Touring the Summit

Our cruise to the Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao had a couple days at sea. That afforded us an opportunity to take a tour behind-the-scenes. I was excited to have a chance to see how so many people are fed every day. The dinner menu on the Summit had special dishes every day and it was quite fun to order multiple dishes every day. Bella’s son never missed a chance to have three entrees.

The tour started in the kitchen where the dishes and cutlery were washed.

After the kitchen we headed into the bottom of the ship to see where the supplies used in the kitchen are stored.

All that food generates a large amount of trash. I’m sure years ago all of it would have been simply cast overboard but times change and ships like the Celebrity Summit collect the cardboard boxes and off load them at various ports.

The ship requires crew to segregate all the trash generated by guests and crew and some of it is incinerated to generate power to help propel the ship. Every little bit helps.

The two circles on the lower left in the photo above depict the propellers used to drive the ship. There is no traditional rudder. The props can be rotated completely around and used to dock without requiring a tug. Pretty cool.

Everything is computer controlled but, in case something goes drastically wrong, there are manual controls.

Every day the cabin stewards replace the towels and sheets in all the cabins. The dining room has linen napkins and table cloths that need to be cleaned. It’s staggering to think about how much clean linen is sitting in this room.

The big attraction was going to the bridge. After clearing our second security inspection we were taken to the area that was the biggest attraction.

The Summit had recently been refurbished with modern controls and displays.

Of course the bridge runs on coffee.

I really enjoy things like this tour. The rare chance to step behind the curtains and see how things really work warms the heart of engineers like me. What a great way to spend a day at sea. I thought it was worth the $87 price of admission. It took nearly three hours and the expectation was to have long pants and closed toe shoes. Flip flops were not allowed.

~ Freddy