Running The World's Biggest Cruiseship & The World's Richest Resort | Spark

the MSC Seaside is one of the biggest cruise ships in the world built at a cost of over 1 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 and everything is there for you this is the events and an astonishing feat of engineering this is one one of the most huge generator 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 can 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 is the biggest sport 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 15 000 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 asking me when did you arrive when we say we arrived this morning but how can the crew do so much in so little time of course our dinner is very hectic but this is a dance because everything has its 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 in cargo quickly around the ship and it's crucial to the entire operation how many elevator we're using only one guys hold on the elevator 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 donor on days all hands on deck we need all the Manpower available 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 fifty thousand gallons of human waste today five tanker loads of poo will be removed for disposal 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 stopped with enough food and drink to last the entire week this is for those cons you know this is for decorations Ben Muhammad is in charge of the operation [Applause] this one is every week I'm talking is a chaos but the chaos have a limit I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required 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 arrived 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 World old machines you know like a Swiss watch machine okay 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 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 Tons of meat and 47 tons of fruit and veg the must be checked rigorously before it goes on board nothing can go back on board without the speaker of canine if the course got gum and it goes on board without the canine that struggle as well as safety Ben and his team have to check every item for Quality this is Hollywood that's come from Alaska Salman for the sushi look how beautiful this is a ribeye steak a 20 ounce this is our biggest protein product BlackBerry this is for pastries then the strawberry we don't want them big we don't want them small every week the checks 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 have 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 the thing 30 count if you have it for me please [Music] 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 it's 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 here's network of suppliers have come through as you can see I showed 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 Giorgio thanks have a good day the ship is also being stocked with everything else it needs for the following week from seven thousand rolls of toilet paper to replacement engine parts the technical part the Medical Park name it you know 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 okay 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 the week starts all over again by midday the front desk is checking in up to a thousand passengers an hour the holiday makers are already exploring the ship wow just as well wow yeah Shiny Bright can't wait to go over look around so we're about to go into our room oh my gosh this is nice oh 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 know 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 going to make all the paperwork for immigration we're going to 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 guys oh that was not fun there's a 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 cruise 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 5 000 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 still in the air right now oh gosh there's eight on there okay and American airlines 207 there's four guests it should be that one is still certain okay so 51 people in total correct so that means they won't be here before 7. yeah right on seven okay 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 beautifulness but how do you even begin to move a vessel of this size position 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 maneuvering mode the engines stir into life transferring 80 000 horsepower to the six meter 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're made it they're all here they're checking in so we have the green light and we're all guests on board yeah Madam will be reading in 15 minutes around five minutes 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 people say clear very good hidden beneath the water line the ship engages its thrusters smaller propellers built into the side of the ship are in operation we can advise the bridge now 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 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 generator of the world it's day two of the MSC seasides 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 there are over six and a half thousand people on board [Applause] the ship is who if you're losing the kids will get lost all the time um we can't find the same bar straight away you know we were looking for heaters when we first got on the ship in Miami we were just you know how big it was it was described at the full ocean hotel but it just seems more than that when you see it 20 stories high the ship has nine 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 glamor above deck but the engine room is the seasides beating heart here four massive engines work as super-sized Electric Generators this is our big generator now that we got the big brother you have a 14 cylinder this is one of the most huge generator on the world combined they produce 80 000 horsepower in total [Music] this raw power is then converted to electricity mechanical Power 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 just thinking through this shop 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 one one huge ambiguous system of a freshwater generator production in the world so what we do we take the sea water here through this pipe comma 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 from our shower or from our handle wash the system can produce 3 000 tons of fresh water a day enough to fill 400 of these swimming pools boating 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 how does the ship deal with so much laundry hidden away on Deck 3 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 a dining room without the food cannot be operational now without the laundry nothing can 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 this 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 views operation I am just as proud as a cow like what did I say them 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 2 000 cans and three thousand glass bottles we'll do not want to pollute the sea you know we don't want to discharge the receipt this is one of the most eco-friendly ship 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 dishing 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 cause for Jamaica on board 5 000 passengers have settled into Cruise life relaxing drinking and perhaps most importantly eating can you make sure that the they don't put it on top of each other they need to put it nicely like this you know people always ask me how many meals you serve a day and I say well most passengers 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 5 000. 