Day 27: Keeping a Tidy Cabin Keeps My Mind Sane

Wednesday, 1 February 2017
At Sea — Pacific Ocean

Stats @ Ship’s Time 9:30p (HAST) … UTC 2:30a (2 February)
Temp: 81F (27C)
Position: 1.20.60S / 147.46.40W

To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from
one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.
~ Charles Horton Cooley ~

Could it really be true that the Pacific calms down in February as some have said to me.  True or false, that’s what happened for us on this first day of February.  Now, I wouldn’t say that we had a flat-calm sea state, but the motion of the ocean was negligible in comparison to what we have been experiencing.  Though there was a stiff breeze, the sun was out, and except for some puffy clouds that added texture, the sky was blue.  All in all, a wonderful day at sea.

And yes, I spent most of my waking hours enjoying the day on the veranda.

Since I have nothing exciting to relate, I’m taking the opportunity to share the photos I took of how we organized things in our cabin.  Not everyone has the same size cabin, of course — ours is small by most modern cruise ship standards — but the ideas would work across the board regardless.

Yes, I realize that we could have foregone all this by simply bringing a lot less with us.  But this was one trip where I wasn’t going to worry about what came with us and what got left behind.  And by golly, I didn’t.

Since we live in a motorhome, we are used to “cozy.”  Clutter drives me nuts, however, so over the years we have learned to make use of every nook and cranny to maximize available storage.  When we decided to go RTW, I knew that we would need to apply a similar technique to keep the cabin as spiffy as possible, and also so we could find things when we needed them.

Lest you think we travel with all these organizational accoutrements on every trip, nothing could be farther from the truth.  But six months at sea called for some drastic measures.  And thanks to the O-paid Luggage Free shipment (for embarkation and debarkation) we were able to bring some folding cubes, plastic drawers, and a few other things to keep our stuff tidy.  Some of these things will get shipped back and put to use in the motorhome, but some will be left behind … hopefully the crew will be able to make use of them … and if not, they will get trashed.

The most important tip I can give those planning an extended voyage … you can’t have too many magnets … with or without hooks.  And the 3M Command Strips are extremely useful, too.

P.S. I haven’t had good luck with the laundry service on most cruise lines, but if you are traveling on Oceania, the service is so good that you really can bring half the clothes you normally would — especially if you have the free laundry perk as we do for the RTW, or you have a good chunk of non-refundable onboard credit to use.  So far, I’ve only had to hand-wash one item, and we used the self-service laundry room once for … well, let’s just say “feminine delicates”.   Everything else has been sent to the laundry, with instructions for cold-wash-only when appropriate.

So, enough words … here are the photos I mentioned.

Suction cup hooks work great to hold hats along the top of the mirror.  Normally, we only take one over-the-door shoe organizer to hold small grab-and-go stuff like sunglasses, belts, sunblock, etc. etc.  but we brought three this time.  We put up one of them with heavy-duty magnet hooks (in the photo on the left).  The two extra ones are actually being used for their intended purpose — to organize shoes.  (I’m not going to apologize for how many shoes I brought with me.)

In addition to a couple of corner cabinets, the built in storage includes a closet with hanging space and drawers (immediately next to the corner cabinets), and a double-door full-length closet.  Collapsible cubes work well on the shelf above the TV … we just pushed the DVD player behind the cubes to make space for them.

The two cabinets below the TV hold a good amount of stuff even though one shelf is taken up by the safe.  There’s enough room on either side of the safe to put things like umbrellas, rain ponchos, etc.  I opted to keep the upper shelf for folded items like sweaters and shawls.  The lower cabinet easily takes 4 of the 9-inch high folding cubes.

On the left is the half-hanging and half-drawer closet.  One of the 12” wide plastic drawers we brought with us fits nicely on the shelf, with room on either side for spare hangers.  Since we don’t have too many long items, we used a closet-extender rod in the full-length hanging closet for doubling a portion of the hanging space (outlined in red since the rod didn’t show in the picture).  Still plenty of room for hiking boots on the bottom … and we keep the dirty laundry in a bag in one corner until we are ready to send it out.  By the way, we had the cabin attendant remove the thick wooden hangers in the closet and are using the thin, non-slip hangers we brought with us instead … cheap at Costco and Walmart (and other stores).

These hanger organizers are great to make the most of the long-hanging space; they drop down (lower right photo).  Note the belt hanging on the back wall of the closet — an excellent use for magnetic hooks.  The top shelf easily takes two of the 12”-drawers for odds and ends.

In the “use all the nooks and crannies category,” we pulled the loveseat up next to the nightstand, freeing up space on the side near the sliding glass door.  I could have used two more half-height collapsible storage boxes … one for each shelf of the two nightstands.  We used the space we cleared on the other side of the love seat for a folding shoe rack.

Why bring a folding shoe rack when we have the plastic shoe organizers?  Because those organizers don’t work well for high-heels … and certainly are too small for Mui’s shoes.  We put a towel over the shoe rack to keep the sun off the shoes … and plus it makes it a bit more presentable.  The top shelf is excellent for holding our daypacks, the cashmere throws Oceania provides for veranda-use, and even spare pool towels for the veranda chaise lounges.

The right side door of the desk/vanity hides the fridge; on the left, there’s just
enough space next to the desk for our beach bag and CamelBak backpack.

The door on the left side of the desk/vanity hides four drawers.  Cheap organizers from Walmart work well to organize toiletries in the top drawer.  The rest of the drawers are perfect for holding my 11” MacAir, other electronics, office paraphernalia, etc.

And there you have it.  Our organized cabin.  I love that we are managing to keep the clutter to a minimum.  And I know Zhenya and Gabriel appreciate our tidiness when they service the cabin.

By the way, I didn’t mention measurements because, as I noted earlier, not all cabins are created equally.

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