At Sea - Nov 10, 2022 - Celebrity Constellation - Penthouse Experience - Western Caribbean Cruise

We started the morning with an early morning swim in the solarium when they opened. The ship was clearly rocking a little turning the pool into a wave pool.

After a swim we returned to our suite to get dressed and then head to another great breakfast in Luminae.  We had an Inside Access tour booked for this morning so after breakfast we headed to the meeting place in Cellar Masters. We were each given an earpiece which made it much easier to hear our guides.

Our first stop was the San Marco main dining room for a presentation by an officer responsible for the dining rooms. Each waiter and assistant waiter pair are responsible for 24 to 25 passengers each seating. They generally work twelve hour days and are limited to fourteen hours per day by law. Laws require they are given an uninterrupted break of 6 hours which for waiters is their night break. They generally work seven month contracts followed by eight weeks of vacation.

Although this presentation didn't talk about sommeliers, I did have an interesting conversation with Milo, our sommelier, earlier in the week. Celebrity is one of the last main stream cruise lines that still have sommeliers in their dining rooms. We had first met Milo on this ship exactly a year earlier so I asked him if he had been able to get any time off. Fully staffed this ship would have fifteen sommeliers. During our cruise they only had eight and at times over the past year they only had two. So he was in his he very high demand. He had only had five weeks of vacation that year.

Back to the tour, we next headed down into the galley. This galley serves San Marco (the main dining room), Blu (the dining room for Aqua Class guests), and Luminae (the dining room for suite guests).  San Marco uses an electronic ticket system but Luminae and Blu which each have their own kitchen within the galley, each use a paper ticket system.

There are 15 chefs for the main dining room and five each for Blu and Luminae. There are also four chefs who work in the galley on deck one that serves the crew of about 900.  Luminae serves about ninety guests. Blu serves about 180 guests.

Executive chefs work four months on and two months off. Lower level chefs work six to seven month contracts. Each chef focuses on one part of the dish (i.e. potatoes, fish, etc.).

The escalators from the dining room to the galley.  This is how waiters bring dishes up.

Bakery

The Luminae (suite dining room) kitchen and their paper ticket system 

Where all the ice cream and gelato are made

If I recall correctly, I believe this is the pastry area.

Dishwashing 

From the galley we continued on to the storage area. This is the seafood freezer which is 21*F.

We also walked past the storage for all the recycling and garbage. They hand select ports for disposing of recycling based on how they handle it. For US itineraries, they only off-load recycling in US ports. In Europe, it depends on the type of waste. For example, Portugal takes food waste and turns it into fertilizer.

Money earned from recycling goes back to crew satisfaction.

Food waste can also be discharged at sea as long as they are at least twelve nautical miles out, measured either from an archeological base line like surrounds the Bahamas or land. When out at sea they mix the food waste with water to create a smoothie. They need to be cruising at at least six knots speed before they can discharge.

Both black water and gray water go through an advanced water purification system until it is clean and clear enough to drink before it is discharged.

Before our next stop on the tour we all needed to be searched. They separated the men and women for this.

Our next stop was the engine control room.  There is a set of controls in this room to maneuver the ship although while we were there the Bridge had the controls.  The officers in the engine control room and those in the bridge communicate constantly as they can't make decisions (except in emergencies) without coordinating with the other.

I have to admit that a lot of what he told us went over my head but it was cool to see the screens of the engine room and the underwater cameras of the propellers plus so many charts, figures, and screens with data!  If I understood the officer correctly, the ship goes through 75 liters of fuel a minute which is an improvement from the past when it was as much as 12 liters per minute.  

The engine has 8 cylinders on each side.  When engines are at 80 RPM, they can direct the ship in any direction, but when they turn at 108rpm, they cannot turn 35 degrees or more.  Vibrations are felt (usually in the rear of the ship) when they make an aggressive start or stop and cannot be avoided.  It was interesting to learn the propellers pull the ship along instead of pushing it.  The right propeller turns clockwise and the left counter-clockwise!  

They have two main switchboards, a port side one and a starboard side one plus several generators.  That way if a fire or something happens to one, they have backups and don't lose power for the entire vessel.

This giant X marks either the forward or aft side (I can't remember which) of the I-95 - a long crew hallway that runs the entire length of the ship to make it easy to transport goods and crew to different parts of the ship.  It's easy to get turned around when on the lower decks with no view outside and so this X helps crew confirm they are going the direction they need to go.

We stopped at the laundry.  The washing machine is huge with the laundry moving through different compartments and can be set to different temperatures for different types of laundry.  They have five huge dryers and then machines that will fold sheets and towels.  They can handle 300 kg of laundry an hour.  Laundry operates 24/7.

Sheet folding machine

Dryer

Towel folding machine

Watertight door - only authorized people are allowed to operate these doors as they can be very dangerous and slam shut unexpectedly if they are not operated correctly.  We survived walking through it so it must have been locked open correctly.

Our last stop was a visit to the bridge.  We were at sea and the ship was in autopilot but a female officer was at the helm monitoring everything.  They had roped off the area around the controls so we couldn't get a very close look.  

The ship uses electronic charts.  They have azopods in the back to step the vessel while at sea.  There are three bow thrusters with 8,000 horsepower to help push us away from or towards the dock.  There is a stabilizer on each side, each 5-6 meters long that help stabilize the ship in rougher waters.

The ship was at that moment in very deep waters (10,400 meters deep).  There is an AIS system that shows them the ships around them including information about them (name, length, and destination).

If they need to communicate with other ships, they can use channel 16 with their name.  Channel 06 is for collision avoidance.

They also have signaling lights and sound codes they can use to communicate with smaller ships to tell them which side to go to.  Smaller ships can maneuver much more quickly and easily and so are expected to make room for larger ships.

When they get close to a port (or are getting ready to leave a port), a local pilot boards the ship and comes up to the bridge to act as a guide.  The ship officers will have already received current information about the port including any recent changes but the local pilot really is the expert.  Usually, our own officers maintain control of the vessel while the local pilot advises but there can be times the local pilot takes over the controls.

View from the bridge 

After our tour, it was already time for lunch so we headed to Luminae which was the menu I was so looking forward to on embarkation day.

Prawn Ceviche-my favorite lunch dish in Luminae!  
(Our waiter, Rex was happy to bring me a second one.)

That afternoon, the sky started clearing up (the morning had been quite cloudy and even rainy) and so we made good use of our deck.

Knowing there would be a piano in our suite, we each took the time to learn to play something.

We took a couple more group photos, this time by the baby grand piano in our suite, before heading to one last dinner in Luminae.

Thai Beef Spring Rolls - one of Paul's favorite dishes (he ordered this from the main dining restaurant)

A special chocolate dessert the chef made me that is dairy free 

After dinner we walked through the Rendezvous Lounge and found some music to listen to in Cellar Masters.

The Strings Duo - a cellist and a violist.  We really enjoyed them.

The promenade at night

We then had to get back to our room to finish packing and get our checked suitcases out in the hall by 10:00 p.m.