The countdown is on! With just under three weeks to go until the launch of Marella Voyager, behind the scenes there has been plenty going on to get the ship ready for her first Western Mediterranean sailing from Palma, Majorca on 3rd June.
The fifth and largest ship* to the fleet, is undergoing a drastic makeover and will spend a total of 36 days in the dry dock in Cadiz, including 24 hours at the start to empty the dock and 12 hours at the end to flood the dock.
A collective effort of 11,460 dry dock working hours has been put into preparing the ship, with the help of; 630 contractors, 193 technical crew, 120 yard personnel staff, a team of 12 from technical projects and not forgetting, the hotel staff and their additional working hours to get the ship in running order. To put this into perspective, that’s enough people to fill the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and approximately 477 days that the team are working to turn around, in just over one month.
In terms of the exterior and interior across the ship, multiple materials and products have been used to revamp Marella Voyager including:
- 37,600 square metres of carpet will be laid – enough to cover five standard size football pitches
- 18,500 litres of paint will be used to revamp the hull – enough to fill 14 six-seater hot tubs
- 6,000 metres of technical cabling is to be installed** – nearly four miles long, or the distance between London King’s Cross to London Victoria
- 70,000 tiles will be fixed to the walls, floors and counters in the new food hall venue, The Kitchens, and is being kitted out with 20 tonnes of new catering equipment. That’s about the same weight as three African Elephants.
- There are a total of 150 new dishes that will be introduced to guests on Marella Voyager, across the 17 food venues, of which 25 per cent of the new menus will feature vegetarian dishes. Over 250 hours have been spent developing the new menus, or the approximate time it would take the average human to walk from London, UK to Nice, France.
For when the days draw to a close, the entertainment team will come together across the various venues on board and host an array of interactive activities and put on show stopping performances for guests to sit back and enjoy. With the largest seat capacity yet in a Broadway Show Lounge across the fleet with 900 seats, the entertainment cast will spend a total of 586 hours, or approximately full 24 days, rehearsing to learn 12 new production shows, before they’ve even boarded the ship. For reference, 24 days is the average time it takes to cross the Atlantic on a sailboat.
Moreover, over 500 bespoke costumes have been designed and created exclusively for the shows – about 16 times more than a fashion designer would show on a runway at New York Fashion Week and over 850 individual tracks of instruments have been arranged and recorded, equating to 38,250 minutes of recording time – or the equivalent of listening to Bob Marley’s album, ‘Exodus’ 1,027 times. And for the guests who are wanting to challenge their competitiveness, the team have carefully curated 300 ‘Teatime Teaser’ quiz questions, ready to put them to the test.
During dry dock, the hotel director will have walked on average 19,339 steps onboard a day and a total of 109,672 meals would have been served to teams onboard.
* Largest ship in terms of tonnage
** Excluding IT equipment
Source: TUI Group Media Centre
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