Life on the ship! I’ve showed you a lot of penguins and icebergs and seals and amazing things outside the ship, but what were things like inside the ship?

Here was our room, cabin 200. Allen slept in the bed on the right; I got the bottom bunk, and Jeff took the top. He never fell out of bed (I was worried about this crossing the Drake!) but it seemed like at least once a night we’d hear a *thud* as he banged a knee or arm on the ceiling. (Actually, crossing the Drake I was more worried he’d get sick and it would end up on me. Luckily, that didn’t happen either.)

Our porthole

Bathroom. It was small but got the job done. Body wash and shampoo were attached to the wall. There was also a clothes line strung across the shower that you can make out if you look closely. Every couple of days I’d wash out my long underwear & socks in the sink and hang them to dry. The towel rack behind the toilet was also heated…a nice touch. There were some shelves next to the sink with railings to hold things in.

The view from the beds toward the door. The TV didn’t play regular TV channels, but instead there was a channel for the daily program, a channel that broadcast whatever was happening in the main lounge (lectures, recap, people getting cookies & tea…haha), and a couple of channels where they played movies about Antarctica.

The first day on the ship someone told us to talk to reception if we had hotel issues, like if we weren’t happy with the chocolates on our pillows. I thought they were joking, but no! Each morning housekeeping made up our beds, and each night during dinner they did turn-down service that included chocolates on our pillows.

I did get hit in the head once with Jeff’s chocolate when he’d forgotten it was there and accidentally flung it off the bed down to me.

The white board was just outside the main lounge in the reception desk area. The guides often wrote notes to us there…reminders about things, or tips on things to look for. This is also where there was a running list of wildlife that was spotted each day.

Our flight map showing where we are

A room we spent a lot of time in…the main lounge. This was during one of the recaps.

Jeff reading as he waits for a lecture to start. When we weren’t in there for lectures or recaps, this is where I would go with my laptop to download and backup my photos and to scan through what I had gotten so far.

Stuff about Antarctica

They put together a daily newspaper for various countries each day so people could keep up with what was happening in the world. Our passengers were pretty evenly divided among USA, UK, Australia, and Canada, with a few other nationalities thrown in, so there were editions for each of those places.

There was also a map of the Antarctic peninsula where each day they labeled where we’d stopped.

The ship library. There were tons of books on the Arctic and Antarctic. This is also where there were two computers we could use to check email, and where they had a laptop for uploading photos to share with everyone.

There was also a very small but very packed gift shop. It was open various times when we were on the ship (not during landings). They sold souvenirs (stickers, shirts, keychains, anything penguin you can think of) and gear (dry bags, long underwear, waterproof gloves, fleeces, GoPro cameras, etc.).

So that was ship life. What else do you want to know about the ship itself?