Ricardo Mop has been part of the custodial crew at Royal Caribbean for six years, but this spring was his first time working anywhere on the Alaska route.

“I guess you could say I was pretty surprised,” said Mop, pulling down a scarf. “I was used to wiping sunscreen spills off deck chairs and picking up margarita glasses off the lido deck. Now here I am in a parka and ice-climbing gear with a vacuum cleaner.”

Mop and a dozen other janitors from Dystopia of the Seas, a 2,000-foot Royal Caribbean cruise ship, were cleaning the Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm fjord before the start of cruise season in Southeast Alaska. Most cruise companies that regularly include glacier viewing in their itineraries contract janitors to spruce up the ice, but only Royal Caribbean has an entire crew dedicated to the task. Geraldine Swiffer, Chief Spick n’ Span Officer aboard Dystopia, stated “Royal Caribbean is dedicated to giving its guests the best possible cruise experience and we are legendary for our ships’ cleanliness. To that end, we also tidy up the glaciers before showing them off to visitors.”

The crews consist of teams of dirt sweepers and vacuumers, high-powered leaf blowers, tanzanite graders, ice-worm exterminators, as well as custom-built four-wheel-drive Zambonis. Driver Brice Scate told reporters that the valley glaciers were usually the dirtiest. “Medial moraines are like dirt-central. Very unsightly. Imagine if you came all the way up here and all the nice white ice was covered in rock and dirt. And all the katabatic winds kicking up silt, rockslides and glacial retreat—it’s a complex janitorial environment.”

When asked how long they were at the glaciers, Ricardo Mop replied, “What? Can’t hear over the cracking sounds. We’re at Sawyer Glacier now, still got Dawes Glacier, the Hubbard, the Mendenhall. It’s a lot of vacuum bags. There’s that cracking sound again, what’s that? A tree falling?”