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 sitting very quiet second sitting very good very busy and extremely busy on the third sitting okay let's go and get them huh okay thank you guys at 5 PM 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 you make sure you're 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 may also have 5 000 bits 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 board as you've been part of this industry before imagine 6 500 persons diverse multinationalities multilingual and a wide array of Exquisite taste and we have to accommodate each one of these days 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 go over 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 call 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 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 yeah we can consume over fifteen hundred pounds of shrimp just in one seating yeah it's the same like when we do eggs you know we can go through 20 000 eggs per day easily twenty thousand years so 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 crews 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 support 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 stocks 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 the cordials the Liquors the beers the the water you need to rehydrate and then you repeat in one Cruise thirsty passengers will go through 2 000 bottles of spirits eight thousand 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 to weddings 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 segment one welcome back ladies and gentlemen I'm your coach director Jean and I'm your Christoph 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 [Music] young 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 everything is there for you the city of fun this city of the city of pleasure I Define the excitement and I Define it because it is it is there and it can be defined to 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 hi hi how old it's got to 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 I rehearse all the time the ships 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 held 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 they have my shakuzina we can actually have a spin dryer in there when you have a different kind of fruits 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 working on cruise ship this is the first time that I see this kind of Technology on a 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 this is what we need here you know when we make them out of salt I make 300 liters every day just tomato sauce 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 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 sitting the food has a rest after the first sitting we replenish the line but these guys it's continuous 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 two 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 your service until everybody has their fault it's well organized very good team I have here they never stop foreign 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 you have a night shift and a day shift so it's a 24-hour operation almost half of them actually working overnight but when the culinary team comes back in the morning everything is nice and clean floor 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 they're following us because of that you know so we're feeding the fish it's a recycling in a nice way isn't it 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 at Sea can't have normal sewers so how does it deal with all the poo it all happens here in the barrels of the ship all the human ways on the ship coming here in this room this is a Advantage 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 it's all about it nobody like the world here because so you smell also it's very hot I'm going to do somebody must keep this system in good position 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 I'm going to stay solid coming here going down in the slow return the solid waste is removed every week in Miami the liquid needs further treatment this is a stage one inside is already dirty 2 000 gallons a day filters down into these tanks so now I show you the how is the water in the the beginning you can see the color the black water is filtered until it's almost as clean as drinking water fast filtration separation passed from this membrane and uh coming to here in this tank you can see this is 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 7am on the bridge of the MSC Seaside it's traveled almost a thousand miles from Miami and in one hour is due to darken Ocho Rios Jamaica but the port throws up some particularly difficult challenges for a ship of this size I said 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 located here riffs 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 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 these questions 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 underwear they covered the wheel on the stubborn wing and take over all the control 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 of the vessel 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 isn't the most delicate of the high entire job slowly slowly softly softly okay despite the fact that maybe you have a residual speed of zero point few knots and then 0.5 if you hit with that residual speed any concrete things you risk to create a 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 uh check on after part after part during a maneuvering where he hit the appear 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 our five and four safety officer Marco is dispatched to assess the extent of the imaginary damage for Speed Marco uses the ship's vertical Escape ladders the passageways running from deck one to four compartment number five we have two meters 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 Charlie Alpha Charlie Alpha 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 we try sometimes to scare them to give them pressure in order to maybe feel what can happen in a real emergence is the only way what are you doing you are waiting there yeah remaining calm yeah of course when you can leave your position 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 foreign 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 mi casa is 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 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 coffee doll most of the crew live in less luxurious surroundings we are home sweet home Birds Jess is on the top bunk I'm on the bottom book I miss waking up and like looking outside it is a bit strange and 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 like yeah but it's but then when we want to have a nap it's good because it's Pitch Black in the rooms that is the bathroom sink toilet and then the shower for those guys the only real time they're here is when we're sleeping it's just a base you know they're rarely in here I think crazy is the word would 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 mean you're a complete on little world we work together eat together we do everything together and life on a cruise ship can be a lot of fun all of us entertainers are getting off hey this is the privilege of doing a cruise guys oh trolley it's done the shots doctor [Music] [Music] after a few hours off the ship it's back to work then with all passengers and crew back on board the seaside set sail again and heads out into open ocean [Music] with one of the biggest live theater shows at Sea what does it take to entertain 5 000 passengers three times every single night ow [Music] thank you early evening on the MSC Seaside while the passengers enjoy the last of the Sun the ships 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 [Music] 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 anywhere else yeah 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 greases by the dinosaurs named it and it has a camera so the person who's inside who's inside ah we're all done his eyes move as well you guys it has a little fan in there yeah it's a little fan in case he gets hot some of the costumes yeah and it's just like costume after costume headdressers this is like how we get from one side of the stage to the other quickly sometimes our secret secret password that's what we call it we made our money all of you with the fans the cast rehearsed 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 warm up it's just then a continuous rehearsal but we do because we love it yeah [Applause] [Music] that's good 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 I was like good to have a bit