Introduction to the Ship: My Cabin - 11 October

Now that we are a month into the voyage I finally have time to share the ship with you. First - to give you an overview of the ship. The MV Explorer has seven decks although I’ve never seen the 1st deck which is restricted to the crew. The second deck is primarily for the crew too although that is where the medical clinic is located along with one of the gangways from the ship. The third and fourth floors are cabins only. My cabin is located on the fourth floor on the outside so that I have a window. I’ll go into more detail on my cabin later. The fifth floor has many functions: the largest dining hall, the purser’s desk, offices for administrative functions, and the cabin suites for the lifelong learners and some faculty members (those who are more senior than me). The sixth floor is dedicated to public spaces. This is where the library is located along with the computer lab, classrooms, the Union which holds about 300 people, a smaller dining facility, and the campus store which sells S@S clothes and other supplies. The seventh deck is where the fancy-schmancy cabins are located. The top administrators and faculty get these cabins (they have their own balconies). The spa is also located on this floor. It’s where passengers can get a hair cut, manicure, pedicure, massage, facial, etc. The seventh deck is where the pool and grill located too. It’s a very popular place with the students.

As I mentioned before, my cabin is on the fourth deck on the outside so I have a large window which makes a huge difference. When we were still in San Diego I had temporary room on the inside and it was like living in a cave. It was alright for a few days but I don’t know that I would have been able to tolerate three + months in there. My cabin has two beds which I pushed together into a double and even though there is a gap in the middle of the bed it is so much nicer to have a larger bed. I brought my own pillow since I had heard from other librarians that the pillows aren’t that good and I’m very glad that I did because the reports are true. I also brought a blanket with me although it wasn’t necessary because they will provide extras when asked. But it does add a nice touch of home in the cabin. I've included this picture even though it is a bit dark to see the details.

Across from my bed is a desk and cabinet structure that runs the length of the room (up to the bathroom at least). I am able to use it as a desk unit when I am typing my blog in my room. The cabinets also contain a refrigerator which can hold up to four bottles of wine (just to give you a sense of the size not my drinking habits). There is a small television on the counter that has 8 channels. One shows the position of the ship and other nautical information that I usually ignore. Another has the announcements for the day which is also ignored by everyone. All other channels are reserved for showing movies. Usually only two channels will be showing anything since the film class has a lot of videos that they are required to watch. When we are in port, they will show popular movies on other channels or, when possible, local channels from the ports which are fascinating. The walls are metal so I’ve put maps and cards on the wall with magnets. I’ve been going through a lot of magnets. I think I need to start editing what I hang up there.

Next to my bed is a curved couch with a small glass table. The couch is very hard and not that comfortable so it mostly serves as a place to sling my clothes and extra pillows at night. I try to get everything picked up in the morning before I leave the cabin so that my cabin steward doesn’t have to deal with it. By the way, I have a cabin steward to makes my bed every morning and cleans the bathroom too. Life is sweet!

I have a closet that holds my clothes, shoes, life vest, and small suitcase so it is a pretty decent size. It was very helpful to bring extra hangers because theirs can’t be used anywhere but in the closet. Next to the closet is a shelf system with a small safe in it. At the beginning of the voyage I thought that the closet and shelves were more storage than I would ever need but as I go on my epic shopping sprees, this space is getting sucked up rather quickly. Fortunately, I’m able to store things under the beds but that is also where I am storing my two large duffel bags and all of the boxes that we saved from the beginning of the voyage and will need at the end.

Across from the closet is the door to the bathroom. By ship standards it is a spacious bathroom. By normal standards it is itsy bitsy. There is some basic storage under the sink where I store my supply of toiletries. The towels are replaced every day although they encourage us to use them more than once to conserve water. They provide Kleenex and toilet paper so there is no shortage of that. At first, the ship also provided small, hotel-sized bottles of shampoo and body wash but after I used it up they never replaced it so it isn’t something to count on for the duration of the voyage. The shower is small enough to make me wish I had taken yoga so that I would be able to contort my body into unnatural positions which is necessary when shaving my legs in the morning (sorry if that is TMI). The shower contains a laundry line in case people want to dry things in their cabin. It’s necessary to provide our own clothes pins though. It isn’t possible to plug anything into the bathroom outlet since it is for shavers only so I keep my electric toothbrush charged by my desk area. There is also a hairdryer in the bathroom since we are not allowed to bring one the ship due to fire hazards. Only appliances that have an automatic turn off are allowed in the cabins.

The faculty and staff are allowed to have their laundry washed whenever needed but the students have specific days organized by which deck they are on. When it is laundry day, they put signs out in the hallway telling everyone to put their laundry bags out the night before. They provide the bags (just like in the hotels) along with an inventory sheet of what you are having washed. It isn’t necessary to have your name or cabin number written in your clothes so I have no idea how they keep track of everything. I pin my socks together as a precaution but I haven’t had anything lost. If we want something ironed, we just indicate it on the inventory sheet. I had my jeans pressed and they’ve never looked so good. The only problem with the laundry is stains. I should have brought some stain/spot remover with me because I had a pair of shorts that got totally muddy and the spots are still visible. C’est la vie. With the lack of days at sea for the past month some of the students haven’t had the opportunity to get their laundry done and they are in desperate need of it. I heard that some of them are buying extra underwear in the countries we are visiting. I’m not sure why they aren’t just washing it out in the sinks but whatever works.

So that's the tour of my cabin. I'll show you the rest of the ship tomorrow. On to the activities of today. We anchored off the coast of Singapore so that we can take on fuel today. We have been able to see the city of Singapore in the far distance and we are all bemoaning the fact that we can't visit it today. We are so greedy!

It's been an outrageously hot and muggy day today. I spent 1/2 hour by the pool today and couldn't stand it. This evening has been much nicer. One of the faculty members invited me to join him and his wife for a glass of wine and a game of cribbage this evening before dinner. They have a room with a balcony so we sat out there drinking wine and enjoying the sight of Singapore and all the ships passing by. It was idyllic. It was fun to play cribbage again too (and I won). Tonight is going to be an early evening in the hope of getting some sleep tonight since I didn't get to sleep until 4:00 am last night. I used the opportunity to get some blogging done since it is much faster in the early hours of the morning. Very painful to get up in the morning though. I need to stop doing that! So here's to a sleep-filled night.