
It ’s a gigantic sweat involving hundreds of faculty and a polished process where everything incline like clockwork . There are different grills for dissimilar types of meat to prevent cross - contamination and control that it ’s cook to a proper temperature . Meanwhile , the bakery delivers all the bread , ringlet , parched goods , and cookie suffice on circuit card . It ’s worth remark , however , that the pizza dough is sourced outwardly , although the bakeshop can ply clams when require .
I ’ve been in a few commercial-grade kitchens , but nothing remotely comes close to this musical scale . Hundreds of assistant , cook , and executive chef prepare meal around the clock . There are giant value-added tax containing grand of liters of French onion soup and tomato sauce , and they have to make several more when it ’s on the carte .
feed 5,000 - plus passengers — rent alone the M of gang onboard — requires a tidy sum of processes , a specific system of rules , and many provisions . The latter is where our tour took us next .
The infamous I-95 corridor
If you ’ve been on a cruise ship , you ’ll make out that rider staircase are wide , carpeted , and comfortable . As we cut across the kitchens and make our way to the bottom of the ship , I point out that the crew staircases are the accurate contrary . This theme continues throughout the tour : As you might expect , the passenger - present areas are decorated well , while the crew - only arena are far less glamorous .
Having made our way on a lower floor , we ’re on the I-95 . No , not the freeway you ’re used to , but something kin to a cruise equivalent . Like its land - base U.S. namesake , the I-95 is the main throughway and how victuals and crew move around the ship . As you’re able to imagine , it ’s somewhat chaotic if you ’re not used to it , and it was fairly officious in the middle of day three . think this was an inadvertent ocean twenty-four hour period due to 40 - plus mph tip preclude us from docking in Nassau and the boat was almost at content , it feel far less chaotic than I would have expected .
The I-95 is also where all planning are store . There are separate boxes for dissimilar types of meat , vegetables , Pisces the Fishes , poultry , and other stock-still good . Each is temperature - ensure to see that the produce does n’t go bad . That seems to be a somewhat rarified occurrence , as the ship usually only stocks enough produce for a calendar week ’s worth of cruising . As delightful as icebox box are , I chop-chop lost interest group in the details in this section and instead marveled at the vaporous size of the operation behind one of the biggest cruise ships in the public .
Into the engine control room
Down the I-95 and to the left , we find ourselves at the Engine Control Room , the mechanical heart of the ship . At sea , there is always at least one railroad engineer in this way , keeping an centre on the six engines that power this 200,000 - plus - ton ship through the waters .
As we slowly cruise back to Miami at a stop number of 4 mile , we ’re only using two of the six engines . An alarm goes off , but while some of us appear concerned , the engineers are n’t and quickly dissolve it . There are technical drawings and diagram across the various walls and on the league board in the midsection of the room , as well as an array of screens that expose a multifariousness of essential data metrics .
Any engine driver knows the value of precise data , and the railway locomotive control room is set up to provide exactly that . I ’m not very marine , but listening to my fellow tour members , it ’s clear that it ’s an impressive setup . I love number , and the railway locomotive control elbow room has many critical ones , like ship speed , depth , and wind speed .
Up to the bridge
Have you ever marvel where the bridge is on a cruise ship ? It ’s the place where the officers reside and drive the boat from , so you ’d think the nosepiece would be in a secluded part of the ship . Surprisingly , the opposite is true ; it ’s behind a work party - only door at one end of a passenger deck . The door looks no dissimilar from any other threshold in a corridor , except that behind this door lies a sacrosanct part of any ship . We had security with us who enabled access to the bridge , and there are belike many precautions to stop unwanted approach .
The span is beautiful and a primal grounds that I book this tour . The headwaiter refer to it as the public ’s enceinte business office , and pay the impressive bank of windows that provided a arresting view directly ahead , I can see why someone would love this career . Beneath us in front of the bridge , we can see the helipad , as well as the deck area that ’s only approachable by the crowd .
The bank of windows makes sense , as it ’s all-important for visibility . At 1,181 feet long and press 225,000 stacks , the Allure of the Seas is an enormous ship , so visibility is cardinal . Turning it around is n’t an loose feat , and at a pace of some 3 degrees per bit , it lease around two time of day for the ship to perform a terminated U - turn .
Bitten by the cruising bug
The bridge mostly made the tour worthwhile overall — although it ’s not something I would in all probability do again . But the icing on the bar was meeting the captain . He ’s from Sweden and has been with Royal Caribbean for 20 year . The first and second officers have also been with the company for years .
Beyond this tour , there are so many things to do on the 18 - deck cruise ship . From the pools on Deck 15 to the gambling casino on Deck 4 to the boardwalk on Deck 6 to Central Park on Deck 8 , three years was n’t enough to really experience everything .
I ’m already planning my next sail . The only question is , which ship will it be on , and which phone from ourbest smartphonelist will I take next ?
