MSC Seaside, Life Onboard One Of The Biggest Cruise Ships [4K] | Secret Life of the Cruise | Spark

[Music] there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download today [Music] the msc seaside is one of the biggest cruise ships in the world built at a cost of over one billion pounds and weighing in at 160 000 tons it's home to more than six and a half thousand people with 2 000 guest rooms and 800 staff cabins it's a giant floating hotel we can go through 20 000 eggs per day a glamorous holiday destination everything is so much fun everything is there for you this is the event you've all been waiting for and an astonishing feat of engineering this is one of the most huge generators on the world but how does this city at sea really work with exclusive access to a luxury caribbean voyage we explore the ship's hidden secrets this is huge without the laundry nothing gonna happen we're feeding the fish it's recycling in a nice way isn't it it's quite amazing how all these mechanisms have to work together and the hidden army of people that keep this extraordinary ship running any cruise ship this size is the biggest food operation in the world this is the secret life of the cruise it's 7 a.m on saturday and the gigantic msc seaside has just docked in port miami the biggest cruise ship terminal in the world in just 12 hours time this floating city is heading off for a week-long cruise traveling more than 2 000 miles across the caribbean but before then it needs to be transformed there are over 2 000 rooms to clean five thousand passengers to disembark and fifteen thousand pieces of luggage to come off in just a few hours then the ship needs to be refueled restocked and refilled with passengers all over again in the cruise business it's known as turnaround day and the clock is ticking many people think that we're coming in the day before we stay overnight we take a rest and then the next morning they come on and they see the ship so many people ask me when did you arrive and you say we arrived this morning but how can the crew do so much in so little time of course our donor renter is very hectic but this is a dance because everything has his timing and it's like a choreography the day is a complicated ballet where every crew member needs to remember their moves but this complex dance relies on something a bit more mundane one very long corridor down on deck 4 a secret crew passage runs the entire length of the ship it's known as the i-95 it's the only way to move people and cargo quickly around the ship and it's crucial to the entire operation how many elevators are using only one guys hold on the elevator first thing in the morning the i-95 is packed as a hidden army of workers take 15 000 bags off the ship through just two doors in less than two hours of course you see that we have our pool attendants helping us with the luggage because on dinner on days all hands on deck we need all the manpower available please align and it's just as busy port side where a separate team of dock workers have to work in tandem with the ship's crew we normally have about 13 forklifts and 57 porters working on a given day it's extremely hectic it isn't just luggage coming ashore over the last week the ship has accumulated some unpleasant cargo 50 000 gallons of human waste today five tanker loads of poo will be removed for disposal [Music] for the turnaround machine to work the ship has to be loaded at the same time it's being emptied this morning it needs to be stocked with enough food and drink to last the entire week this is for those cons you know this is for decorations ben mohammed is in charge of the operation now this one go on is every week i'm talking is a chaos but the chaos have a limit in six hours ben and his team will load 160 tons of food onto the ship worth over a million dollars throughout the morning lorries arrive from a complex network of warehouses and suppliers that stretches across the world it's a very complex we used to be not more than 1200 guests the ships are bigger and bigger and bigger today is more sophisticated and it's a lot of area to control too you know of course it can work like wild old machines you know like a swiss wash machine okay [Laughter] all of this food needs to be loaded onto the ship through a single door to prevent a backlog it's delivered immediately to one of 48 separate food stores everything has a place and every crate has to be loaded at a specific time one late delivery can threaten to disrupt the entire machine you are late again very bad i don't like it this is catering on a massive scale in one week the ship's passengers will consume 70 000 eggs 15 tonnes of meat and 47 tons of fruit and veg every item must be checked rigorously before it goes on board nothing can go back on board without the speaker of k9 if the course card comes and it goes on board without the k9 that's trouble as well as safety ben and his team have to check every item for quality this is hollywood that's come from alaska salmon for the sushi look how beautiful this is a ribeye stick a 20 ounce this is our biggest protein product blackberry this is for pastries than the strawberry we don't want them big we don't want them small every week the czechs throw up some surprises you see what's happened to the pineapple this is a freezer bird and what's happened is softness and ruin the product even if it's one case we send a whole lot you have to give me a new product in the next two hours you have to bring me pineapples i will call the vendors now and i will tell him that all the pineapple had to be returned [Music] moving luggage and food is only half the battle the most important job on turnaround day is to move people all passengers have to be off the ship by 11 30 am this moment is known as the zero count if any guests are still on board it means that none