of nerves I still love your time before Christmas I need a little weight they were excited yeah because we've worked for it you know I mean we've worked so I feel like it's finally time to show yeah you feel the new one's like gonna be amazing ladies and gentlemen this is [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] foreign [Music] have no time to celebrate there are two more shows tonight yeah once we've finished doing our makeup again we doing 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 bridge I'm a first officer and I'm a head 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 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 yeah you're pushing do not okay 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 a movie so with the binocular we can see their light especially with the small boat a fishing boat that many times are not plotted on the rather screen looking after this billion pound vessel is a huge responsibility we have one thousand passenger and one doesn't 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's given a deep clean and every public space hoovered from top to bottom on board more than a hundred staffs 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 at the bakery working 24 hours the night people coming at the club preparation all bread for the breakfast croissant Pancho volatile all the breakfast is the night people all the bread you eat Amber is fresh in one night shift this Bakery will make five thousand croissants and three thousand Pano chocola and that's just for breakfast over the course of a week's Cruise the bakers will produce 7 000 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 when people meet the dog one people work on the table when we put the proving one foot and they'll while you're coming outside I want to see the bread it's 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 way thank you It's the final evening of the MSC seasides Caribbean cruise but as the ship heads back to Miami the crews still have one major event to put on party night ladies and gentlemen tonight is the main event of the cruise we're going to be dancing through the early hours of the morning this is the events you've all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen 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 ever 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 it takes a special person to to make that happen if they're happy then all the guests are happening 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 70 tons of garbage and the huge ship itself has used more than a thousand tons of fuel and two 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 160 000 ton ship into one of the narrowest ports in America in the pitch black night by 4 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 letter okay we copied Portside very good we are headed here 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 a mission 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 head straight to the bridge who's my Captain good to see you every port has its own Pilots they're the world experts in their own small piece of the ocean we know the waters here and the conditions better than anybody [Music] on the bridge John takes control of the con the movement of the vessel hey thank you Captain you're welcome 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 poor 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 or 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 a 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 nine meters safety officer Marco has to line up the ship perfectly alongside the gang ways [Music] inch by inch they guide the seaside home at 5 15 precisely the ship docks marking the end of its 2000 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 reembark 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 around the world a new breed of holiday destination is on the rise [Music] huge Hotel complexes built to satisfy every possible desire as long as it's not illegal or immoral your Butlers will take care of it for you whether you're a happy family or a high-stakes Gambler this is two million dollars a mega Resort wants to sell you the holiday of a lifetime I love the way they smell with exclusive behind the scenes access to one of the world's biggest and best we'll see what it takes to create five-star luxury on an epic scale we're going to go through sixty thousand four thousand a year the remarkable technology there's another drink voila monster machinery what a plant costs about 280 thousand dollars for seven of them and thousands of people working 24 7 every week of the year I like it when it's busy busy means business these are the secrets of the mega Resort the Bahamas a chain of 700 Tropical Islands off the coast of Florida it's a dream destination for many and a key player in the 7.1 trillion pound worldwide tourism industry but with people willing to cross the globe for a holiday the competition has never been greater so Resorts here and everywhere are upping their game by getting bigger much bigger welcome to Bahama a mega Resort that opened in 2017. it covers a thousand acres and cost 3.4 billion pounds to build here we are at Baja mar getting ready to go out to the pool for the day here are my little friends in the koi pond but what exactly is a mega Resort it's a five-star Holiday Park for around 7 000 guests everything is deliberately designed so that as soon as they arrive they never have to leave fancy a bite try one of the 40 restaurants and bars want to take a swim there are 11 different pools or just relax on the 2000 deck chairs along the beach are the kids feeling bored how about a trip to the Resort's private Wildlife Park [Music] that is welcome to the Bahamas and when the kids have gone to bed the adults can spend their hard-earned money in the biggest casino in the Caribbean there you go of course all those people need a place to stay so there's a cityscape of Hotel tower blocks with 2 300 rooms at the top of the luxury scale is the Rosewood where the lobby is filled with a specially designed fragrance meant to make everyone feel at ease two bedroom suites here cost more than three thousand pounds a night this is our Rosewood Suite this is one of our Signature suites it has a private Terrace with a jacuzzi and an ocean view and every Suite in this hotel has its own butler we have our state of our kitchen and entrance for the Butler Service as well in the back we want to be refined yet not pretentious at all so we can create that relationship with with all of our guests I think in that way we can create memories that will last forever [Music] it's machine running around the clock it takes an army of 5 000 staff foreign they have their own City within a city entered on a 500 meter long Corridor running through the Resort's lower level called the I-95 nicknamed after America's Main East Coast Highway it's how anything and everything moves from A to B unseen by guests this is a giant backstage world of stall rooms and workshops kitchens and canteens it's also where thousands of employees begin their day [Music] to make sure they're all at work on time the resort has its own bus fleet [Music] Around the Clock rain or shine they Ferry staff in from across the island the biggest team starting work each morning are the 210 Grand Hyatt housekeepers we have 1457 rooms occupied today we clean a lot of rooms good morning everyone it's a Herculean task and manager Kendrick relies on some special inspiration to get the job done one two [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good job guys have a great day guys one day I Was preparing to pray shift like normal and we had over a thousand and something rooms being departed so right there and then I was like oh my God these people are going to die because it's a lot of work and I was trying to figure out what I can do to kind of build up the morale make the day go smoother and it just came to mind to do a song and they loved it so I just run with it ever since because it gave them a boost of energy before they go upstairs each housekeeper receives room assignments via touch screen armed with the hotel