Second Sea Day

Today we awoke at 06:30, and what did we see right outside our balcony,,, a rainbow,,, so close we could almost touch it. So then we got ready to do The Ultimate Ships Tour, at 08:30 We went down to the International cafe, to have a cappuccino and a coffee and egg muffin. While we were eating we met a couple that had just been on the cruise before this one and they gave us a lot of info for our South American cruise next year. We will try to meet them again, later.
So at 08:30 we met our guide and proceeded on to the tour. We started in the theater, up on the stage, I saw this part before, but it was still very interesting.
Then we went to the bow of the ship, to see the anchors and all the paraphernalia that it takes to put out the anchor, and the ropes that hold the ship at the dock. I knew they were big, but seeing them up close and personal, was really something.
Then it was on to the kitchen. Now when we did the Chefs table, we got to go in the kitchen, but this time it was much deeper, all the way down to deck 2, it is just amazing how large an area it is that holds all the stores for the ship. And all the food is from the States! It is shipped in, by container, to meet the ship. We were not allowed to take pictures, or even bring our cameras, so I have nothing to show you.
We then moved on to the meat prep area, and the Chef told us about how many people work there and how they keep it all clean and, separate. One of the guys cutting up chickens, can cut up a whole chicken in less then two minutes!

I will let Ed take over here on some of the other things, as the next stop was the engine control room. Two of the engineers briefed us on operation of the fresh water generation from sea water system, the integrated electrical generation and distribution, and the ship propulsion system. The ship has six large Diesel Engines which generate over 60,000KW of electrical power. The ship normally operates on 5 engines during daily operations. The ship also has 6 thrusters, 3 forward and 3 aft. The ship has a fresh water capacity of 750,000 US gals and can produce 500,000 gals per day. Clearly a the capability to support a small community. It was noteworthy to us to understand that the design architecture of the Star Princess or any other Princess ship's electrical distribution was not similar to the Carnival ship design. The engineers also highlighted Princess's redundancy requirements. It was very impressive.

We went to the Photo-lab next to be briefed on their transition to digital operations and implementation of photo recognition technology. We noted that the photo operation was a Princess operation, not a concession. They indicated their goal was to sell at least 50% of the photos. And Cindy told them that maybe if they lowered the price to say $15 more photos would be sold, she said write it up, so we will. We then proceeded to the printing operation to observe the publication of the daily Princess Patter and learned that they have not transition to digital technology due to their concern of the brittle nature of the technology.

We then proceeded to the ship's bridge! Wow what a treat! Our new Captain Lubrano was quite charming and gave us a good tour of the Bridge and gave lots of technical stuff that Ed could tell you, but he is at a lecture, so I will proceed. While on the Bridge we had a magnificent view, of the ocean and the women lay totally necked on dolphin deck!!! That was the end of our tour. Later they brought us robes, aprons, and photos of our day, nice.