of the new passengers can get on what's the 1030 count if you have it for me please onboard 500.500 on board at 10 30. thank you very much miss ruby let's get them out quickly new passengers are already arriving at terminal f where the seaside is docked built specifically to handle this ship it's the biggest terminal at miami port and it's already getting busy we're actually about 120 people left on board and we already have about 200 people checked in this is probably the most nerve-wracking point of the day when you're right between getting people off and getting people on at this point we start searching people looking for them in the rooms around the pool the open bars and just making sure we get down to zero people as quickly as possible [Music] portside provisions master ben has had some good news in less than two hours his network of suppliers have come through as you can see i show you this morning the pineapple return by 11 o'clock the replacement was here the vendors here we have a good relation with them to supply us what we need giorgio listen and thank you very much you just arrived now i see the pineapple coming out thanks georgio thanks have a good day the ship is also being stocked with everything else it needs for the following week from 7 000 rolls of toilet paper to replacement engine parts the technical part the medical part just name it you know for a seven day trip the ship also needs more than a thousand tons of fuel back above deck the last of the passengers are finally making their way out all crew all crew zero count you have zero count start the embarkation zero count brilliant with the holiday makers gone it's the only time in the entire week when there are no passengers on board cruise director jean young uses this time for a quick motivational speech well attention all crew attention all crew this is your cruise director gene young speaking congratulations on finishing another incredible voyage i put the challenge out to you my friends my family members this cruise let us say hello to each other let us be the best that we can be because you are the best you are wonderful and our guests love you let us do it let us do it great and let us do it again thank you the respite doesn't last for long five minutes later it's time for boarding so stand by for boarding and the week starts all over again [Music] by midday the front desk is checking in up to a thousand passengers an hour the holiday makers are already exploring the ship wow wow yeah shiny bright can't wait to go have a look around so we're about to go into our room oh my gosh this is nice wow what a massive mirror downstairs on the i-95 another group of people are getting their first glimpse of the ship and things look very different down here you're in china yeah where are you coming from honduras philippines philippines how are you welcome on board yeah on every cruise there are up to 200 new members of staff as up to a tenth of the crew leave for holiday or to work on other ships this room is that we receive our crew members we're gonna make all the paperwork for immigration we're gonna sign them on they get the cabin assignment at the onboard uniform store they have to keep uniforms for every job in every size just one tiny part of a hidden world but crucial for keeping this ship running on turnaround day everything has to be perfectly choreographed but there's one factor that's out of anyone's control [Music] that was not fun there's some bad thunder coming at the cruise terminal bad weather can have major consequences the storm means planes aren't able to land at miami airport and many of these planes are carrying passengers bound for the crews hey that american airlines flight that was scheduled for boston was diverted to fort lauderdale 39 passengers hold on come again 39 passengers oh lord all right i'm coming up but how do you keep tabs on more than 5000 passengers arriving from all over the globe with the clock ticking the terminal team are in constant contact with travel agents to check how many passengers are missing the british air flight that's been delayed all day okay it's still in the air right now oh gosh there's eight on there okay and american airlines 207 that's four guests it should be that one is still certain okay so 51 people in total correct so that means i won't be here before seven but yeah right on seven right around seven the storm clouds don't last for long it's time for the captain to make his final preparations for departure he's always exciting now to be in common with such huge modern and beautiful person but how do you even begin to move a vessel of this size okay after session advice when you are ready the key lies downstairs in the engine room before departure the ship's engineers have to ready the ship's four giant engines so let's start the third generator and let's go in manoeuvring mode the engines stir into life transferring 80 000 horsepower to the six metre high propellers at the back of the ship with the doors about to close patricia has some good news her passengers have arrived just in time they made it they're all here they're out there checking in ah how exciting we have the green light we are all best on board again with all passengers on board the ship is ready for the final act of turnaround day even if you do exactly the same manuals they are always different each other every single day is different okay clear very good hidden beneath the water line the ship engages its thrusters smaller propellers built into the side of the ship all seven trusses are in operation we can advise the bridge now reach from forward forward the ship is equipped with seven of these thrusters in total allowing the 160 000 ton vessel to pull away from the dock with inch perfect precision 40 meters [Music] after five minutes the ship is safely in the middle of