"Behind the Fun" Excursion review

I searched this forum and didn't find any other threads about Behind the Fun, so I thought I'd go ahead and post some thoughts about the tour we had on Imagination this past Thursday, 2/2.

 

For those who don't know, "Behind the Fun" is CCL's tour-the-ship-for-a-price excursion. I think it's relatively new to CCL (?).

 

On shorter cruises of less than 7 days it is supposed to run about 2 hours and costs $55; on longer cruises it costs $75 and runs about 3.5 hours. The maximum number of participants is 16 per tour and it is only offered once, on the last sea-day of the cruise. As we were on a 4-day cruise to Key West and Cozumel, our tour was of the $55, two-hour variety.

 

Well, the second part was wrong; it ended up being about 2.5 hours. :)

 

For our tour, we had to meet in the ship's library at 8:45am for the tour to begin promptly at 9am, and sure enough, there was a "private function" sign in front of the library entrance. There were some pastries and juice available for us, which was nice. Our tour guide was also the ship's training coordinator, Debbie (I think) from South Africa, and she was great. She gave us each a lanyard with a Behind the Fun -- All Access laminate and verified that none of us were carrying cameras or cellphones of any kind. Then a security staffer wanded us to make sure we weren't carrying anything, and we were off!

 

First stop was the galley between the two dining rooms, where the Head Chef gave us a lot of background on the different areas of the galley, how pastries are made ("we make them all on-board from scratch, we don't buy them at Costco, but we might buy the cake mix from Costco" :) ) and how many staff he has, 92, to make meals for all of the guests.

 

Next stop was down a deck into the Linen Room, where the department head gave us an idea of how many towels, table-cloths, etc., he had to manage with a staff of 5. They DO have some help with folding towels, though, as he showed us a machine that automatically folds them. Nifty! One of the tour participants asked how many towels they lose each week due to theft, and the answer was about 100, but most were not lost through theft, but from damage and just getting threadbare.

 

After that we went down a corridor to the laundry area, where we were shown the giant washing machines (3 tubs, 350 lbs capacity each) and the much-bigger bedspread folding machine, which sadly was out of service for nearby maintenance.

 

Then we were shown the garbage dump. Not as gnarly-smelling as we were expecting, partly because all leftover food is mulched, pulped into a slurry, and then pumped into the ocean after the ship is past the 12-mile limit. They also recycle everything they can, of course, and there's an incinerator aboard, too. Waste graywater and blackwater is processed and purified and also pumped back into the sea once beyond the limit.

 

Next up: "I-95," which is the corridor that runs the entire length of the ship, bow to stern, on Deck 3. Along this corridor we saw the storerooms for different types of food and drink, the crew training area (our tour guide's dominion), crew mess, staff mess, officer's mess, and the large service gangway area midships where the forklifts and baggage carts are stored -- and where the crew can hold large gatherings and soccer matches. Debbie had made cookies for us and we had some of those plus more juice and lemonade in the staff mess before moving on.....

 

...to the Engineering Control Room! This was down a steep flight of stairs and behind a security door and at this point, the security guy who had been quietly dogging us accompanied us into the room -- they weren't taking any chances, and that's fine. To our tour-guide's surprise, Chief Engineer Testa himself was there and conducted the tour, showing us all of the gauges and indicators for the ship's 6 diesel generators, the primary props, side thrusters, trim adjustments, stabilizer controls, and lots of other things. We had some good questions for him and this part of the tour lasted a good while.

 

Finally Debbie had to call a halt to it and we filed back up the steep stairs to see "Oasis," which is the crew's lounge and bar forward, then the backstage area of the Dynasty Lounge, then out onto the windy forepeak, which is the front open deck of the ship (there's a small hidden pool here for the crew, "about the size of my foot" as Debbie explained), and finally up to the navigation bridge, running almost 30 minutes late. :eek:

Debbie showed us a lot of the bridge instrumentation, radars, and other neet things, like the clear Plexiglas square set into the floor on each side so the captain and pilot can see the guide markings on piers. Then the captain himself (Andrea Cavaliere) came over, answered a few questions and posed with us for a group photo, with the central steering console in the middle. This was the last stop on the tour.

We went back downstairs where we completed a brief survey, handed in our laminates (darn!) but got to keep our lanyards, which say Behind the Fun on them and can only be had by tour participants. We also each got a ship fact-sheet, and a Behind the Fun embroidered cap (on the back it says "Honorary Team Member"), and finally Debbie thanked us for being a great group.

 

--But it wasn't quite over. Later that evening Debbie came by the stateroom to personally drop off my copy of the group photo...and later, while I was away, a thank-you dessert tray from Behind the Fun appeared on the desk in my room, with chocolate-covered strawberries decorated like tuxedos using white and dark chocolate and some other sweets. What a nice surprise!

 

All in all, I can recommend this tour without hesitation to almost anyone* if you have any interest in seeing the enormous amount of effort it takes to crew, supply, drive and steer what amounts to a floating city. It was easily one of the high points of my cruise!

 

 

---

* If you are mobility-impaired, however, the steep staircase down to the Engineering Control Room might be unmanageable. They were kinda scary to US and none of us had mobility issues....

Thanks for the review. I'm going to do this tour on the Magic next year. Im a guy that's always interested in how things work, and always been interested in how these magnificent ships operate.

Thanks for the review. I'm going to do this tour on the Magic next year. Im a guy that's always interested in how things work, and always been interested in how these magnificent ships operate.

