I’m back from my
on the
with a big on
my face.
Like a good
I took lots (over 1400) pictures of
and
and
I also swam with a
Because I’m weird, and my brain is just programmed this way, whenever I’m in a busy place like an airport, a train depot, or in this case, a cruise ship, I entertain myself by observing “the system” at work. If you’ve ever watched one of those documentaries showing the behind-the-scenes work that takes place on a cruise ship, you know what system I’m talking about. In a lot of ways, it’s not unlike running a complex software system.
Get Off My Ship
It amazes me how quickly they can turn these ships around for the next voyage. Following a series of precisely timed and coordinated exercises, the ship is emptied of passengers and luggage, cleaned from top to bottom, reloaded with food and supplies, and then loaded again with new passengers.
With 13 decks and a capacity of over 3,000 passengers, the bottleneck on a cruise ship tends to be the elevators. That explains how I was able to get Fitbit credit for climbing 331 flights of stairs during the cruise.
To manage concurrency around the elevators, passengers are unloaded (and loaded) in batches, using zone numbers assigned based on boarding priorities, room assignments, etc.. At any given time, there is a limited number of people entering or exiting the ship. This keeps traffic moving without clogging up the I/O channels (the elevators).
Restocking The Pantry
As soon as the people and luggage are off the ship, a parade of forklifts forms, loading things onto the ship. Food, supplies, everything needed for several days at sea. The amount of food loaded onto these ships is staggering – one statistic that I saw was something like 56,000 watermelons for a 7-day trip. I think I ate three of them myself.
Cleanup On Deck 7
The housekeeping crew is amazing – they can turn a room around (cleaning, fresh bed linens, towels, etc) in 10 minutes. It’s the same, repeatable process, followed time after time after time, day after day after day, silently happening in the background. On a normal day, you’ll wake up, go hit the buffet for breakfast, maybe leave the ship for an excursion, and when you return, your room (cabin in ship-speak) is spotless.
On the last day (debarkation day), the cleaning crew follows the same zone numbering system as the departing passengers. As the cabins are vacated, the cleaning crew swoops in and cleans up the mess. By noon, every cabin has been cleaned and is ready for new occupants. Ultimate efficiency provided by a repeatable, rerunnable process.
All Hands On Deck
By noon, all of the passengers are off the ship, and they reverse the flow of the system. New passengers, again batched using zone numbers, are allowed to board the ship. This is a roughly three-hour process. Those who paid for the “faster to the fun” package, sort of a VIP thing, are the first to board, and they get to spend the entire afternoon relaxing on the ship. Yes, I was among them. By 1:00pm, I had a drink in hand and was enjoying the view of the Miami skyline from the top deck of the ship.
By 4:00pm, the ship was fully loaded, cleaned, restocked, and ready to head out to sea again. By 4:30, we were in open water and Florida was a distant memory. And that’s when the seasickness started.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
The water was exceptionally rough leaving Miami, and my poor wife found herself violently seasick. I went down to the medical center, where they gave me some medication to help. Shortly afterwards, our cabin steward dropped by to check on her and offered some suggestions on how to ease the symptoms. How did he know she was ill? The medical staff notified him. Two different “teams”, one notifying the other that a customer had a problem, and then working together to help address the problem.
From that point forward, every time we saw him or any member of the housekeeping staff responsible for our cabin, they asked how she was feeling. And they addressed us by name, every single time. We were just two more faces in an endless stream of customers, but it didn’t feel that way.
Can you imagine how much different this would have been if the initial call from the medical staff was met with “Yeah? How’s that my problem?”.
One Card To Rule Them All
An ocean cruise to multiple foreign countries has the potential to be REALLY complicated. You need some way to identify passengers entering/exiting the ship. You need a way to secure the cabins so that passengers’ belongings are safe. You need a way for passengers to be able to pay for things (things = drinks) on the ship.
Carnival simplifies all of this with a sort of “single sign-on” system, a credit-card-like device called a “Sail And Sign” card. This single card is your room key, your boarding pass to enter and exit the ship, and your “charge card” for any on-ship purchases that you make. There’s no need to carry around cash or credit cards. Just a simple multi-purpose authentication and payment device providing security AND convenience for the customer, simultaneously encouraging them to spend money.
More Rum
Yeah, I told you, my brain is wired this way. Maybe I should have turned it off when I got on the ship. Where’s the rum? Oh, found it…
If you want to see some of those 1400 pictures that I took, I’ve posted some of the better ones:
