Normally the last day at sea means resting before you have to stuff all your dirty clothes in your luggage and hope it fits. We got to do something cool for lunch and went on a tour of the ship's kitchens. Afterwards we had a menu of some premium choices to have for lunch. It was amazing to see the multiple kitchens that go into feeding the ship each day. (Jewel of the Seas had 2700 cruisers aboard, plus staff.). It is amazing to think how hard each worker works whatever their position on the cruise. I'm assuming they work all 7 days of the week and for months at a time. All work hard to make the cruisers feel pampered and special, and then they start with a whole new group a week later.
Here are some random statistics we learned going on the kitchen tour, some which may blow your mind. The ship goes through 18,000 dozen eggs a week. The carry 40 different varieties of fruit. They can cook 580 chicken breasts in 8 minutes. Royal Caribbean as a whole goes through 8,000 pounds of lobster per year, 10 million pounds of potatoes, 18 million pounds of chicken, and 50 million pounds of beef. They serve 190 million meals per year for over 32 million guests. They go thru half a million pounds of coffee, 4 million cans of pop, and 80 million bottles of beer each year. Overall they have almost 1500 cooks with 25 different nationalities. Here I thought I did a lot of cooking for Hostess Appreciation day!
Now I think it's time to turn the blog back over to my wife. Again I feel honored to have been able to share some stories and pictures with all of you. Hopefully you enjoyed the pictures, had a laugh, or maybe even felt like you were stowed away with us on the cruise. Stampers please make sure Stephanie shares some of the pictures of the cards from the swap. I would guess that the majority of the over 400 demonstrators participate in the card swap each year. They post all of the cards mid-week and it is amazing to see the work and creativity. I know that for Hostess Appreciation each year you guys do a great job for the card contest. I think usually there are 10-15 entries. I look at all the swaps on the ship and know that I would not want to have to choose just 1 to be the best, and I definitely know I wouldn't want to count all those votes!!
Here's some pics to close. Thanks again for the all kind words and feedback. I didn't know blogging was so hard. I'm gonna need another vacation!
Todd
Us on our balcony for the second formal night.
Despite the evidence to the contrary throughout this blog, we don't take a lot of pictures together. This time we tried to get a few more together. I'm gonna have to work on my selfie game because I don't have any with duck lips.
Sunrise on the last sea day.
One more sunrise picture.
Fruit monkey in the kitchen tour. Hopefully they put it out so others could enjoy it.
See the little dough balls on the circle? There was a machine right behind the kitchen worker that would take the whole big ball of dough and kinda shake it (not sure what the best verb is) for maybe 30 seconds and they came out like that.
How about this for unlimited shrimp? Bring me the seafood sauce and let's get after it.
These are shrimp cocktail bowls for lunch service. I'd rather have the one in the other picture.
Made me want some pulled pork and BBQ.
Not gonna lie I really wanted to grab a couple cookies on the way thru.
This is what the kitchen tour was called. However, when it was explained to us at dinner I thought the food was gonna be unlimited. It was the champagne and mimosas that were unlimited. I was ready to put on a food clinic like I was a teenager again.
What would your choice be? I had the surf and turf. The meat was unbelievable, but the honestly the "turf" was lacking. Four small shrimp.
What would you like for dessert?
I had the Key Lime Pie and it was amazing.
Note: Less than 1% of all demonstrators earn the incentive trip each year.
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