Tour of the Bridge

We took a tour of the bridge today. The bridge is where the captain and pilot sit and drive the boat. It was very impressive and amazing and we felt like we were intruding or witnessing Very Incredible. The first officer said quietly as we were leaving, “well…it’s pretty boring, but it’s my job ha ha ha so I guess I like it.”

The first officer’s favorite part of everything was dropping the anchor. He likes this because it “falls very fast.” You can control the speed that the anchor falls. There is a button marked “LET GO.” There is also 4 steps in dropping the anchor (like open the door, prep the anchor, something else, LET GO).

The first and second officer were also concerned with the security cameras and spent time explaining why the cameras in their bridge were better than any of the other ships. The security cameras are the brand “Silent Witness” which is terrifying. In the other ships, they are aimed on the face of the first and second officer. This is a real problem because two people were immediately fired for sleeping on watch. The guy who slept, and the guy who didn’t wake up the guy who was sleeping. They said “I mean he closed his eyes for 5 minutes!” They think this is draconian.

The bridge is very unreal, mainly because there is so much empty space. It’s a huge room with about 3 consoles to control the ship. These are massive with screens and computers and tons and tons of knobs. There is one that hangs over the port (left) side, one on the right side (starboard haaaay terminology) and one in front (…fore). The one in front has seating for 2. There is also a window above them that passengers can look down to see the officers driving the ship. The officers call this window “monkey mountain.” They do not like it when passengers tap on the glass, but they have a handy button that will close the monkey mountain window. This window goes to the Spinnaker Lounge, a huge bar/nightclubbie thing that has 70’s parties, 80’s parties, a New Year’s Eve party on the first night of the cruise EVERY cruise, random improv shows (us), and Bingo, which is silent and will put anyone in a coma, but is heavily advertised and adored by select extremely old farts.

The first officer is unwilling to explain the fuel tanks to me in a way I find satisfying, because he and everyone thinks it is obvious. They keep brushing me off with a “yeah yeah” or telling me things in cubic meters or tonnage and try to change the subject. I said “is it as big as the bridge?” and he said “well, you can see on the map, it’s about that size” which was like a ½ inch on the map and made no sense. So I said “so like, half the bridge?” and he said “…yeah sure” and I said “how tall is it? Is it like 14 feet tall?” and he said “what? No no no no” because that is obvious. Someday I WILL SEE THE FUEL!

There are also stabilizer arms that go out horizontally from the ship to stop the rocking. The tour guide thought this was obvious and boring. I was fascinated. He did not want to give measurements until I told him “so is it like 12 feet long” which is so stupid he was shocked. It is 8 meters long and about 3 meters wide. They can only put out one because there is so much drag and it eats up your fuel.

Also, the water we use? I thought we brought it all from LA. No. They desalinate ocean water. The ship uses water at a rate of 40 gallons per minute. We all thought that was insane, but 40 gallons of water for 3,000 persons? I have no idea what this means. Also, they can shift where the water is on the ship, all electronically, to stabilize it. The first officer thought it was interesting that they shift water electronically. I had no idea they even shift water. Clearly we tell jokes and make fun of things, not make machines work.

Also, the bridge is where the captain and cruise director make their announcements. The bridge is clean, silent, with a few random ficas trees, calm blue carpet, people in white uniforms and also (obviously) a 6’ tall white hand cut out of metal on two springs that waves. This is because people wave at the ship? And this way they are always waving back? The first officer was kind of confused about it. Anyway, it is dead silent. Very serene. The captain’s announcements usually go like this “uuuuh…..well……..so………..the depth of the…….uh……..ocean………..is 1200 meters! And ………uh………the wind! Is uh……going Northwest!......across the………uh……….deck……” and he randomly says hilarious things like “keep an open mind” or gets quiet and philosophical and says “good health……if you don’t have that……uh………..nothing else matters.” I mean he talks for at least 5 minutes. This makes sense when you see the bridge. They are bored. It is silent. Still, everywhere else on the ship, the passengers are kept entertained like bored little ADD gerbils. So everyone is quiet for the “good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain” and then returns to their gerbil activity which is really, let’s be honest, eating something.

Random vocab:
Hogging: if the ship bends like it is over a barrel and has a kinda hump back
Sogging: if the ship bends into a U.
There are gauges for this. Weeee-aird.