I thought I'd take a sea day to talk about those items we bring that enable our 120-night stay in a tiny inside cabin while cruising the Caribbean. I could do without most of these items if cruising for 7 or 10 nights, but for anything over a month, they're really nice to have.
Metal, wide mouth water bottles I fill them with ice and use them as ice packs to keep our drinks cold on the islands, and we can drink the melted ice too.
Twisted clothesline with suction cup ends to stretch across cabin We attach the suction cups to framed prints on either wall. We always have something hanging on this line, plus it frees up the shower line so we don't have to move things when we shower. We'll only use the shower line for really dripping things (like a wetsuit)
First, though I have to mention the one thing that allows us to be away from home, largely out of the country, and still keep things going at home. Of course, it's the iPhone with banking, credit card, webcam, overdrive, offline pages apps, and Lifeproof waterproof case. It goes without saying that we couldn't do any of this without being as electronically automated as possible, a feat that took us a year or two to fully achieve. Even when we're home, we do pretty much all of our business transactions using our phones; it's good practice, because it's all a bit more difficult when we're using slow wifi on the ship.
But, back to the items we use in the cabin:
Over-the-door shoe rack There are only 4 drawers in an inside cabin, two in each nightstand, and they don't begin to neatly hold all the small items we bring with us. The over the door shoe rack holds my makeup (and after the green eyebrows experience, I was careful to put eyeliner pencils in one pouch and eyebrow pencils in a different one to avoid any future mixups), sunscreens, the few first aid/medical items we bring, scissors, a small ziplock bag of office supplies, nail polish/remover, Qtips, cotton pads, spare razors, etc. We used to have one column of pockets for my stuff, one for G's, and the rest for what we call "common items", but, over the years, I've slowly taken over more and more of it. We bought this one at WalMart in 2002, intending to use it for one 23-night trip. Eleven years later, it still does the job.
Over-the-door shoe rack There are only 4 drawers in an inside cabin, two in each nightstand, and they don't begin to neatly hold all the small items we bring with us. The over the door shoe rack holds my makeup (and after the green eyebrows experience, I was careful to put eyeliner pencils in one pouch and eyebrow pencils in a different one to avoid any future mixups), sunscreens, the few first aid/medical items we bring, scissors, a small ziplock bag of office supplies, nail polish/remover, Qtips, cotton pads, spare razors, etc. We used to have one column of pockets for my stuff, one for G's, and the rest for what we call "common items", but, over the years, I've slowly taken over more and more of it. We bought this one at WalMart in 2002, intending to use it for one 23-night trip. Eleven years later, it still does the job.
Extension cords or power strip We need something to turn one outlet into many for electronics charging. I would bring this even for a short cruise.
Metal, wide mouth water bottles I fill them with ice and use them as ice packs to keep our drinks cold on the islands, and we can drink the melted ice too.
Twisted clothesline with suction cup ends to stretch across cabin We attach the suction cups to framed prints on either wall. We always have something hanging on this line, plus it frees up the shower line so we don't have to move things when we shower. We'll only use the shower line for really dripping things (like a wetsuit)
Photos 1 and 2: over the door shoe rack
Photo 3: our charging center. You can even see the Christmas tree nightlight we plugged in in December and like so much we've left it. :-)
Photo 4: metal water bottles for ice
Photo 5: twisted clothesline that stretches from one side of the cabin to the other
