Refilling a water bottle in your cabin

[chengkp75]

Assuming that a cruise ship's potable water system works like those I worked with in the Navy, it's pretty simple. Any sink, shower, water fountain, or drink machine (including the flavored water and soda, which are mixed with water) use the same water. Any filtration that takes place happens as part of the reverse osmosis/distillation* process. I highly doubt there's a filter before water and drink stations on the buffet or anywhere else; that would be ridiculously difficult to install and maintain. There might be built in filters in the drink stations, but they're not there to remove chlorine or anything like that. Those filters are going to be much further down, probably before water goes into the tanks and then after it comes out of the tanks and into the loop of the drinking water system.

 

There are, in fact, carbon filters at the water stations, the drink dispensers, the drink machines, the ice machines, and the bar guns to remove the chlorine for maintenance purposes, as the chlorine will build a scale in the machinery. The ship's water is continually dosed with chlorine, and must have a residual chlorine level of 0.5ppm at the furthest point from the chlorine injection point (the engine room), which is typically measured at the bridge.

 

Pier/city water goes straight into the loop; unless the ship aligns to fill their tanks (which they might; you don't want to make water within 3 nautical miles of land, because then you have to filter out a lot of sludge) it doesn't go through any onboard filtration system. I'm not entirely positive that it would go through filtration even if they do fill the tanks, though. I'd have to see system drawings to know for sure, since ships are always built a little differently from one another.

 

Any water bunkered in port, must be segregated in its own tank, and not used until a coliform bacteria test is done, which takes 18-24 hours, and must be negative. Municipal water bunkered must have been tested, at the hydrant being used, within the last month, and meet USPH requirements. This water is chlorinated before it goes into the tanks. And, no, water bunkered is not filtered.

 

As for brown water, you're never going to find a faucet of any type that spits it out. Brown water is drainage from sinks, dishwashers, showers, etc. Why align it so that it can come out of anything (except a pipe if it breaks)? There's no use for brown water, and once you're a certain distance from land, in accordance with international law, you can pump brown water right over the side. Black water is CHT (sewage), and that goes straight into a tank or over the side, again depending on how far from land you are. Any crew member who thinks you can get brown or black water from a sink has been misinformed or doesn't understand that the drain in that sink is going to brown water; the sink isn't providing it.

 

Didn't know the Navy called waste water "brown". In the wider maritime world, this is "gray" water. While the Navy operates to its own standards, it has been decades since a merchant ship has been allowed to discharge black water directly over the side. Every ship is equipped with a Marine Sanitation Device, that closely resembles a septic tank on land. Most cruise ships go further, and have "Advanced Waste Water Treatment Plants" (AWWTP), that treat every drop of gray and black water the ship generates, to near pure drinking water standards, and which are tested bi-weekly by third party testing facilities. As noted in previous post, there are in fact uses for treated gray water onboard ships.

 

*I would actually be surprised if there are any cruise ships left with flash-type distillation systems such as evaporators. They're murderously difficult to maintain and even the US Navy has finally started replacing all of the evaps with RO machines (and the Navy is always behind the technology power curve). Reverse Osmosis is much lower maintenance, and ROs are smaller and much more reliable. Evaps break all the time, and the last thing any cruise ship wants is to tell their passengers that they're running out of water.

 

Nearly every cruise ship has a combination of flash evaporation and RO watermakers. Never in 42 years have I had a "murderously" hard time maintaining a flash evaporator (nearly every cargo ship has one as well). The advantage of flash evaporators, for a ship that must show a profit (unlike the Navy), is that about 95% of the energy to run it is "free" in the form of hot jacket water from the diesel engines. Rarely have I had a flash evaporator break. A typical watermaking plant on a ship of 2200 pax and 900 crew would be two 4 stage flash evaporators, rated at 600 metric tons/day, and two RO units, rated at 200 metric tons/day.

Not sure what "loop" you are referring to, but the ships take suction from a potable water storage tank, circulate it throughout the ship, and it returns to the potable water storage tank. Not sure how city water could "go right into the loop" even if it was not required to be quarantined.

Cruise ships are not allowed to make water unless more than 12 miles from land, though not because of any "sludge" (unless you are sitting within inches of the bottom it is rare to suck up sludge into the sea water systems), but because of possible bacterial contamination.

