Touring a city at sea
CRUISES | View from backstage is impressive, at $150 a glimpse
CARIBBEAN SEA -- While other passengers on the Ruby Princess cruise ship were slathering on the SPF-30, playing slots in the casino and salivating at the buffet, I was in the morgue.
"It's OK to look -- nobody's dead," Dr. Brenda Barnetson assured me, as I gingerly poked my head in the (thankfully) unoccupied room with a few stainless steel shelves. Capacity: three.
(Lori Rackl/Sun-Times, Courtesy)
ULTIMATE SHIP TOUR: Princess Cruises introduced its three-hour behind-the-scenes tour last fall on the Ruby Princess. It's now offered on two other Princess ships, the Emerald and Crown, and soon will be expanded to the Caribbean and Sapphire.
BOOKING: The tour costs $150 and is capped at 12 passengers. Unlike typical land-based excursions, you can't sign up for this one in advance. To ensure you get a spot, make a reservation at the passenger services desk as soon as you get on board.
MORE INFO: (800) 774-6237 or princess.com.
"Everyone's always curious about the mortuary," said Barnetson, the senior doctor on board.
The Ruby's morgue is one of several behind-the-scenes stops on Princess' "Ultimate Ship Tour," an up-close look at the inner workings of a floating city. It's a chance to poke around parts of the boat normally verboten for guests.
Princess Cruises rolled out the three-hour tours on the Ruby when the 3,080-passenger ship debuted last fall.
Limited to 12 people, the tours are offered only once a cruise, on a day when there's no port call. A Princess representative said the tours have been filling up quickly, selling out a few hours after embarkation.
Cruise lines historically have let curious passengers take a guided visit to the ship's bridge or kitchen galley, but Princess' Ultimate Ship Tour is an industry first. You cover the ship from top to bottom, climbing a ladder to the uppermost deck for a look inside the ship's funnel and venturing all the way down to the engine control room -- the vessel's nerve center, manned by at least three people, 24 hours a day.
You get to nose around backstage in the ship's theater and check out the elaborate costumes, have some champagne and caviar while chatting with the executive chef, see how staff does all that laundry (20,000 towels a day!) and munch on canapes with the captain in the bridge, where you can spy down on the crew's pool at the front of the ship.
It's pretty humbling to learn about what goes into running a city at sea: on-board waste incinerators, a desalinization plant, six generators to make electricity, a printing press and 130 tons of food to last a week.
"This tour is really the ultimate opportunity for some of our passengers to get a very unique view of the new Ruby Princess and meet some of the ship's senior officers in their working environment," said Princess senior vice president Jan Swartz.
This insider access doesn't come cheap. The tour costs $150, but that price includes a fair amount of souvenirs, such as a white chef's jacket, a fluffy Princess bathrobe and a framed photo of you and the captain.
And, unlike other passengers who see the morgue, you live to tell about it.