service optimization system or hot sauce for short once they log into the hot sauce device the rooms that we are saying in the morning it will go directly to them [Music] their pockets and a song in their hearts the team fan out across the two curving Towers as guests leave their rooms for breakfast on the Terrace or a day at the pool their housekeepers discreetly slip in the ladies have a section where they are responsible for a certain amount of rooms and any given day we're not sure exactly how bad the room is going to be or how good the room is going to be and it could possibly be seven really dirty rooms the whole cleaning routine is designed for maximum efficiency right down to the sheets every room has six separate sets constantly moving between the off-site laundry store cupboards hidden on each floor and the beds more than ten thousand sets in total most guests are blissfully unaware of all this hard work as they amuse themselves with everything from shopping water sports [Music] really want to push the boat out there's even a private island for hire there is bahamar and here is what they set up for us on the private long K Beach wow by 3 P.M 500 new guests start to arrive for their own dream holidays [Music] housekeeping but no one can set foot in their rooms without Kendrick's seal of approval the only thing that a guest called their own when they're at the hotel is my room they don't go to the front desk and say this is my front desk they don't go to a restaurant and say this is my restaurant but they do say my room so we wanted to make sure that experience for them feels genuine it feels authentic they get that feeling that it belongs to them and them only one room down 1456 to go and that's just one of the three hotels on site next the security teams sniff out trouble the party gets going that the adults only pool and mega Rich gamblers get a taste of the ultimate mega Resort lifestyle welcome to the presidential suite foreign Mega Resort a 2 300 room Hotel complex in the Bahamas this is one of a fast-growing breed of five-star holiday destinations targeting a global audience attracting travelers from around the world means providing world-class service on an unparalleled scale a golf course designed by the legendary Jack Nicholas a Convention Center that doubles as the country's biggest Art Gallery with a grand ballroom big enough to host basketball tournaments and behind the real tropical beach there's a pool laid out as a fantasy Tropical Paradise with Cliff jumps waterfalls [Music] and an aquarium full of Caribbean wildlife working on this kind of scale means no one is ever denied their place in the sun whether they're here for a relaxing break all the 24-hour party [Music] it's a privilege the centerpiece of an afternoon that privilege are the champagne guns when a team of possesses spray down the crowd with six Magnums of ice cold bubbly [Applause] [Music] I'm really big on making sure that we give that Ultimate Experience to the person that's spending 300 at a chair to someone that is spending ten thousand dollars at a villa just for the privilege of sitting poolside here clubbers must run our per sizeable tab on food and drink 300 depending on the size of bed you're looking to get these pergolas are around two thousand dollar food and beverage and then the grand Cabanas are 3500 you have the five lounge chairs on the outside private bathroom a kitchen a living room flat screen TV you have everything in there for those seeking the ultimate luxury experience the mega Resort is here to help guests can be chauffeured around the island in the Resort's own Fleet of high-end cars these include four Tesla Model S's or for extra special visitors a Bentley bentayga [Music] or how about a VIP stay in the reserve a secluded Hotel within a hotel with a separate private entrance [Music] welcome Mom it's so nice to have you with us let me get the door for you the man who tends to reserve guests every need is head Butler Vincent Saunders once you book a suite here at the reserve you automatically get 24-hour Butler Service whatever they need they give us a call and we'll take care of it for them you know anything that you want as long as it's not illegal or immoral your Butlers will take care of it for you we have cookies and chocolates we have a chef on property that bakes these fresh every day for the reserve would you like to try one it's very nice I've eaten a lot of them just look at me so you should try one from the private Lounge VIPs take a bank of private lifts to the top eight floors of the curving East Tower the smallest room here is a one bed Suite the largest is the presidential suite fun fact before we go in the first guest to stay in the suite is Sir Richard Branson so it's my favorite and you'll see why welcome to the presidential suite this one hotel room is more than four times the size of the average British house it's just over 4 000 square foot [Music] we have seven balconies all overlooking the beautiful turquoise Bahamian water it's just an amazing room over here we have the media room a lot of families they come in and they put the kids in the media room and they have their privacy they close this up and they forget about their kids [Music] we have three bedrooms spread out over two floors each of them comes with its own ensuite [Music] here we have a Roman tub for any romantic encounters that the Butlers may have in store for their guests one of the many surprises the presidential suite has in store is that it's not available to book ever you would have to be an invited guest of the casino to stay here you can call up it is not on the website it's exclusively for our high-end Casino clients [Music] and most surprising of all many of those invited to stay here are given this sweet for free welcome to the world of the high rollers Ultra Rich gamblers who are willing to bet millions in a single night the resort wants them to wager it here the largest casino in the Caribbean more than 9 000 square meters of gambling with 120 tables for dice cards 18. [Music] and 1100 slot machines [Music] the job of luring these coveted players to the Bahamas Falls to a team of Casino hosts like Keith Miller he has a jaw-dropping array of perks at his disposal it goes all the way up to sending our private jet wherever you are we can come and pick you up before arranging a trip on our 215 foot yacht I can assist with that the range is incredible and I just try my best to make sure that people are happy in return Keith asks his clients to do just one simple thing gamble vast sums of money and he doesn't even mind if they win and it's fun to win a lot of people win it I've seen huge Smiles walking out of here with a lot of a lot of cash that cash mostly changes hands in a special private Casino these are our private gaming salons that we have for our Ultra VIP clients this is a standard gaming room set up with a regular blackjack table but we can change it out to baccarat craps table roulette wheel whatever you want in here we can facilitate this is for our highest tier of gamer it's not just everybody can come in here it's it's meant to be exclusive and normally that comes with a certain price point and can you explain what the price one is VIP very VIP high rollers have been known to wager hundreds of thousands of pounds on a single hand of cards and the casino helps facilitate these huge Bets with extra high value gambling chips some of which come with their own security escort these are one hundred thousand dollar chips and there's a stack of it just two million dollars it's just chips to me it's the same as a regular one dollar chips if you actually think in terms of money you're going to freak yourself out so I just also just keep in mind it's just a chip foreign hosting high rollers can seriously boost business but there's another way the casino is upping its game Baha Mars Billionaire Hong kong-based owners have made a fortune serving Chinese gamblers around the world now they want to lure them here so they've added certain subtle touches red carpets woven with Chinese good luck symbols artwork in the shape of an eight a Chinese lucky number and a Chinese restaurant with a