Cruise Ship 101: Crew Cabins
What happens when you stick two strangers in a confined space for a few months?
As anyone who has read my About Me post might know, I previously spent a few years as a cruise ship musician. I came back to land not long before the COVID-19 pandemic started and having heard some of the horror stories of crew members being stuck out there while flights were grounded and borders were closed, it sounds like I got out at just the right time! As it’s been a few years now, I feel like I can properly look back on my time in a more balanced way. With this in mind, I wrote a post sometime last year with some frequently asked questions about my life as a crew member on board but now I have the urge to write about things in a bit more depth. So today, we’re going to talk all about crew cabins, your home away from home while on board.
Space-saver extraordinaire
As you might be able to see from the picture above, there isn’t much space in your standard crew cabin. There’s a bunk bed to save space with mattresses which are past their best, a small double wardrobe, a chair, and a table plus a TV if you’re lucky. Off to the right of this picture is a bathroom with a toilet, shower and wash basin which they’ve tried to fit into as small a space as possible. In other words, if you’re in any way claustrophobic you’re going to have major problems. Tidiness is a necessity lest the cabin feel even smaller than it is and over time, you get used to it and you find ways of making it work.
Share and share alike
As you might have gathered from the photo, the vast majority of crew members on board share a cabin with at least one other person. I’ve also seen slightly larger cabins which three or four crew members share between them. It’s pot luck who your cabin mate(s) might be. More often than not, it’ll be someone from your department so in my case, it was usually another showband musician but I’ve also shared with bartenders, activity hosts, classical musicians and the odd DJ in my time.
I pride myself on the fact I find it quite easy to get along with people and I have had plenty of nice, respectful roommates from a variety of countries including Ukraine, Mexico, Italy, the UK, the US and Romania. In some cases, I quickly found some common ground and conversation flowed freely. In others, it took a lot more effort to try and communicate and if there was a language barrier, I usually gave them some impromptu English tuition if they asked for it.
When you’re sharing such a small space with another human being, you get to know what they’re really like very very quickly. As I’m sure anyone that has ever moved in with someone will agree with, everyone has their own little quirks. Some fairly harmless ones that spring to mind from people I’ve shared with include singing in the shower, silent meditation sessions at 3am, and someone who used to laugh in their sleep. But you want to know the juicy gossip about when it all goes tits up, right?
Let me tell you all about my worst roommate
The person who comes to mind is without doubt the worst person I ever had the misfortune to share with. In fact, I’m noticing how hard it is for me to even write this next bit. Whenever I had a new roommate, I would generally organize things so they had half of the space available in drawers and wardrobes etc. and give them some time to themselves in the cabin to unpack and get acclimatized then I’d come back and introduce myself before getting to know them a bit more. However, this time I arrived back at the cabin to find their clothes everywhere and a load of my stuff moved. Definitely not the best first impression but I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
I tried to introduce myself but there were no pleasantries, no introductions, no talking about flights and ship experience or anything else. He went straight into firing me a load of questions and saying how he didn’t have enough space in the cabin for all his stuff. I tried to be as accommodating and understanding as I could but this grouchiness and negativity was already starting to put my back up. The majority of the time I trust my gut instinct about people with the belief that often my body knows what’s going on before I do and my instinct was dead right in this case.
Over the next 4 months, I found out exactly how right it was. This person was loud, inconsiderate and insensitive. He was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, heavy eater, and heavy breather. Within hours of him coming on board, the cabin absolutely stank. On many occasions, I awoke to the sound of him snoring which I’m sure the people in several cabins down the hall must’ve been able to hear. The curtains you can see above were never shut on his bed so I regularly walked in to the sight of him lying in just his underwear. I never heard him close a door, only slam one shut. I’ll stop there but the list is endless…
At first, I tried tact and diplomacy, asking him to be mindful when I’m asleep or to smooth things over but he didn’t change at all. I’m quite a tolerant person in general but there is only so much of this you can put up with over a long period of time. It just so happened to be a contract where I wasn’t that social so I couldn’t even get out of the cabin for long either. The day I left that ship was like being let out of prison but I felt the aftershocks of being in that kind of environment for a long time afterwards.
It’s not all bad though, right?
Thankfully, no. With plenty of roommates, we got into a routine of being courteous, giving each other time alone in the cabin, as well as going out to explore new countries together. On some contracts, cabin parties were a regular occurrence too. You spread the word, grab some cut-price booze and before you know it, you find out exactly how many people can fit into one of these cabins at a squeeze. Listening to music or talking into the early hours, you can bond with people at such speed and at a deep level unheard of in so many walks of life. Working on cruises is such a crazy life with enough stories to last a lifetime.
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