7/13/11

5 Cruise Galley Tour!


On the last day of our cruise, I had the opportunity to tour part of the galley, or kitchen, of the ship.  This part of the ship is not open to visitors, but Royal Caribbean Cruise lines made an exception for several people who made a donation to the Make A Wish Foundation.

I was giddy with anticipation.  I've always wondered what it would be like to work in a professional kitchen, whipping up gourmet desserts and dozens of crusty breads.

We were taken to a small private dining room and greeted with appetizers and champagne.  I was offered champagne, but requested water for my husband and myself.


Makes a person feel pretty important to be allowed past this door, huh?

The sous chef was our tour guide.  He took us to the soup station.  My first impression?

Man, that is a lot of stainless steel!


My next impression?

Check out the size of this soup ladle!  A giant must live here...

Guess how many gallons of soup this pot holds....


350 gallons.  There were four of these pots.  Just trying to add up the math in my head makes me dizzy...

This ship goes through 800 pounds of soup each day.  Yikes!

Good thing I didn't gain 800 pounds in one day...

Next, the roasting station.


These ovens are the size of a refrigerator.  They cook the dishes here and keep them at temperature till ready to serve.

There are 10 of these roasters on the ship.

They go through 80,000 pounds of meat/poultry each week on the ship.

Holy cow!

The ship feeds over 3,500 passengers each day on the ship.  Whatever is left from dinner, goes to the staff.  Now I feel really bad ...

Do you know what happens to the left overs after the staff is done?

If the ship is 24 miles from land, it gets tossed to the sea.

Yep, that's the reason masses of fish, dolphins, and birds follow the ship.

Next, we were introduced to the Pastry area.


There are 45 plates stack 4 levels high, which equal ...

ummmmmm... a lot.

This mousse layered chocolate cake that is trimmed, cut ...


and plated.  It took a lot of restraint to not pick up one of the raw edges and stuff it in my mouth.

I know what I'm having for dessert tonight!


The pastry area is run 24/7, around the clock.  These guys work hard!

There is only ONE person in charge of special orders; if you have a special diet, ie. salt, gluten, etc, you can be sure there is NO cross contamination and your order is met to your specifications.

The galley actually covers three decks and we only toured one ~ the bakery is on another deck and I was a little bummed that I couldn't see it. 

Five bakers work around the clock 24/7 and I could only imagine how busy that would be...


They go through 9,000 pounds of flour each week, making 2,000 rolls each DAY.

I probably consumed 20 of these crusty babies each day...


Needless to say, this guy runs a pretty tight ship.  Would I want to work here?

Probably not.  I've decided that I love baking in my own kitchen.  I think cranking out 2,000 rolls per day would wear me out ... I would get more joy and satisfaction out of eating them!

5 comments:

  1. Very cool post. The volume of food the cruise ships push out is completely insane and when they reach port, they just fill up the ship and do it all again. The logistics behind all of this boggles my mind!!
    Thanks for taking me on the tour!

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  2. It is mind boggling! Fortunately, they have it all computerized ~ when the waiter takes your order, it's put into the system which keeps track of what goes in and what goes out. They have averaged it so that there is very little waste and they rarely run out...

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  3. AnonymousJuly 13, 2011

    Wonderful post! I toured the Disney Wonder and Magic Galleys...the sheer amount of work they do is staggering! I'm glad you had a good time!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What an interesting post. Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

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  5. The posts of your cruise were such a treat! Great photos and lucky you with the galley tour! Thanks so much for sharing it all!

    ReplyDelete

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