doubly lucky 88 seats and 88 dishes on the menu there's even a fountain that catches fire meant to create better feng shui for gambling [Music] bigger strategy to tempt people into having a flutter this giant room sits at the very heart of the resort operating 24 hours a day 365 days a year and almost everyone will pass through it several times every day in fact the entire property is designed so that all roads lead to the casino the vast array of games means no one is denied a chance to win or lose with so much money floating around the casino needs a sophisticated security system to protect it all watching every table from several different angles is a vast CCTV Network known as the eye in the sky the exact number and position of the cameras is a closely guarded secret they're there to observe and to help to ensure the Integrity of the games as well but other than that we can't disclose too much of what they're doing but know that they're there to protect us and to look out for us all and it's not just the casino that needs security between the high-end boutiques the VIP clients the expensive cars and the sheer number of people Milling around the whole Resort needs top quality protection the biggest thing that we do and the thing that we worry about is really the guest experience when people come to the Bahamas they don't want to think about security when you go on vacation or holiday you don't want to think about is the place secure normal people don't have that in their head so our job is to make this place feel secure but also not feel like you walked into Fort Knox but subtle as it may be security here is serious business so serious the resort employs an unusual team of Specialists that few hotels can manage five sniffer dogs trained to look for either drugs or explosives anytime a dignitary or someone from government comes we have our dog sweep the areas that they're going to be in to make sure that we don't have any trouble and then our narcotics dogs obviously narcotics the newest recruit is Teo a two-year-old golden retriever hey boy you working every day what he just brightens my day I'm breathing there with the day of everybody around him next the animal Antics continue at the Wildlife Park guests Splash out on a close encounter Resort stocks up on a few essentials you go through approximately 500 000 paper thousand a month kind of crazy [Music] being a five-star Mega Resort means offering things that no other holiday destination can match of course there's swimming Sports 24 hour a day gambling and dozens of places to eat on top of all that this Resort has something fairly unusual its own animal collection for guests to enjoy from 44 tropical birds that will feed from your hand to a school of sharks that could easily take off a finger but the stars of the animal show are without question the flamingos on Parade it's definitely what makes us unique for sure these four flamingos were all born right here at the mega Resort over the last year Chief Flamingo officer Stacy Spurlock and her team have been hand rearing them whenever you're raising long-legged Birds it's very important through that developmental stage that you exercise them now they see humans as part of the flock as you can see they're not following they're leading [Music] are the national bird of the Bahamas this is my first real vacation um and I could spend it with some flamingos and they're beautiful back at the resort specially built habitat there are another 18 Birds on display 24 7. always ready for a quick selfie but because the four roving Flamingo ambassadors might possibly follow a guest to the pool they live out of public view in a special enclosure I love the way they smell it's a very powdery fishy smell um and it is just a comfort to me isn't it isn't it yeah I know you're like that's nice that's not a good smell Stacy you're weird you're weird I am weird hey my baby girl when I'm having a a rough Chief Flamingo officer day doing all paperwork and all the other managerial stuff and I need some a little bit of therapy I just come right out here and play with my girl get some loving I don't love you no that's what I think of you you get pooped on by a flamingo you might have some good luck there but Stacy is not the only one who interacts with semi-wild animals on a daily basis guests can book their own close encounters with some scary looking Marine predators in the sanctuary the Resort's 662 000 liter aquarium the residents include eight nurse sharks who swim around groups of carefully coached volunteers 12 Rays who will swim straight over their laps and five green sea turtles who always seem Keen for a spot of lettuce these encounters often include a chat with the Resort's Chief scientist Vanessa Benjamin you know these are endangered right they eat jellyfish and if you have a plastic bag floating in the water it looks just like a jellyfish to them and so they eat it and so be careful where you dispose of your trash over at the touch tank Vanessa has her own Bahamian cultural icon to show guests okay a giant sea snail called a conch so here we have the mouth in the middle the eyes on the end and then this is the giant foot this hair is what we call in a perculum that they use to crawl along and dig their way in the sand and the chief scientist is running a real scientific study by collecting their poo we would try to collect some to understand microplastics in conk and understand their diet and what they're eating because plastic pollution is a is a major threat for our oceans in general and so we're part of a caribbean-wide study foreign [Music] this state-of-the-art facility the resort employs a specialist team led by Dirk Westfall they tackle a bewildering array of jobs from cleaning the aquarium while the animals are still in it to trimming Stingray barbs like fingernails so guests don't get a nasty surprise and behind the scenes they manage a Filtration plant that processes 2 400 liters of seawater a minute these are our three foam fractionators or protein skimmers they take air and inject it into the salt water that's going through the filtration system it's the same thing that you see in the ocean when you see large amounts of foam on the beach that's the Organics that are in the water that are coming out it's the same process we use that natural process to clean our water but where does all that sea water come from surprisingly it's not from the sea but from a salty well 250 meters below the island this adds another layer of filtration as water seeps from the ocean through layers of rock and sound it's pumped from here to the main Aquarium and also to four isolation tanks that serve as a quarantine area and on-site Veterinary Hospital to some of our new arrivals Queen Angels here which are the yellow and blue and our two new puffers which have a lot of Personality we also have a yellow Ray who came to us and she has just recently given birth to little pups once they reach adulthood we'll use them as Animal Ambassadors in our touch pool this room also has another purpose one that Dirk will hopefully never need to rely on every building on this campus has been built to withstand hurricanes if there is a severe storm we'll bring the animals here so that they're safe this room is solid concrete walls there's probably very little that will actually blow through it these Provisions are necessary because in this part of the world tropical storms are a fact of life and even Mega resorts are not immune to the weather between June and November each year the staff stand ready for the worst the hotel is prepared we always prepare at work and we actually have a hurricane store room we try to get prepared ready to go first here's batteries flashlights generators pumps ropes anything to do with safety having a room stocked with emergency supplies is just one part of a grand plan [Music] every door and window is built to withstand Winds of up to 180 miles per hour the Resort's ground floor is not actually on the ground it's raised six meters in the air to prevent flooding accessed by a discrete network of bridges escalators and stairways [Music] and there's one final line of defense underneath the holiday makers