the channel the propellers engage and the seaside begins to make its way forward into open ocean 14 hours after arriving in miami the msc seaside is on its way again for most of the next week the ship will be at sea with six and a half thousand people on board but what keeps this c-bound city afloat 24-7 this is one of the most huge generators it's day two of the msc seaside's caribbean cruise and the ship is powering through the atlantic ocean over 300 meters long and weighing 160 000 tons the vessel is part of a new generation of monster cruise ships if it was on land it would be one of the 50 biggest hotels in the world are over six and a half thousand people on board [Applause] the shipment is here we're losing the kids we're all getting lost all the time um you can't find the same bar straight away you know we were looking for hitches when we first got on the ship in miami we were just you know how big it was described as a floating hotel but it just seems more than that when you see it 20 stories high the ship has 9 restaurants [Music] 11 bars shopping plazas a gym a thousand seat theater a spa a nightclub a bowling alley a full-size basketball court and one of the biggest water parks at sea this ship is not like a ship it's like a city it's got everything it's unbelievable but this floating city needs a vast amount of electricity to function so how does the ship get all the power it needs the secret lies here buried in the depths of the ship in the engine room noisy and boiling hot it couldn't be more different to the glitz and glamour above deck but the engine room is the seaside's beating heart here four massive engines work as super-sized electric generators this is the best place this is uh our picture raider now there we go the big brother we have a 14 cylinder this is uh one of the most huge generators on the world combined they produce 80 000 horsepower in total [Music] this raw power is then converted to electricity the gives the mechanical power uh all of the mechanical power is transformer in electrical energy by the alternator system just one generator right now we are getting relative [ __ ] the engines can produce enough electricity to power 50 000 homes and they also drive this ship across the ocean two giant propeller shafts run all the way through the engine room to the 26 ton propellers at the back of the ship as something so special when you're just thinking through this shot all the power of the ship are going you know and just on the other side you have the propeller the engine room is also the key to another vital commodity that the ship needs in bucket loads water on board there are 30 swimming pools and jacuzzis and more than 3 000 showers and taps and every department on the ship from the galleys to the engine requires a constant supply of clean fresh water in total the ship needs 250 000 gallons of it every day so how does it quench this thirst this is uh one of the most huge and big system of the fresh water generator production in the world so what we do we take the sea water here through this pipe gamma 600 tons of water per hour underwater huge pumps are constantly sucking in water from the sea then in two industrial desalination machines waste steam and heat from the engines boil the sea water to remove the salt once treated the distillated sea water is clean enough to drink it's pumped throughout the ship this water come out from our shower or from our handle wash was winning booyah everywhere you see water without from the system the system can produce 3 000 tons of fresh water a day enough to fill 400 of these swimming pools but this floating hotel doesn't just rely on secret systems it also depends on a hidden army of people every day 60 cleaners are constantly at work cleaning the ship's 20 stories of staircases and 10 kilometers of corridors meanwhile a team of 112 cabin stewards have to strip and make more than 2 000 beds a thousand of these linen bags are filled every day but how does the ship deal with so much laundry hidden away on deck three another department is absolutely crucial to the smooth running of the ship oh this is this is huge without the laundry the ship is not operational everybody thinks the housekeeping and the dining room without the food cannot be operational no without the loan break nothing going to happen almost everybody on board relies on regular deliveries of clean laundry in one day they have to process 14 000 pool towels ten thousand sheets and sixty thousand napkins everything come down here if you're looking at the hotel in las vegas they have two thousand rooms as well the difference is in the hotel they have different laundry operations that they bring it to them every day and they collect the dirty ones in here everything is in-house and so everything is need to be connected within your operation if one was in broke down i'm already on a crunch time because the restaurant cannot operate without the tablecloth and the napkins to get through this never-ending deluge of linen the laundry is staffed round the clock by a team of 28 people again the ship's engines play a vital role in powering this department they produce huge amounts of waste heat and steam which is harvested before being piped here to the massive machines this tunnel washer alone is capable of cleaning up to 1 000 sheets every hour after the washing cycle a robotic arm moves the material to one of four huge dryers is the only thing that can accommodate the needs of the ship without this we can never meet the expectation once the laundry is washed and dried another machine presses and folds it into perfect squares make sure you get the end to end like this then you have a quality linen coming out on the other side see well pressed see that okay continue what you're doing and you need to be faster the next person just have to collect