Carnival Magic, Dream Class Cruise Ship Laundry

[pulsator]

Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, Mike, I had the pleasure of not only going on a 7 day cruise for spring break but, I was also given a private tour of the ship's laundry! We went on the Carnival Magic, one of Carnival's newest and largest ships that is less than a year old to Jamaica, Grand Caymen Island, and Cozumel, Mexico. My boyfriend sent a special request to the Captain asking about getting the tour and when the Captain approved it, Mike surprised me with it!

 

Bear with me as I have 23 photos to upload and I'll be explaining each one!

 

First up, a dry cleaning machine. Only weird thing about these is they are not actually dry cleaning as there is no solvent (not allowed on a ship, pollution) so I believe this is a wet cleaning process, notice how each washer has 8 chemical injectors.... There were two or three of these and I'm pretty sure they were made by Alliance judging from the doors.

 

[pulsator]

There was a special wash and dry service they offered f you didn't want to do your own laundry while on the ship, but it was expensive and I don't trust anyone else with my clothes, but here are the machines! Sadly, in my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the ONE washer they have for this service, a Cissell machine, I think it was 35lb capacity. Those have always fascinated me with their extremely tilted tubs! There were 3 dryers to go with this one washer, not sure if the dryers are slow, the washer is fast, or both...

 

I should also mention, I'm wearing the lime green shirt and standing next to me is the Laundry Manager.

 

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One of their presses for ironing/drying dress shirts...

 

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Manual press...

 

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Here's the best part!!!!

One of five split-pocket 450lb capacity Braun washing machines. These are soft mount machines that can hold about 400 bath towels at once (200 in each pocket), are steam heated, and use about 560 gallons of water per cycle. Cycle time is 35 minutes and they reuse the rinse water from the first rinse to wash the next load.

 

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Here is one of the washers with one of the pockets opened. They load/unload one side, shut the doors, rotate the drum 180 degrees then load/unload the other side. It's full of clean beach towels right now.

 

 

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Chemicals used in the Braun washers. Solar Brite detergent, Chlorlite disinfectant, Neutralizer laundry sour, and So Fresh softener. The last three are the same chemicals the fitness center I work at uses.

 

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One of five 250lb capacity dryers. Made by Vega and steam heated. The dryers run for about 20-25 minutes and dry at 180 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees if they are running behind.

 

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The drum of the dryer. You could fit a love seat in there easily. Each dryer takes one pocket from a washer aka about 200 towels or 225 lbs.

 

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The flatwork ironer, made by Vega as well. This is for drying, ironing, and folding linens and sheets, automatically.

 

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The controls... The Laundry Manager showed us how the controls work by cranking the speed all the way up from about 1.2 (a normal speed) to 3.7 (no units...) and lets us watch the two workers start to panic when they couldn't feed the sheets in fast enough...

 

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Halfway through the linens/sheets pass out of the ironer/dryer and into the folder.

 

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Me next to the output for the dry, ironed, and folded sheets. (To my left, you can see a stack of them through the blue grate.)

 

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Mike and I with the two workers who were feeding wet clean sheets into the flatwork ironer.

 

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Back up stock of bathrobes.

 

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Their automatic towel folder (made by Braun) uses compressed air and rollers to fold all the towels.

 

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Feeding in a towel...

 

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The machine moves around a bit inside and the folded towels drop out of the trap door near the top onto a conveyor belt.

 

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Stock of flat top sheets and some spare bath towels. The ship has over $1,000,000 worth of towels/linens.

 

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4,100 fitted sheets. The ship has over 12,000 bath towels and they order new ones in 30,000 towel shipments. All the old retired towels are used as rags to clean the ship or are donated to charities. They switch out their sheets/towels/linens every 6 months.

 

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The system of steam pipes leading to the washers, dryers, and flatwork ironers to heat them.

 

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Since the laundry is below the sea level, there are these massive air/water tight doors in various places. I think my worst fear being down here would be seeing one of these begin to close.

 

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The Linen Manager to the left, me, and the Laundry Manager to the right. They were both very nice and funny and they even gave us goody bags!!!

 

[aldspinboy]

Jamie how cool ...

I want to say first it is so nice that you and your partner are together and he seems to support you.

Through your family and your college support I can't wait to see what is next for you.

Truly a blessing which I did not have growing up.

And wishing you the best in the future.

 

What clean laundry systems...

Wetcleaning systems are the future in dry cleaning talking to

my friend who has one say's it's the processing afterwards

that is a little harder then using Perc which is less wrinkeling.

The machine that he uses ..talking about COLD water washing this machine cools

the water very cold for some textiles.

I would like to see Co'2 machines work.

 

Love the 5 pocket washers it's amazing how much it hold's

then dipping in a bath of solution water ...

Did  the manager say how the temps where in the wash mode ?

Sudsmen posted his machine awhile back.

So you can put a small sofa in that drum or five of you in there lol.

Big drums blows me away , It seems all of the flatwork ironers and folding

machiens are brand new they look like there very fast.

Did you lose yourself in all those sheets and towels 30.000 towels incredible.

Where they any extracting machines ?

 

It looks like you had a great time I would have and thanks

for posting very nice pictures.

 

Darren k

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[this post was last edited: 3/19/2012-20:48]

 

[toploader55]

Jamie, How Nice for You

Isn't that Great.

I am always facinated with Laundries and Kitchens being a Chef.

How sweet is that your Partner arranged all this for you. Awwwwww !!!!!

It is amazing how much Steam can do. I have not been in many Hotel Kitchens over the past 20-30 years, but Hotels used to use Steam for the Steam Kettles, Compartment Steam Cookers, heat for Hot Tables, Laundry, Heat for the building and Heat the Dishwasher's Wash and Rinse Water on the Rack Conveyors or the Flight Type Machines

 

[philcoford]

Great tour

Thanks for sharing that, amazing all that happens on a ship, below sea level to boot. What a great gift you received from your Boyfriend, looks like you both had a great time.

 

[arbilab]

There is little as awesome as industrial laundry installations. Wish I was there.

 

[qualin]

Wow, I think that's fantastic that you were given a tour of the laundry room. I'm a little surprised but happy to hear that captain let you take a tour. He must have seen weirder requests in his day.

I think it's mind boggling the amount of laundry they blow through. I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed your cruise!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Jamie, how neat! Thanks for sharing. When I was little and we traveled with daddy during the summer, I used to love to stand outside the motel laundry and watch the operation. Those were the days when your linens were changed every day so there was lots of laundry. Usually there was one big Milnor, a huge extractor, a tumbler and an ironer. This was before automated injection of supplies and I loved the way the Milnor would stop, a buzzer sounded and the blue light went off. The wash man would come over and flip a toggleswitch, add product and go back to sorting as the machine continued on until the next stop on the formula chart.

I am so happy for you that you got the tour. How long were you down there? I am glad the staff were pleasant. The pocket washers are great for sheets also because they don't let them ball up. Those folders are fascinating. Many places are glad to offer a tour of otherwise behind the scenes areas with a request and sometimes a charge. When I made arrangements to tour Fallingwater, I arranged for the "In Depth" tour. We had to be there very early, but it was worth it.

Steam is unbelievable. When I worked in a hospital, everything, it seemed, ran on steam. The bedpan washer/sanitizers on each floor, modified KD12s with stainless steel tanks and one funny rack to hold the bps, even dried/sanitized with live steam. We used Cascade in the machines. The plastic bps were turquoise-green so there was no discoloration potential.

 

[william637]

Amazing Trip

Thanks for the post. That was really fascinating to read. That would have easily been my favorite part of the cruise. It was an extremely thoughtful surprise from your boyfriend.