playing on the beach there's a four and a half meter concrete retaining wall that stops the Resort's foundations being washed away by a violent storm surge if there was a hurricane I wouldn't want to be on the top floors I want to beat out lower but but other than that I think the property is fully fully uh capable of handling hurricane if we was to have one even when hurricanes aren't threatening the resort there's a continuous stream of problems to tackle from constantly keeping the paint fresh to daily equipment breakdowns and because it's impossible to find specialist spares on a small tropical island Sean keeps an Aladdin's Cave of replacement parts including one room with nothing but light bulbs and basically everything is Led which means it lasts longer burn less energy and uh more expensive do you know how many actual light bulbs there are in this whole property no I I don't think I could give you a quite an actual number but I know it's Millions I think we I think we're in the millions of light bulbs on this property and when one of those millions of bulbs Burns Out Sean has to do his own recycling this is machine is what you call a bulb Edo it actually eats the bulb it's ready to go it's you start it up let me drop it in and actually see it's obviously see what's going on it's actually pulling the bug foreign and it's gone quick as that the vapors and the gases goes into a filtration system and then the glass goes to the bottom here and once it's filled glass is used for recycling so how does a place like this get all the supplies it needs it all starts with this man Patrick pluck what is my job mine is basically I'm the one who decides when how and where we're going to be buying things from and the logistics for everything you see coming in comes through my office as well three days a week a ship docks here from Fort Lauderdale Florida with at least 10 shipping containers exclusively for Bahama oh this is our Lifeline 98 of everything we buy for the resort comes in this way the container ship doesn't come in one day we actually have enough to take care of that if we went into a two day or three day where we have tropical storms and those kind of things and the vessels can't sail you know all of a sudden it it has a very quick trickle-down effect it can be critical because all of a sudden the the waiter's sitting there and he has to explain to a guest that he doesn't have the fish or he doesn't have the blueberries that she wanted to order and then the guest sits there and says well why am I why am I a bombard this is supposed to be the best [Music] perishable items are driven straight to the resort and often serve to guests that very night but for goods with a longer shelf life Patrick creates a vital buffer of back stock by squirreling them away in warehouses here mostly what we have are things that turn over in a rapid pace so in other words things are in here we'll stay here for maybe a week to two weeks otherwise it's being sent over to the hotel for use right here actually is a shipment that we got in of water actually it's kind of it came straight over to us from from Europe actually from Hampshire England so we have both the still and the sparkling we bring this in solely for our Rosewood guest currently we have 36 pallets and there's 48 cases of water on every pallet foreign that's one month's supply for just the smallest of the Resort's three hotels and once it's all being drunk there'll be quite a few trips to the Loo this is toilet paper you know things that are just you just gotta have right you know so nothing fancy we have paper towels some more paper towels we go through approximately 500 000 paper towels in a month kind of crazy [Music] because almost nothing is available locally every conceivable eventuality is covered a five-star hotel room can never have a broken Telly so Patrick has 150 spares on hand as well as ten thousand replacement pool towels we're probably gonna go through somewhere between 55 and sixty thousand four thousand a year so it's quite a few pool times [Music] one Warehouse contains nothing except spare hotel furniture and roll after role of the specially commissioned Casino carpet but there's one thing Patrick never has to worry about storing for long food from eight in the morning until seven at night a constant stream of Provisions flows from the loading dock to the 40 restaurants and bars and from there to the guests in one of the 15 000 meals prepared here every day next drinks are served at the mega Resort one Chef Cooks up a five-star Mega meal 50 ounce wagyu Tomahawk this the 265 dollars on the menu right now and thousands of Staff get suited and booted I like the cocktail dresses because they're sexy the cocktail dresses are sexy I'm not a t-shirt kind of a girl [Music] like any self-respecting five-star destination the 3.4 billion pound Baja mar Mega Resort has plenty of luxury amenities like a spa with 24 treatment rooms it's run by a British company and they brought in Dawn holder from Rochdale to oversee it welcome to S Bar this is our Vita jewel in the center in the vial is actual crystals it infuses the water with vibrations the remineralized water then enters your body and then it gives off the health benefits depending on the stone that's inside the Veil we have the happiness file in here at the moment we also have a lunar vial and we have a Vitality vial also but this being a mega Resort one Spa isn't enough dawn has two Spas one upstairs for the guests and another downstairs offering treatments for the staff offer the back does it cost as much to go down there as it does to come up here no it's very very very um competitive [Music] employee Spa is just one shop in a virtual High Street below stairs staff rarely have the time to leave the resort for personal business so the resort brings the business to them but there's one thing that you won't find in many Town centers a laundry service on steroids [Music] this is the uniform room we have nine conveyors a through I each conveyor holds 300 to 750 slots and each slot holds anywhere from six garments to 12 garments depending on how many pieces that position holds when our Associates come to work in the morning they bring their ID to one of the conveyor doors where they'll swipe their badge the conveyor will go around and it will stop on their slot it literally only takes you 30 seconds or so to get your uniform and get on your way I love it this way I don't have to do this at home come to work and it's all ready [Music] in total the resort has more than 75 000 separate items of clothing in circulation got about 4.7 million dollars in inventory some of the more interesting uniforms of course is our cocktail uniform always a fun one for Bridget having improperly dressed employees is simply not an option so the resort cleans their clothes for them handling up to 3 000 pieces of laundry a day [Music] all tracked around their system by electronic tags sewn into each garment the laundry will collect these sword uniforms take it to their laundry plan for processing after 24 hours the clean uniforms are delivered back to the uniform room it starts all over again add in sheets towels and dressing gowns from Two and a Half thousand guest rooms the laundry list runs into the tens of thousands of items every single day we just received six racks from the laundry eat the rack holds 80 garments sometimes 79. someone was feeling a bit lazy I forgot to hang one I like the cocktail dresses because they're sexy the cocktail dresses are sexy I'm not a t-shirt kind of a girl his employees look the part they're dispatched to their station and every station has its own unique look 275 different ones in all from Polo shirted Beach attendants to a formal bar that's all about smoke and mirrors literally so we're making a smoke old-fashioned using a Woodford Reserve bourbon right now I'm gonna smoke the apple wood chips so we smoke the jar once this is done I'm going to pour the drink inside that's how we get that smoked flavor we do our own infusions here Island Bliss for example we Infuse it with watermelon and rosemary and we also have another one called Crimson pixie which is tequila infused