the finished product and goes into the storage place very very impressive how this machine is designed it's very beautiful with a turnaround time of one hour the newly cleaned dried and pressed laundry is ready to go i'm very proud to manage this huge operation i am just as proud as a cow like what did i say upstairs the ship's army of cleaners have another important role to play every day they need to dispose of all the rubbish with 6500 passengers and crew living on board you can imagine that how much garbage being generated on a daily basis so how does the seaside deal with this growing mountain of waste down in the ship's onboard garbage room an army of sorters have to painstakingly separate it all by hand when the crew member come on board i take a class each person being trained how we need to separate the waste on board and it is their responsibility only after it's been meticulously sorted can the waste be processed every day this room receives 10 tons of garbage including two thousand cans and three thousand glass bottles we do not want to pollute the sea you know we don't want to discharge the ship this is one of the most eco-friendly ships in the world eighty percent of the waste generated on the ship can be recycled the rest is taken back to miami just keeping this ship afloat takes an army of people but perhaps the biggest task is keeping everyone on board fed you're fishing up too many at the time okay and dealing with the consequences [Music] it's day three of the msc seaside's caribbean cruise and the ship is on course for jamaica it's gonna be an amazing party on board 5 000 passengers have settled into crew's life relaxing drinking and perhaps most importantly eating can you make sure that they they don't put it on top of each other they need to put it nicely like this you know or not people always ask me how many meals you serve a day and i say well most pastures they have only one meal they start in the morning and they finish at night they eat continuously it's only one meal for them right but how do you go about feeding the five thousand the key is sheer manpower 800 people work in the food and beverage team that's more than half of the entire crew together they cook plate and serve 15 tons of food a day every evening passengers eat at two massive restaurants capable of serving 1500 people at a time they run three separate sittings a night first eating very quiet second sitting very busy and extremely busy on the third sitting okay let's go and get them huh okay thank you guys at 5 p.m the team kicks into action with 250 well-drilled crew members working in two huge galleys thomas has to make sure everyone is up to standard don't cook too much fish in advance okay pieces like that don't need to be on there right don't serve that okay okay you make sure you uh you're decorating the food with chopped parsley or something all the time any cruise ship this size is is the biggest sport operation in the world because it's not like a hotel a hotel might also have five days and bids but half of them don't eat in the hotel here they have no choice there's nowhere else they can go but the galleys are only one part of a vast catering operation behind the scenes there is a hidden labyrinth of stores fridges and freezers stretching over 15 floors 24 hours a day these supply lines have to constantly replenish the galleys above nobody really understands the scope of what we do on board unless you've been part of this industry before imagine 6 500 persons diverse multinationalities multilingual and a wide array of exquisite tastes and we have to accommodate to each one of these states as much as possible each one of the stores is specially dedicated to a certain product so there's no cross-contamination this is just for ice cream just for ice cream and you also have a little weird favor guava hazelnut i mean what is who who would have that have you ever had that all right so we're gonna go over to the coal room i need a coat to go into this room it's like being in alaska all right let's do this okay so this is a fish room look at these guys they big they're nice they juicy yeah this is what we're talking about the net weight of this bag is two pounds uh just to let you know in a night here we can consume over 1500 pounds of shrimp just in one seating yeah it's the same like when we do eggs you know we can go through twenty thousand eggs per day easily twenty thousand years every item in these freezers needs to be defrosted at the exact right time too early and the food will spoil in massive quantities too late and there won't be enough to serve although the cruise only lasts seven days the ship must keep enough for two weeks in case of emergencies we are sailing in north america and we encounter a lot of hurricanes a lot of unfavorable weather conditions and we may or may not miss a port but if we do we do have enough stock on board to take us past for a couple days and guests don't just need to eat with 11 bars on board the alcohol stores are some of the best stocked on the ship one of the first priorities is ensuring that we have the nectar of life the nectar of fun which we all know to be alcohol so we've got uh the cordials the liquors the beers the water you need to rehydrate and then you repeat in one cruise thirsty passengers will go through 2 000 bottles of spirits 8 000 bottles of wine and 10 000 liters of beer we're not a party boat it's a boat that caters for everyone's individual thirst good food and lots of alcohol aren't the only ways to keep the ship's passengers happy from dance groups to shopping sales weddings give you this ring as a symbol of my love the crew lay on hundreds of activities a day to entertain them and there's one man in particular who's responsible for keeping the party going all right stand right take rolling segment one welcome