 

You'll love it, then. Hope you get lucky and your ship's Chief Engineer does your tour, too! :D

 

Book it early, though. I booked it as soon as I boarded and even managed to beat the lines at the Excursions desk, but it is limited and they only do it once. There were 6 slots still available for ours, but on our sailing, we did not sail full, plus Magic is a much bigger ship.

Thank you for posting this review! My husband and I plan to do this tour on our cruise next month :)

Did they have the breathalyzer machine in the crew rest area?

They had one on the tour I took, on the Liberty.

Melanie

We did it on the Glory and it lasted about 4 hours. Outstanding!

It sounds very interesting. Are you able to book it ahead of time or only when you get onboard?

It sounds very interesting. Are you able to book it ahead of time or only when you get onboard?

 

We attended the Behind the Fun Tour on the Legend in 2010. You can only book this tour once on board and we booked as soon as we came aboard. Wound up they had 2 groups of 16 due to the large interest.

 

Very interesting way to spend half a sea day and worth the time and money. The Legend tour was 4 hrs. Not only do you get to see behind the scenes but you get 3 nice photos of your group up on the bridge, one with the Captain and another with the group and captain, goodies in your cabin, a bag and lanyard to boot.

 

One tour is all you need. Enjoy.

Did they have the breathalyzer machine in the crew rest area?

They had one on the tour I took, on the Liberty.

Melanie

 

Did you enjoy Liberty tour? This may be a great idea for me and the hubby. Do you think teens may enjoy this?

Thanks for the info!

 

Wish I'd have known about this on the cruise I just completed, I would have booked it for sure! It sounds like a lot of fun, I'll definitely keep it in mind with my next cruise.

Did you enjoy Liberty tour? This may be a great idea for me and the hubby. Do you think teens may enjoy this?

 

If they enjoy cruising and want to see what goes on behind the scenes they might.

It starts before Camp Carnival opens and there are age limits for young children so we'll be waiting a few years until DS is old enough to join us, but it looks fascinating.

we did this tour just on Saturday...was $95 per person for the 7 day on the Glory. Very interesting. lasted 4 hours.

Do you book at the excursion desk or at the purser's desk? I've heard conflicting information...

Do you book at the excursion desk or at the purser's desk? I've heard conflicting information...

 

Excursion desk but would suggest you book as soon as you get on the ship.

we booked as soon as we boarded. The tickets were sent to our cabin later that day.

we did the Dream and again would highly recommend it to anyone that isnt in a wheel chair LOTS of walking

So am I reading that the price for the 4-hour tour (sounds like Gilligan's Island ;)) recently went up to $95?

That was a really excellent review of the tour. Maybe I will do that next time. Thanks!

...and later, while I was away, a thank-you dessert tray from Behind the Fun appeared on the desk in my room, with chocolate-covered strawberries decorated like tuxedos using white and dark chocolate and some other sweets. What a nice surprise!

 

 

I went on the tour, but my daughter did not. However, she had no compunctions taking MY plate of Chocolate covered strawberries! No, I'm not bitter about it at all.......

If they enjoy cruising and want to see what goes on behind the scenes they might.

 

A great memory for me, I enjoyed it a lot. While we were with the Chef, there were some Chocolate covered Strawberries out for us (never had one before in my life), and some cookies. Lord, they were good!!

If you go, ask the Captain if they watch for Pier Runners. He asked what they were, so of course I told him. Also, I asked him where the public coin was, he said they didn't have it. So later I searched and found it, also left him a note saying where it was.

It tickled me, one guy was there on the Bridge, and he picked up a pair of Binoculars, slowly scanned the horizon. I thought it was funny, he felt so important looking.

In the laundry area, they let us use the beach towel folding machine.

Melanie

thanks so much for the review. Was thinking about doing this on the Glory this June but you have just made up my mind.

Thanks for the review. I am thinking about taking this while on the Magic in July. I have an engineering background and I really like to see how things work.

Did you enjoy Liberty tour?

 

Nice review by the OP. We took the tour on the Liberty in early January (our first cruise) and felt it was WELL WORTH the time and $'s. We had a few additional stops on our tour:

• The cold food storage area and the "booze warehouse"...amazing information on quantities of food and beverage....of course both areas were fairly depleted by the last sea day
  
• Carving demonstration by one of the galley staff who later presented us each with a bar of soap that he had carved into a swan
  
• The steakhouse including a nice presentation on various meat cuts by the head chef
  
• Backstage of the main theater including the ladies' dressing room with all of the costumes from Wonderful World- lots of information on what it takes to put on the shows
  

Also we all had individual 8 x 10's taken with the captain in addition to the group pictures- a really nice memento. Our tour guide personally delivered the pictures to us at dinner that evening. Very nice touch!

I went on the tour, but my daughter did not. However, she had no compunctions taking MY plate of Chocolate covered strawberries! No, I'm not bitter about it at all.......

LOL, same thing happened to us with our youngest son. He was at Camp Carnival in the morning, and since we knew Camp would close for lunch before we were finished the tour we told him to sign himself out and go back to our cabin, where we would meet him and go to lunch. Well, they delivered the strawberries before we returned from the tour - son walked into the cabin to find the plate there. DH and I got to share one, and son wasn't very hungry for lunch after that.:p

 

Behind the Fun is a great tour. We did it on Conquest two years ago and I'm thinking of booking it on Pride this summer (a) because youngest son is old enough for the tour now (age was 13 when we did the Conquest tour) and wants to do it (maybe we'll get the strawberries this time;)) and (b) I'd like to do the tour on a Spirit-class ship.

Edited February 7, 2012 by nybumpkin