with jalapeno and then we have another one with mango and jalapeno we have another one with uh pineapple and cilantro while Leslie is busy presenting a smooth service to his guests upstairs there you have it smoked old-fashioned executive chef Thomas grees is downstairs getting a feel for tonight's dinner it looks like our order just came in from Chicago this is great the muscles still tight 15 20 steaks per box three times it's a lot of steaks upwards of the thou like probably a thousand plus most restaurants would order meat pre-cut into steaks at the mega Resort that's just not good enough they have to be cut right here in the specially built butcher shop by Thomas's hand-picked Master butcher this is our band saw where we do our fabrication on and again we're gonna get about five five six Porter houses out of this one I'm gonna let Joseph because this is his Forte foreign Joseph is making sure that we're fabricating to the the right spec that's a top quality steak better than anything else in the world by the end of the night this steak will be cooked and hopefully somebody will be really happy all this meat is destined for one restaurant Kana a steakhouse owned by Dario cicchini the world's most famous butcher the special tonight is going to be your heirloom tomato salad with California walnuts a little bit of the Gorgonzola Dolce the balsamic caviar pearls and we're finishing off with some basil oil push the Tom Ox tonight [Music] [Applause] Thomas is Dario's protege and it's fair to say he's obsessed with steak even displaying it in the foyer like expensive jewelry this is the butcher shop jewel case this really displays a lot of the heart and soul behind our meat program that we have here our Baseline fillets eight ounce beautiful Australian wagyu Cowboy cut dry aged in Chicago and a special cooler that we have that's allocated just to karna to our specifications as far as how long we want to drive it for what percentage of humidity and what temperature it's going to be controlled at in the kitchen chefs have been working since 7am preparing for the night's service this is a 50 ounce wagyu Tomahawk currently the biggest steak we have it's three pounds of meat this is 265 on the menu right now long before a single Diner even sets foot in the restaurant steaks go through an elaborate pre-cooking routine overseen by fukundo the restaurants Argentinian Grill Master working at a specially imported Argentinian Grill we do a two-folded process with our Meats we're smoking these right now which smoked chips will give that rich flavor that we want like a wood fired we have this beautiful smoke in this herbaceous crust that's on the outside of them now we take these off and let them rest we're gonna wait until our guests are saying okay we want our steak rare medium rare whatever it may be we'll finish off in a high temp Broiler that kind of a New York City Style char around 7pm the orders start flowing in a year ago today we were on the other side of the property getting married she decided to stick with me for a year so I figured I'd kind of throw in a little bonus and bring it to dinner so one thing that makes great food better is always a service I think the service here is here finally let's get three bowls up in the window and we'll be ready to plate Thomas has to get hundreds of gourmet dishes out the door which means orchestrating a scene of carefully Controlled Chaos it's a lot like herding cats I mean you gotta you got a 100 cats running at you at once you got to make sure that they're they're in an organized fashion it's only now with hungry guests tucking into their starters that the steaks finally complete their long journey Steakhouse came in we've fabricated to our specifications we've wood smoked it we've cooked it to our desired temperature and now we're looking to uh serve it and eat it and to go with the best steaks money can buy Thomas offers some appropriately priced wine definitely one of my favorite rats um Screaming Eagle very limited production high-end Mountain fruit a really great bottle wine 5000 for the uh for the bottle itself next the sun goes down but the fun carries on the night shift breaks out the elbow grease and the mega Resorts feeds the 5 000. it's the best place at Bahama this is where we come to eat [Music] it's the end of the day at the mega Resort and a well-worn routine is in progress attendants gather up 25 000 pool towels to be washed for tomorrow [Music] and as the sun sets the casino is gearing up for the big evening Rush tonight there'll be a lot of cash at stake and it's critical that everyone plays fair and square even the staff so there are rules for everything as dealer Valentino opens his table manager Denise watches carefully to make sure he's not cheating and he has to watch her in return their first job is to bag up and Destroy last night's cards so no one can slip a spare Ace up their sleeve every time we open up tables we put a brand new set of cards on them the first process is to break the seal on the cards and take them out tables use up to eight decks at once to stop players guessing which card might come next in total the casino opens and discards around 750 decks daily that's close to 15 million cards a year then there's the money when this table would have closed last night one million one hundred and five thousand dollars and chips were in in this float so when we open it the next day we need to make sure that there's still the same amount of chips at any one time there's around 60 million pounds worth of casino chips in circulation all backed by real cash to pay the winners good luck to everybody [Laughter] in blackjack it's each player against the house but the staff aren't necessarily rooting for the casino we don't tell them how to play but if we see that they're doing something that they really shouldn't be doing we try to guide them in the right direction very nice very nice believe it or not the dealers want the patrons to win because we collect it so the more they went the more I get Tiffany's coming with me on all day next time still make money but there has to be winners and losers we were playing roulette earlier today lost a lot to relax we're not good at anything but we enjoy losing it it's great watching people listening to the interactions it's a fun experience 21 guys aside from gambling casino patrons have one other major pastimes drinking the busiest bar in the mega Resort isn't a bar at all it's the casino and all their booze comes from the pump room managed by Liz Cheney start tequila wall this is a favorite recently the tequila that was founded by George Clooney and Brandi Gerber you have the group of guests that come in and they're more trendy and they want to find the new hip stuff and so we don't ever want to say no never saying no means Liz always has more than a thousand top grade bottles in stock I'm not really sure how long it would take to empty all of this out but I would say two or three days because we place our orders constantly these are destined for the bars upstairs where skilled bartenders pour drinks and make cocktails with a flourish but the vast majority of booze is dispensed directly from the pump room [Music] this high-tech system that holds up to 240 bottles of alcohol at once these are all connected to the one system it's about 100 yards of tubing to get from here to the bars at each bar there are several guns that dispense up to 40 different drinks at the touch of a button there's another drink when you hear that little that means that they're popping the gun voila [Music] sitting between the bottles and the guns are 80 vacuum pumps which allow precisely one shot of alcohol through with each press of the button there are also touch screens which can mix alcohol in any combination to make cocktails if they want to come in and order a Bahama Mama which is very popular on the island they just hit the Bahama Mama button and all of these work together they talk to each other and they go into the tubes and they end up in the glass I think it's great at the end of the day happy guests that's what it's all about beyond the casino there are no less than 18 bars and night spots 10 of which