back ladies and gentlemen i'm your host director gene and i'm your christophe manager kevin and welcome back to the morning zoo ladies and gentlemen we hope you had a nice couple of days here on board msc seaside we've had a wonderful time so that we can introduce ourselves the first good evening is the ship's cruise director [Applause] as the public face of the ship he has to be happy at all times they're looking for a disneyland experience everything is so much fun and it's it's everything is there for you this city of fun this city of city of pleasure i define the excitement and i define it because it is there and it can be defined look how wonderful this is aren't you having such a neat time but what's the secret to keeping more than 5 000 passengers happy the first rule is to be very nice to everyone i like your bikini that's nice i studied people studied their emotions how to drive their emotions as a cruise director i specifically tried to figure out how what are people thinking what what brings them anxiety what brings them joy how old it's gonna be the second rule is to practice i hate to say it but it is rehearsed spontaneity i rehearse trying to make sure that they can relax so they can enjoy and so it's something that rehearse all the time the ship's huge restaurants are coming towards the end of their first sitting and in the galleys a dedicated team of workers are slicing and dicing a mountain of produce they're helped by some industrial sized equipment it's basically washing our fruit before we process them a machine like that you probably would only find in a commercial plant where they make canned fruits and things like that we've got one here beautiful it's just the right length for me to have my shakus you know we can actually have a spin dryer in there when you have a different kind of fruit almost like a close spin dryer this is probably the cleanest pineapple on the ship right now that we have together these machines can power through 300 kilograms of fruit and veg every hour in all my time of uh working on cruise ships this is the first time that i see this kind of technology on the ship it's the state-of-the-art stuff the chefs also need some super-sized kitchenware some of these boilers they hold about 300 250 300 liters some of them and uh this is what we need here you know when we make tomato sauce i make 300 liters every day just model source every day and it's gone at the end of the day even the dishwashing is an industrial operation after each sitting every single plate needs to be washed this is the uh the clean side of the operation comes out here gets dried piled up and pushed back into the operation we actually need everything for the second sitting and the third fitting the food has a rest after the first sitting we replenish the line but these guys it continues as soon as all the crockery is washed the galley has to gear up for the second and third sittings you're dishing up too many at the time okay do half and then take them off put them into the cooler and then do the next one as the restaurant gets busier the team work like clockwork this is now very well organized from now on forward until the end of the uh the service until everybody has their fault it's well organized very good team i have here they never stop over four hours this galley will cook plate up and serve 14 000 plates of food but at the end of the last service the work isn't over we have a night shift in a day shift so it's a 24-hour operation almost half of them actually working overnight so when the culinary team comes back in the morning everything is nice and clean floors ceilings we do a total wash down every night and cruise ship catering has one more secret every day a ton and a half of food is left over by passengers that's enough to feed another 500 people so what happens to all this waste in each galley giant grinders crush the leftovers before it drops three floors below where it's stored in tanks then when out at sea the ship discharges this waste as fish food sometimes on a day when we're allowed to discharge the food waste you can spot some dolphins out here and they're following us because of that you know so we're feeding the fish it's uh recycling in a nice way isn't it in the middle and all this eating has other consequences with six and a half thousand passengers and crew downing at least three meals a day the ship's sewage system works hard but this city at sea can't have normal sewers so how does it deal with all the poo it all happens here in the bowels of the ship all the human waste on the ship coming here in this room this is a advanced water treatment every day this secret sewer has to treat 30 tons of human waste on board it's known as black water when i come first day when i feel this smell i didn't like but day after day this is normal nobody like to walk here because you smell also it's very hot but somebody must keep this system in good condition the seaside has its own specially developed system for processing the waste first under huge pressure the solid is separated from the liquid in a pressing machine the liquid coming here and going to stage one solid coming here and going down in the slurry tank the solid waste is removed every week in miami the liquid needs further treatment this is uh stage one the side is very dirty two thousand gallons a day filters down into these tanks so now i show you the how is the water in the beginning you can see the color it's very very very dirty the black water is filtered until it's almost as clean as drinking water my water has the filtration separation fast from this membrane and coming the gear in this time you can see this is the final product can you drink yes if you want this water doesn't get drunk some of it is siphoned off to cool the massive engines the rest is safe enough to be discharged