something I heard about the water on the ship

[vivAtornado]

this is interesting. I have packed a brita pitcher for my upcoming cruise, since i drink 10-12 glasses of water on average purchasing bottled water is out of the question. I hope that is a sufficent measure. Even filling a bottle on lido isnt really enough, i drink so much water daily.

[stresssolutions]

That's true. But is the faucet that it comes out of safe? Has it been sanitized? Bathroom faucets only get wiped down, not sanitized.

 

What do you do to a faucet that would require it to be sanitized?

[tef43]

I just did the galley tour friday and they said the water that comes out of the tap is safe for drinking but is not recommended.

It's to their advantage to entice you to buy their overpriced bottled water instead.

 

Just remember what "Evian" spelled backwards is. :rolleyes:

[ccruisequeen]

this is interesting. I have packed a brita pitcher for my upcoming cruise, since i drink 10-12 glasses of water on average purchasing bottled water is out of the question. I hope that is a sufficent measure. Even filling a bottle on lido isnt really enough, i drink so much water daily.

 

After drinking metallic tasting water on one cruise, we decided to get a Britta pitcher too. We bring along 1 bottle of water per person to start, then fill them from the Pitcher when they are empty. I also bring singles of powered drink mix just to switch it up.

If you fill your bottles from the Lido, use the provided drinking glasses to do it, just to be safe!

[iluvdoxies]

The ship's water always gives me the runs and makes my feet swell. I stick with the bottled or bring my own.

[bobnsons]

Ocassionally, if the faucet wasn't cleaned properly. We had to test the bathroom, cafeteria, and janitor closets. Oddly enough, never the drinking faucets because there was no way to really dissenfect them. It was usually the bathroom ones that would fail because it's hard to get the alcohol up into the faucet.

 

Thanks for the info.

[bobnsons]

What do you do to a faucet that would require it to be sanitized?

 

 

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77fmotel.phtml

 

 

The video is pretty funny but maybe people can get the idea from the transcrpit.

[old sole]

After retiring, I went to work for our local school system. I worked in maintenance. We had to do water tests once a year. You had to take the screen off the faucet, then wipe it down with alcohol before taking the sample. Nine times out of ten, if the test failed, it was because the faucet wasn't cleaned good enough. That is probably why they recommend you don't use the bathroom faucets. You have no idea what touched them previously. They may look clean, but more than likely, they are full of germs and things that go bump in the night.

 

Not saying that this happens but does the cabin steward use the same cloth or sponge to wipe down the sink that he used to wipe down the toilet in the previous cabin?

 

Congratulations. This is the first explanation I've heard that actually makes a sensible case for why tap water might not be as good as bottled water. I'm generally a skeptic about "health" fads but I have to admit that this gave me pause (and makes me wonder about our own kitchen at home). I think I'll go clean the screen on the kitchen tap!!

[cruisin'grandma]

I have been on 21 cruises, 5 or 6 different lines, mostly Carnival. I drink the water from the tap all time and have never experienced a problem.

BUT....when leaving the ship to one of the ports, I ALWAYS take bottled water with me. I do NOT drink the water on the islands.

 

I am not saying that there would never be a problem with drinking the ship tap water. But my personal experience is that I have never had an issue.

 

They do make a lot of money selling you the bottled water. But, I might buy 5 or 6 throughout my whole cruise. And I do like to drink a lot of water.

 

Happy Cruisin'

[larkz]

Using a compact filter may bring peace of mind. It makes a lot more sense than dumping good money on plasticized, chemical laden water in bottles.

[vivAtornado]

After drinking metallic tasting water on one cruise, we decided to get a Britta pitcher too. We bring along 1 bottle of water per person to start, then fill them from the Pitcher when they are empty. I also bring singles of powered drink mix just to switch it up.

If you fill your bottles from the Lido, use the provided drinking glasses to do it, just to be safe!

 

awesome, will do! and i have little packets of true lemon i can bring if there is a weird taste!

[Red Oak]

I have no problems with the ships water except for the flat taste. All RO and other evaporative distillation methods remove dissolved Oxygen from the water.

I like to partially fill my water bottle, then shake the heck out of it.

Water just tastes better with a little DO (dissolved oxygen).

[RWolver672]

What do you do to a faucet that would require it to be sanitized?

 

This is what we had to do to pass the county water tests. Take off the screen, spray the entire faucet with either alcohol or bleach and water. That included the whole outside of the faucet and spraying up into the water spout. Then we had to run the water for five minutes before taking the sample. If you even so much as touched the rim of the bottle, it would void the sample.

 

That was to pass a water test for public use. There is no way that anyone is going to do that in their own homes or when they cruise or stay in a hotel. Besides that, people need germs to survive anyway.

 

Even though I know what crawls on faucets, I still drink water out of the bathrooms on cruise ships and hotels. I'm 63 and haven't croaked from germs yet. Out of six cruises, the only one that had odd tasting water was the Dream. Even in the MDR and Lido Deck, it had a different taste. Everybody mentioned it.

[PA Dutchman]

The desalination process on a cruise ship uses either flash evaporators or osmosis. Flash evaporators boil sea water and re-condense the steam vapor, producing fresh drinking water. This method is similar to the natural water cycle, where sea water is heated by the sun, rises as steam to form clouds, and then falls back to earth as rain. The second method, osmosis, filters sea water through a fine membrane to separate pure water from salt and other minerals. Cruise ships do not desalinate water near ports or close to land, because coastal waters are the most contaminated.

After desalination, the water is passed through a mineralization plant, which adds minerals. This is necessary because the healthy minerals naturally found in drinking water have been removed by desalination. At this stage, the water is also checked for impurities, sanitized, and the pH is corrected. The water is then sent to massive storage tanks on board the cruise ship. On the Grand Princess, for example, these storage tanks hold up to 500,000 gallons of fresh water.

Next, the water is routed to hot and cold systems. Miles of distribution pipe move the water around the cruise ship.

After the water is delivered through a sink or shower, and used by cruise ship passengers or crew, it must be treated again before it can be discharged. All cruise ships must follow strict environmental laws in the treatment of waste water. Even after treatment, the water is not immediately released, but is held in special storage tanks when the ship is close to land, in port, or other sensitive environments.

It's a complex process, but necessary in order to ensure the health of cruise ship passengers and the natural environment.

 

 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1781431

[Dar & Bob]

We just got off the Dream and had no problems with the water whatsoever. I find it interesting all of the people who bring Brita filters, those are not intended to purify the water so it would make it no safer to drink assuming that is why they don't drink it. The filters take out some of the minerals which make it taste better only. There are water bottles out there that will purify - usually the camping stores like Cabelas carry them. I really don't think the cruise lines could have non potable water in the cabins without having a sign posted. As mentioned before the bottled water is many times worse than the tap water, especially if the bottles have sat in the sun (what are the odds of that?!?)

[25thcruise]

When we cruised RCL Majesty in January, We took a PUR filter we connected to the bathroom faucet. It was our first cruise and were not sure about the quality of the water after reading many posts. We will be doing the same on the Destiny In February.