Semester at Sea: 5 Weird Things About Shipboard Life

Weird things about shipboard life included signs you wouldn’t see on your campus at home…

When I sailed with Semester at Sea during the Spring 2010 voyage, it was aboard the MV Explorer, a converted cruise ship from the Mediterranean Sea. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to circumnavigate the globe visiting ten countries throughout the semester, but there was so much more I got to experience as well. There are some weird things about shipboard life that took some getting used to as it was completely different from the last 2.5 years I’d spent at college.

5 Weird Things About Shipboard Life

1. The Floors and Walls Move

I was lucky I didn’t get seasick during the voyage as so many of my fellow shipmates did. Many students spent the first week ill due to rough seas while we skirted a storm off California’s coast. As a ship built for the Mediterranean, the MV Explorer was a great deal smaller than many of the cruise ships used in the Caribbean. This means that you can feel the motion of the ocean a whole lot more than on those bigger ships.

Staff kindly provided sick bags for seasick students

It was a sort of trial by fire, but I managed to get my sea legs under me fairly quickly. The staff was forced to tie down a lot of things throughout the ship to prevent them from flying around, and many students had things falling all over their cabins. Mostly I found it fun to try to balance as the ship rocked back and forth. If you’re sensitive to motion, make sure to have adequate motion sickness medication (a lot of students used the patch). We all had to learn to roll with the punches waves.

2. Class Everyday

With so much time throughout the voyage being spent docked in all the scheduled ports, there is class everyday that the ship is at sea. When the ship is in port, classes are suspended to allow students to travel and explore the country. It was definitely weird to have classes on Saturdays and Sundays instead of having the weekends off. I often was in classes, taking tests, etc. while my friends at home were relaxing on the weekend. As students, we quickly adjusted though. Eventually it became somewhat difficult to keep track of what day of the week it was while aboard the ship. Everyday was designated as either an A day or a B day. That’s how the class schedule was set up, this class on A days, that class on B days. Monday, Thursday, Saturday: the day of the week didn’t matter very much anymore.

Pot of soup tied down in the cafeteria during rough seas.

3. Time Gets Weird and There are 364 Days in a Year?

Everyone learns in elementary school that there are 365 days in a year. The only time this is different is during a leap year when you have an extra day which only occurs once every four years. However, 2010 only held 364 days for those of us aboard the MV Explorer. During our voyage around the world we crossed the international date line. One day it was February 2nd, but the next was February 4th. Where did February 3rd go? It didn’t exist for us that year and was just one of the weird things about shipboard life.

Now don’t worry; my life did not become shorter, nor did I go through a time warp. It was merely a matter of making up for all the time changes we had throughout the voyage. Many days were 25 hours long since we kept setting our clocks back an hour as we passed through time zones. To make up for this, we just skipped a day to catch up with everyone else. It was very strange to skip a day on the calendar though. On February 2nd the time on the ship was seven hours behind Eastern Standard Time, but then on February 4th we were suddenly seventeen hours ahead instead.

It made it extra difficult when trying to call home from ports. (Sorry for that 4:00am phone call from Japan, Mom!) Throughout the remainder of the voyage, I found myself slowly getting closer and closer to both the Eastern time zone and home.

4. What Season is it Anyway?

Winter in Beijing, China on February 18

Embarking on the voyage in January meant I traveled from snowy western New York State during winter. I first went to the far milder climate in San Diego and boarded the MV Explorer to sail across the Pacific Ocean to Hawai’i which was hot and tropical (suddenly summer for me).

As we slowly proceeded to our first foreign port of Japan, we traveled North out of the tropics, and the weather began to cool again. Not quite to the point that it was what I considered wintry weather outside, but it made it feel like fall after the brief summer of Hawai’i. We experienced winter in Japan and China since we were there during February, but it ended suddenly when we reached Vietnam at the end of February.

Our ports in Vietnam, Cambodia, India, and Mauritius were hotter than summers in New York state and this northern girl melted a bit. The weather cooled again when we reached South Africa as they were approaching their own fall season, but it was still warm enough for short sleeves. Ghana and Brazil brought us back into hot, summery weather before we disembarked in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in May.

Summer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on February 26

After the voyage, I flew back to New York where unfortunately for me, I hit the last snow of the year before the state headed into spring. I went through so many different seasons and climates, by the time the semester ended I was checking the weather constantly to figure out what was going on.

5. A World Apart with a Super Bowl Monday?

Being aboard a ship sailing around the world meant we were pretty disconnected from everyone at home. Throughout the voyage, students were only provided two hours of internet time. This meant our cell phones were mostly useless *gasp* (Oh, the horror!) Email became the main way to communicate with friends and family at home. This was due to the fact that it didn’t use any of our internet allotment. 

Students in the ship’s computer lab

Most any American can tell you that traditionally the Super Bowl is played on Sunday. However, at the time the MV Explorer was about fourteen hours ahead of everyone at home which meant it was Monday on the ship. In order for us to watch the Super Bowl (from the middle of the Pacific Ocean) along with everyone at home, it was shown in a very roundabout way. A fellow student accessed his cable box at home (in Cleveland, OH) to stream the game onto his laptop using the internet account of a staff member on the ship (who did not have the same restrictions as students). This was then projected onto a big screen in the student union area on the ship.

For us aboard the ship the Super Bowl began at 8:30am Monday morning, but that did not prevent the shipboard community from gathering together to watch. Even if some folks only came to watch the commercials, there were many there supporting either the Saints or the Colts. Not quite the same as at home without the snacks and festive atmosphere, but it was still a fun event. It also helped us feel more connected to those at home. Bonus points for watching the Super Bowl in a unique place! Crossed that off the bucket list.

Back to Land

While these weird things about shipboard life definitely took some adjusting, we all came to embrace them. Upon returning home, I actually had to re-adjust to ‘normal’ life. Would you believe that when I finally got service on my cell phone in Florida, I could hardly remember how to text?

Now that’s weird.

If you want to read more about my voyage, visit my Semester at Sea page!

Tell me about some weird things you got used to when traveling in the comments!