into the sea [Music] the cruise is reaching its halfway point and tomorrow the captain and his team face one of the biggest challenges of the entire trip you risk to create a serious damage to the ship there are no marginal mistakes 7 a.m on the bridge of the msc seaside she's traveled almost a thousand miles from miami and in one hour is due to dark in ocho rios jamaica but the port throws up some particularly difficult challenges for a ship of this size this is the part i mean here is just a big coral reef that we enter from this direction as you may see a vessel is locked here reefs are here if you just delay a bit the moment that you start to change your route you can easily hit something or if you don't control you well your speed you can easily ground which is even worse the adventure at the end finish very close there are no marginal mistakes so how do you navigate something this complex while out at sea the ship travels on autopilot but as they approach land the captain assumes full control okay we can keep proceeding with this custom speed no problem now if anyone on the bridge makes a navigational error the ship's computer will not correct it as the seaside enters the narrow port the key is to slow down as much as possible [Music] it approaches first at three then two knots any faster and the 300 meter long ship will be almost impossible to control by this point the ship is less than 200 meters from another vessel and 150 meters away from surrounding reefs it now needs to pivot 45 degrees towards the dock without any forward movement the ship is so big that the team moved to the bridge wing okay underwear we take over the wheel on the starboard wing and take over all the controls here they have a better view of the pier while maintaining full control of the ship underwater the ship's seven thrusters kick into action rotating the vessel towards the dock with inch perfect precision and that's the most complicated moment because the west side wig is 160 000 tons the water around is not really very much there are few meters waters under the keel the ship is so close to the seabed that the thrusters force the silt to the surface any more speed and the ship could sink lower in the water and run aground this last part of the job is the most delicate of the high entire job it's always slowly softly softly despite the fact that maybe you have a residual speed of 0.2 knots 0.5 if you hit with that residual speed any concrete things you risk to create serious damage to the ship meters away from the pier all the thrusters stop turning and inch by inch the ship drifts into position you should really land softly with zero residual speed in practice i used to say like kiss the pier 405 clear we are in position [Music] while most of the passengers are off the ship the crew have a vital duty to perform every week the ship's officers run a full emergency drill a check on after part after part during a maneuvering we hit the pier on the compartment approximately four and five today the officers have come up with an emergency scenario to test all the crew uh captain we understand the compartment affected are five and four safety officer marco is dispatched to assess the extent of the imaginary for speed marco uses the ship's vertical escape ladders hidden passageways running from deck one to four region deck one compartment number five we have two meters of water on that one compartment number five compartment number five we have two meters of water the ship is divided into 10 vertical zones in an emergency they're designed to be watertight to contain any breach of the hull for today's drill two of these compartments are supposedly taking on water as soon as the bridge sounds the crew alert every member of staff has to drop what they're doing all the crew members on board they have a second duties in case of emergencies they can be people in charge of the evacuation people in charge of medical team people from fire team lifeboat preparation they have many many different duties all around the ship the safety officers check that the crew are confident with their duties by pretending to be lost guests can i stay here no why i want to just spoke with you give me a few minutes we try sometimes to scare at them to give them pressure in order to maybe feel what can happen in a really emergency it's the only way what are you doing you are waiting there yeah remaining calm yeah of course when you can leave your position when the when it's over no never no a few of them were really under pressure during the test we need to work in order to improve their performance but it's okay [Applause] this is a good day [Music] with the drill over the crew can return to their normal jobs but what's daily life like for the 1500 crew members living on board hidden within the ship there is a second city one that passengers never get to see here in a maze of corridors there are three crew restaurants two private crew bars mikasa and 740 crew cabins so this is my cabin i'm a senior officer so it's a larger cabin and i don't have to share it which is a big perk on ship life but you can see really it's not um the biggest space in the world either but on a big ship this is all that i get to call my own the officers are lucky this is our corridor most of the crew live in less luxurious surroundings here we are home sweet home when you're in these cabins you're a bit like stuck you feel a bit stuck on confines yeah beds jesse's on the top bunk i'm on the bottom book i miss waking up and like looking outside it is a bit strange not having a window in here and we don't really see daylight for quite a while then when you do go outside your eyes are a bit loud but it's but then when we want to have a nap it's good because it's pitch black in the rooms there is the bathroom sink toilet and then the shower for us guys