stay open into the small hours and naturally a mega Resort has to have its own nightclub [Music] but as happy guests party the night away a division of crack troops move into position the 200 cleaners of the public areas Department a separate Squad is assigned to each of the Resort's 32 kitchens which must be washed down from floor to ceiling the hardest job on the night shift kitchen cleaning it's a massive undertaking you have to clean every kitchen every night because we're serving gas every night across the property every Square centimeter of public space must be scrubbed nightly from the lobbies to the loose and if people are still partying the troops must simply maneuver around them even the most complex jobs like cleaning the 192 thousand pound Casino chandelier have to be managed while gamblers are still at the tables four times a year these Specialists come in to clean it by hand each one of the five thousand crystals must be polished one by one buy one it takes ten nights to complete the job some things is best done with the hands old-fashioned elbow grease around 5am most of the resort is ready to go for the new day ahead one of the last things to be cleaned is the beach dredged adorned by a special mechanical rake and as the sun comes up the day shift takes over here cleanliness is Next to Godliness sir for the sake of the wildlife we have to clean the sand from the straws debris so it won't get actually into our beautiful Waters the you know getting the turtle noses or you know the sort of animals wouldn't feed on them so we have to do a whole process on this beach the process finishes with a ranging 2 000 deck Chairs into perfect rows [Music] by 9 am another day of five-star luxury is well underway that means Above All Else eating no matter what kind of meal a guest is looking for the Mega Resort aims to provide it and everything has to have that extra twist morning coffee is served with digital phone printing lunch can be taken right on the beach from a food truck but perhaps the most extraordinary restaurant here is not for guests at all it's the staff canteen hello welcome to Cafe Blue this is the best place at Bahama this is where we come to eat this is lunch time seven days a week from 6 a.m to 2 A.M a team of 47 people led by head chef Shane Durrell feeds every employee on site okay that makes this the single busiest kitchen on the property this kitchen is very vital you know because you know you have a lot of hungry hungry uh Associates with so many mouths to feed it's easy to think the fair here is little better than old school dinners well think again you'll have a salmon fully beef short ribs you love the my Maple Lake we love baby back ribs today they have everything Bohemian they have peas and rice plantain fish crabs I like the macaroni it's really really nice how are you chandelier one of our Cooks she did some guavadov for this evening's dinner guava is a fruit and you you take that fruit and you wrap it in a dough you steam it then you have a sauce that goes along with it you can add rum to it and it's awesome every day Shane and his team dish up around 4 000 meals for free because every employee is given a ten dollar lunch allowance [Music] hi Gab rice I got ham I got crab I got all of this and dessert for eight dollars if I'm really hungry I can come back and use my other two dollars later that leaves Shane with a colossal grocery bill right now we spent anywhere from a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars weekly on supplies to feed the staff [Music] next it's tee off time at the mega Resort [Music] [Applause] the staff try to beat the Heat and engineer Sean turns on the juice [Music] in the Bahamas temperatures regularly top 32 degrees that's a big selling point for the Mega Resort but it also creates a big problem how to keep 7 000 guests and the 5 000 staff who serve them cool the solution is hidden at the back of the convention center the biggest air conditioning plants in the country these massive machines are so powerful only three of them are usually needed but even if they all broke down at once no one would break a sweat because there are four others waiting on standby one million dollars although costly the system works on an incredibly simple idea it chills plain water then shoots it around the resort through miles and miles of pipes the water cools the buildings then comes back to the chillers once again and Sean keeps the whole system running smoothly by using a free eco-friendly natural coolant sea water pumped up from one of the many deep Wells under the resort then it pumps it back out after the salty water cools off the chiller plant it gathers in Lakes at the Resort's Golf Course where it's used to keep the greens Green the grass is a salt tolerant variety that can be watered with a mixture of seawater and fresh tropical rain that in turn frees up the groundskeepers to concentrate on other essential maintenance like moving all 18 holes to new positions every single day people love to play our Golf Course right so we have a lot of repeat guests and so if you play a couple of days in a row you know sometimes it's more fun to play different pen location even though the course is constantly changing there are some hazards golfers must face every time the course is designer famous golfer Jack Nicklaus dynamited this Lakeshore to create a tricky approach [Music] we're on hole number 16 our signature hole par three our island green effect here with Lake Cunningham it's really difficult to judge the distance here let's see if this want to be one that goes in the lake or on it is that's probably the 10 to 12 ball for the day in the water but their loss is one Mega Resort Chef's gain it's just something fun to do on my days off I love golf and I like the outdoors and when I golfed here the first couple of times I saw the golf balls going in the water I just thought it was a shame this is only probably 10 minutes work you can see there's a lot of different balls everybody's using from the colored ones to the ones that look like little footballs so any opportunity I can get to get some balls oh another clever design feature of the golf course it conceals a huge piece of vital infrastructure the resorts own 15 megawatt power station incredibly this is just a backup in case the main Supply ever fails if we was to lose power now and you're in this room you'll hear a big bang then all of a sudden a couple minutes later here clap clack clock which means the switches are turning over and we are generated power so in the event that something happens we always ready to go whether on Mains or generator the mega Resort draws around nine megawatts of electricity that's equivalent to more than 25 000 British homes it's just another extraordinary system that keeps the mega Resort humming 24 7. I left pretty high it's a massive massive number it's huge that's that's what I can say it's yours it's your big number you know from the golf course greens to the white sand beach from the wildlife to the wild parties and from the luxury suites to the high stakes Casino this is an investment of billions all meant to capture that elusive thing us and our hard-earned holiday money we want people to have a good time we understand that Island life is one to be enjoyed we understand that life is to be enjoyed we try our best to help people to do that as much as we can over the next year Bahama will host close to 1 million guests this one Mega Resort could soon make up 12 of the Bahamas entire economy and as big as it is soon there'll be more right next door a huge new water park is under construction ready to open in 2021. this Resort is about to get even more Mega [Music]

Channel: Spark

Views: 2,970,770

Keywords: Access-all-areas pass, Adventure seekers, Amazing videos, Biggest cruise ship, Dining options, Documentaries, Dream holidays, Engineering marvels, Kids clubs, Life on board, Live performances, Mega resorts, Oceanic adventures, Science, Spa facilities, Spark, Spark inspiration, Technology, Teen activities, Viewers' perspective, World-class service

Id: fLRJn1aFMWA

Length: 133min 26sec (8006 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2023