Royal Caribbean Reveals Mind-Boggling Secrets Of The World's Biggest Cruise Ship

Making us miss cruising even more than we already do (if that was actually possible), Royal Caribbean was on our screens last night in the first episode of its new three-part series.

The TV series is entitled Billion Pound Cruise Ship and takes viewers behind the scenes of the world's biggest cruise ship, Symphony of the Seas.

In the show, aired on More4, viewers can see the vast and mind-boggling operation that goes on to keep Symphony of the Seas running – a ship that holds 6,680 passengers at full capacity and 2,200 crew members.

One of the most incredible facts revealed on the show is the ship's length, which at 1,188ft is longer than London's Shard.

Putting it into perspective, the ship is also taller than Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.

With such a huge operation and thousands of mouths to feed, the show revealed Royal Caribbean spends £1 million a week on food and provisions for the ship – some of which are housed in humongous freezers and fridges below the ship. These freezers and fridges are the biggest in the world, a staggering 1,350sq m of refrigerator space.

Included in this 400 tonnes of weekly provisions is two tonnes of bacon, the equivalent of 8,000 standard size bacon packs. The ship also uses 2,000 lbs of burgers per week.

Food and beverage director Emmanuel reveals just how large the planning and shopping operation is, revealing the ship consumes more than 340 metric tonnes a week of fresh produce.

In that is 11,ooolbs of watermelon each cruise, which Emmanuel jokes is "very popular". The ship also carries 35,000 cans and bottles of beer per weekly voyage.

Out of 2,200 crew members on the ship, half of them work in food and beverage: 530 waiters, 99 washers and cleaners in the galley and 257 chefs producing over 40,000 meals every day.

But it's not just dining that's a jaw-dropping operation on board, and one of the biggest operations is the laundry.

Symphony of the Seas has a staggering 26,000 bath towels on board, along with 30,000 hand towels and 20,000 bath mats.

Billion Pound Cruise airs Thursdays at 9pm on More4. For those who want to sail for real aboard Royal Caribbean, the cruise line is aiming to resume sailings on 1 December 2020.