the only real time we're here is when we're sleeping it's just a base you know very rarely in here i think crazy is the word we'd use to sum up this whole experience yeah crazy it's like living in a little bubble we call it a [ __ ] bubble don't we ship bubble yeah yeah you're in your complete own little world we work together eat together we do everything together and life on a cruise ship can be a lot of so fun so nice all of us entertainers are getting off hey [Music] oh no it's on tv this is [Music] after a few hours off the ship it's back to work then with all passengers and crew back on board the seaside sets sail again and heads out into open ocean [Music] with one of the biggest live theatre shows at sea what does it take to entertain five thousand passengers three times every single night after costume head dress up the headdress trees we have trees oh wait hold on ow early evening on the msc seaside while the passengers enjoy the last of the sun the ship's in-house theater company are in the midst of rehearsals tonight is the premiere of a brand new show and there's some last minute work to do ladies and gentlemen you've been watching timeless we are the dancers of msc seaside and we're part of a cast of about 40. we we live more in the changing room like everything on this ship the entertainment comes super sized every single night the company performs to up to 3 000 people across three shows that's a bigger audience than in any theater in london's west end there's a full-scale lighting rig a state-of-the-art sound system and a dedicated backstage team even the props and costumes have been specially commissioned for the ship and here we are this is reuben's dad by the time by the dinosaur do you know the dynasty do you know that there we go we've named it and it has a camera so the person wasn't saying he's inside oh wait hold on his eyes move as well guys it has a little fan in there yeah it's a little fan in case he gets hot yeah some of the costumes yeah and it's just like costume after costume head dress up the headdress trees this is like how we get from one side of the stage to the other quickly sometimes a secret secret passageway that's what we call it normally all of you with the fans the cast rehearse for up to seven hours a day then go straight into performing we usually work around 60 hours a week long hours long hours hard work get ready to warm up it's just then a continuous rehearsal but we do it because we love it [Applause] [Music] mine and remain there with rehearsals over the cast have just over half an hour to get ready for the premiere i get nervous but i think i've always been at that but it was like good to have a bit of nerves still every time you put curtains over you might need a little weight so we've worked for it you know i mean we've worked so i feel like it's finally time to show an order the new one's like gonna be amazing ladies and gentlemen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] once the show begins the biggest challenge isn't the dancing it's four costume changes in half an hour [Music] after the show the cast have no time to celebrate there are two more shows tonight yeah once we finish doing our makeup again redoing our makeup is straight to show again 15 minutes later it's curtains up again [Music] by 10 p.m the last show is over the cast have been on the go for 12 hours straight [Music] eight stories above on the bridge the atmosphere is very different the vessel is still motoring through the ocean at 22 knots but the captain can't work 24 hours a day so who's in charge throughout the night three-man teams work ships on the bridge their job is known as the watch we are just outside the the bridge i'm a first officer and i'm ahead of the watch the bridge must remain pitch black at all times throughout the night the first five minutes are not easy because it's all black you cannot see now each shift lasts just four hours any longer and there's a risk that the watchers could lose their concentration current is uh pushing yeah you're pushing do not yeah i think i take the charge the bridge is equipped with millions of dollars worth of modern equipment but at night the watch relies on some much simpler technology we are watching the other vessel so with the binocular we can see their light especially with a small boat a fishing boat that many times are not plotted on the other screen looking after this billion pound vessel is a huge responsibility we have 1000 passengers 1000 remember so if we make any mistake on the bridge there are many people here and our job is to let them feel safe the bridge isn't the only place that has to operate throughout the night across the ship a secret nighttime army is at work making sure the seaside runs smoothly 24 hours a day four floors of outside decking needs to be scrubbed every restaurant is given a deep clean and every public space hoovered from top to bottom on board more than a hundred staff work through the night and one department in particular is a hive of activity the ship's in-house bakery fresh bread has to be made from scratch all night every night the bakery working 24 hours the night people coming 8 o'clock preparation all bread for the breakfast croissant pancho gulato all the breakfast is nice people all the bread you eat amber is fresh in one night shift this bakery will make five thousand croissants and three thousand pano chocolate and that's just for breakfast over the course of a week's cruise the bakers will produce seven thousand donuts ten thousand pizzas and seventy thousand bread rolls to make life easier for the crew the bakery is stocked with state of the art equipment like this which cuts cakes using a high pressure water jet it can slice more than a thousand cakes every hour everybody collaboration for example one people meet the dog one people