For those who have visited the kitchen of a restaurant, you know more or less what it is and what consists. Well, imagine cruise ship kitchen with capacity for about 3000 people. We will talk about Carnival Conquest class ships but more or less it’s the same on other cruise lines.

Cruise ship Kitchen is called "galley". Those who are interested in knowing how is in such a "galley", here is an account of someone who worked onboard. In fact the cruise ship has four galleys

Main Galley - main kitchen, which serves the main dining room and also serves crew products from the bakery and pastry’s 

Lido Galley -  Serving from the needs of buffet area

Supper Club Galley - restaurant kitchen paid separately, which is not included in the package;

Crew Galley - kitchen that cook meal for crew, officer and staff mess.

The main galley is divided in separate sections like

Appetizer - cold kitchen, where the cold appetizers are prepared salads, cheese, fruit, cold soups etc. This galley has also walking fridge where most of the items are kept for the entire cruise.

Hot Galley - hot kitchen, where all hot dishes are prepared, soups, hot appetizers, main courses etc. This is the biggest section of the main galley.

Pastry - where the desserts, cakes and ice-cream in general is prepared;

Bakery - where all bread is prepared.

One of the most important works in the kitchen is the "night shift", the cook who makes pre-preparation overnight. It is responsible for cutting and cooking of most food cooked during the day. If by chance the night shift does not prepare something during the night, the kitchen turns into a real mess during the day, because everyone should work more to catchup what was not done.

The morning shift work, starts around 5 am, a time when the "breakfast[ cooks" begin preparations for coffee, which usually begins at 7am. The early breakfast is connected with the beginning of "madness". Cooks inside and wait outside the "line" - that separates a hallway where waiters have access to ready meals, since no one enters the kitchen.

The waiters yell asking for the dishes, and cooks respond in the same tone. For those who are not used looks scary because after a day of work all seems very normal.

The breakfast ends around 10 am, a time when the cooks to prepare lunch and dinner are already working also time that the Breakfest Cooks go to the cabin to rest, to return in time when dinner starts.

Prepares everything and the lunch line starts around 12pm and ends around 14:30.

The cooks responsible for lunch and dinner, usually have two hours to rest, which is not always guaranteed, because the dinner has to be ready by 18h. Depending on the menu, the rest is simply left behind, as some dishes require more time to be prepared. The average working time is 10 hours and can be extended to 12 or 14 hours. The busiest meal is dinner, as almost all guests flock at a same restaurant. Dinner starts at 18h and ends around 22:30. Waiters line up to get the food, this queue is not always respected.

Waiters fight each other, and fight with the cooks. In addition to any kitchen noise itself, and people talking, the kitchen has a sound system that plays rhythms from around the world, ranging from Indian and Indonesian music, through salsa and merengue and arriving at samba and funk. All disagreements that sometimes happen in the kitchen are left out when all meet at the bar to relax.

In addition to the bar, the crew also have parties in the crew areas and sometimes in the guest areas. The work on a ship is in a very tiresome way, because it does not have a day off, just a few hours per week. But then, it is rewarded by the spectacular sites visited and the money you earn. Cook salaries range from U$ 700 to U$ 4,000 depending on the occupied position. The most common work is the waiter where the salary is around U $ 2,000. Cooks on cruise ship are upset on waiters because they make more money and that’s why they don’t give the extra food. However waiters are very smart especially the experienced and the pinch the food because most of the times crew mess food is not so good. This is called The art of Pinching food.