[CruiseGal999]

Well, she, like 99% of the hotel staff on every cruise ship, has no idea what they are talking about when it comes to how things work on the ship they live and work on. The water in the sink is exactly the same water that is served from room service, at the dining venues, in the buffet, from the water coolers, from the bars, and used to make the ice and food served onboard. Not sure what she was drinking onboard, since crew have no access to room service for water or anything else, and again the water in her sink is the same as what she would get from the crew mess. It is perfectly safe to drink, and is in a better sanitized condition when it comes out of the cabin sink than the water from your sink at home, due to the constant recirculation of the water and the requirement to have residual chlorine present at all times in the water. USPH VSP (for ships calling in the US), ShipSan (for ships calling in the EU), and the WHO ship sanitation regulations all require that all water be held within safe limits, and are inspected regularly. The ship is required to test every water tank, and 6 random sources of water (sinks, showers, galleys, etc) around the ship monthly for water quality.

 

Not sure who to believe now!

[LrgPizza]

Not sure who to believe now!

Ummm, guest services or a chief engineer who made the water on cruise ships? Hmmmmmm.....

Edited November 7, 2017 by LrgPizza

[Kamloops50]

On the Breakaway in Sept. I was in the casino and asked the bartender at the pop-up temporary bar by the casino food station for a glass of water. She said she had none. So I asked for a glass so I could fill it at the sink nearby since I was in a hurry. She said that the water from that sink is not drinkable, it's brown water. I know she is misinformed and just laughed it off, telling her I doubt that is true. Can you imagine them routing brown water to the hand washing sink...

 

 

 

All drinking water is the same. The bartender just wanted to sell you bottled water with gratuity charge added.

 

 

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[Mike_DeA]

All drinking water is the same. The bartender just wanted to sell you bottled water with gratuity charge added.

 

 

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Incorrect. She had no water at all, bottled or otherwise. I would have taken the bottled water as I had the casino free drink card which includes water.

[Planmaam]

The only part of the question not explored is how long to continue to use the same water bottle. After drinking straight out of it for a couple of days, I would change to a new bottle. Bacteria forms from our skin and "backwash" that could become problematic. One, two, maybe even three days of drinking out of the same bottle might be OK. But unless you have some way to sanitize the bottle, I'd spring for a new one day three our four at best.

 

While traveling through Europe many (sigh, too many!) years ago, the English friend we met and traveled with made sure we sanitized our permanent water bottles every other day. She had worked in a lab, and told us of some of the tests they had done and the bacteria they found. Needless to say, we followed her suggestion!

[zitsky]

The only part of the question not explored is how long to continue to use the same water bottle. After drinking straight out of it for a couple of days' date=' I would change to a new bottle. Bacteria forms from our skin and "backwash" that could become problematic. One, two, maybe even three days of drinking out of the same bottle might be OK. But unless you have some way to sanitize the bottle, I'd spring for a new one day three our four at best.

 

While traveling through Europe many (sigh, too many!) years ago, the English friend we met and traveled with made sure we sanitized our permanent water bottles every other day. She had worked in a lab, and told us of some of the tests they had done and the bacteria they found. Needless to say, we followed her suggestion![/quote']

 

How did you sanitize?

[chengkp75]

Fill a sink with hot water and some shampoo, soak the water bottle in it for a while, scrub out with a washcloth if you can get your hand in there, or put the top on and shake vigorously, then rinse with water as hot as possible. It isn't sanitized, but it will have removed 90% of the germs that have formed.

[rabidstoat]

I just fill my water bottle from the toilet bowl, plenty of room to dunk the water bottle there and if runs low, just flush to fill it up again!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D

[zitsky]

I just fill my water bottle from the toilet bowl, plenty of room to dunk the water bottle there and if runs low, just flush to fill it up again!!! :D:D:D:D

 

Why do you post things that everyone already knows??? D'uh! :rolleyes:

[cbelc]

I’m used to not drinking sink water anywhere, although ship sink water is potable. So we get a water package of 12 big bottles of Evian in the room and use those to fill our glasses. It’s enough for 7 days. Otherwise, I drink water at any of the water and ice stations or eating facilities. And, of course, coffee, tea, lemonade, and my frozen mojito per day counts as drink. We also fill the empty Evian bottles with juice from the buffet to mix with the champagne we bring on board. I’ve always thought ship water tasted good- better than the city water at home.

 

 

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