working the table one big food improving one foot and the other way coming outside i want to see the breath is perfect [Music] the final task of the night to prepare the decks for another busy day then as the passengers begin to get up the night team heads to bed another shift finished on the ship that never sleeps the ship is on its way back to miami but there's one final challenge to face they all agree that this is one very narrow very fast crazy place it's the final evening of the msc seaside's caribbean cruise but as the ship heads back to miami the crew still have one major event to put on party night ladies and gentlemen very good evening and welcome to our asia tonight is the main event on the cruise we're going to be dancing till the early hours of the morning this is the event you've all been waiting for ladies and gentle tonight is our white party here we go it's the biggest night of the cruise for the guests and for the ship's tireless 12-person entertainment team they're kind of like the front line they're the ones doing all the events and they're the ones that are pretty much responsible of making sure that all the guests have a have an amazing holiday with crowds of up to 2 000 people the seaside's white knight is one of the biggest parties at sea guys on my team are incredible they work really hard to do it for eight months straight every single day no no weekends off you know it takes a takes a special person to to make that happen if they happy then all the guests are happy in just one week the ship's 5 000 passengers and 1500 crew have eaten 160 tons of food and drunk 8 000 bottles of wine on the way they've used a hundred thousand pool towels and thrown away seventy tons of garbage and the huge ship itself has used more than a thousand tons of fuel and 2 million gallons of water but the journey isn't quite over after all the passengers go to bed the bridge team have to prepare for perhaps their most difficult challenge yet how to bring a hundred and sixty thousand ton ship into one of the narrowest ports in america in the pitch black night by four am the ship is one mile outside the port of miami they might have all the latest technology on board but to get into port safely they need some expert local help captain john nitkin is a miami port pilot it's his job to guide these massive cruise ships safely into dock this morning he's meeting up with the seaside msc seaside good morning we are outbound to you now what side is your pilot line [Music] okay we copy port side very good we are headed to you now we always ask the captain have you been to miami before and if they say no we tell them you're in for quite a quite a ride and after they all agree that this is one very narrow very fast crazy place there she is she's a beauty he's the the biggest one in miami right now first the most dangerous part of the whole maneuver for john he has to jump from his moving boat up onto the seaside there have been a lot of accidents and pilots lost climbing that ladder [Music] alongside mississippi the giant cruise ship has to make sure it holds its course precisely so it doesn't smash into the smaller boat alongside once on board john heads straight to the bridge they're the world experts in their own small piece of the ocean we know the waters here in the conditions better than anybody [Music] on the bridge john takes control of the con the movement of the vessel hey thank you captain oh well excellent pilot is like the conductor and it is one big symphony and everything has to be timed just right but bringing something this size into miami isn't easy port miami is very narrow when i started 30 years ago we didn't know what is the capacity the largest ship that the port could handle we're now there starboard five yes on the surface miami port easily looks wide enough for the seaside but beneath the water it's a different story to allow these huge ships to enter the port a shallow channel has been dug out of the rock seabed but it's only a hundred meters wide leaving very little space either side john has to get it right or the massive ship will run into the side of the channel the ships have grown and changed the thing that hasn't changed are these narrow rock channels in these ports like miami everything is feet and inches the huge ship is also susceptible to small changes in wind conditions a cruise ship is a giant sail and they call each balcony with the little partitions parachutes they all catch the wind so when the wind is on the side of the ship the big challenge is keeping these ships safely within the channel boundaries john has to make sure that the vessel stays dead straight to avoid hitting the side of the channel then over 20 minutes the seaside has to execute a perfect 180 before it can come into duck the weight of the responsibility is really heavy everybody's watching me do this it doesn't look that hard that's because we're doing a good job takes a lot of patience skill and you have to have pretty much ice water in your veins as the ship approaches the dock the officers have one final job to do safety officer marco has to line up the ship perfectly alongside the gangways they guide the seaside home at 5 15 precisely the ship docks marking the end of its 2 000 mile journey then as the sun comes up over miami port the ship's hidden army readies itself for another turnaround day another 5 000 passengers another week at sea the cruise comes to an end and then the guests go home the guests re-embark and we do it all over again just big satisfaction you know that okay it's done again okay now we go it's the beginning of another week in the secret life of the cruise

Channel: Spark

Views: 3,536,899

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary

Id: qP8jONoj57Y

Length: 66min 39sec (3999 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 20 2021