For those of you who don’t know “The Mess” is where crew members eat. Its set out like a buffet restaurant, but one of those 2 meals for £10, ones…
The Mess is a room filled with loud noises and pungent smells. This a place where you can find a wide selection of different cuisines from curry, pasta, pizzas, salad, soups, sandwiches and much more.
With such a range of cultures working on the ship the aim his to cater for everyone.

Cruise ships are renowned for serving up the best dishes and whilst that is true, for the passengers, for the crew its a little different. The food in the mess … is a mess. Its definitely quantity over quality.

I am by no means a fussy eater but there were days where I would struggle to find something I fancied. not from lack of choice but often things would just taste very different to how you would expect them too. For example, the veg didn’t taste like veg. Probably because they had been out of the ground for so long.

Occasionally the ship will have “days” like Mexican days or “English day” where (you guessed it) it’s all about the fish and chips.

On most ships, the mess area is divided so people have their cliques. Like in mean girls, there are tables that you sit at and some you stay away from. Not that anyone’s mean, quite the opposite, but your obviously going to sit with your friends rather than a table of strangers who are all talking in a language you can’t understand. Everyone tends to sit with the people they work with so normally you have a table with of doctors, the entertainment table, the spa table, the shop staff, the dancers, engine staff etc.

There are normally three different messes.

First, we have the crew mess which is for all the people behind the scenes like the chefs, cleaners and in my opinion the hardest workers on the ship. This mess is usually the biggest as there is more crew than anyone else.

secondly, we have the staff mess. I’m sure there is a stripe system but from what I can see this is for anyone who’s job requires them to work with passengers. i.e. Spa, Shops, Entertainment

Thirdly we have the officers mess. For the higher ranking members of the ship.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse at where the crew members spend their breaks.