The other DrC and I have done a lot of cruising in the last 20 years, a majority of it on Princess ships where we have “status” meaning we’ve sailed enough (a) to get free WiFi, laundry and priority boarding and (b) to have favorite ships, entertainers and routes. Thus an article in Forbes concerning where the ships are now that cruising is on virus hiatus was interesting.
It turns out most “hotel side” crew - waiters, housekeeping, bartenders, busboys, shopkeepers and entertainment staff - have been sent home, in a process that took a couple of months. The ships are moored where they don’t pay dockage fees in a condition known as “warm layup” where they run the AC, plumbing, power generation, etc. to keep them working.
According to Carnival, the ships in warm layup are staffed with crew members at what is called “safe-manning” levels, which for larger ships is an average of about 100 crew members – including deck officers navigating the ship, engineers in charge of propulsion and power, a security team, and hotel and kitchen staff, along with medical professionals for any crew needs.
Unlike during normal cruising operations, these few crew each have a private room - one of the empty guest rooms - to hold down contagion. They basically keep the ship in good condition, safe and ready to deploy when the epidemic eases.
