Crew cabins on cruise ships: the little rooms we called home

seafaring

2 Oct

I spent years working on cruise ships, which also meant spending years living on them.

When you tell people you work on a cruise ship, they usually imagine the parts passengers see: the restaurants, the theatres, the swimming pools, the ports. What they don’t usually see – or perhaps think much about – is where all the crew sleep.

Because, obviously, we don’t go home at the end of the day. We live onboard too.

For months at a time, the ship is our workplace, our neighbourhood, and our home. And somewhere behind those Crew Only doors, often on the lower decks, are the rooms where we sleep, change, keep our things and, occasionally, try to find five minutes of peace.

A cruise ship crew cabin is usually a small, practical room with very little wasted space. Depending on your position and the ship, you might have a cabin to yourself, but most crew sleep in shared cabins with one, two or sometimes three other people.

Over the years, I lived in different cabins, with different roommates, on different ships. Some were quieter. Some were better located. Some had more storage.

And while crew cabins aren't particularly glamorous, they become surprisingly important when you’re living at sea for months at a time.

So, what are cruise ship crew cabins actually like? Here’s a look inside.

What does a cruise ship crew cabin look like?

Open the door and there isn't exactly a grand entrance. The bathroom is usually right beside the entrance, with the rest of the cabin opening up beyond it.

My cabins were generally pretty basic: bunk beds, a wardrobe or locker, a small desk, a chair, a television, and a little fridge (sometimes). A full-length mirror was standard too – because apparently checking whether your uniform looks presentable requires more than the little bathroom mirror.

Everything has a purpose, and there isn't much wasted space. The walls are metal, the flooring is practical, and the lighting is designed to help you get ready for work rather than create a particular atmosphere.

You’re not going to spend much time wondering whether the interior designer had a particular vision. The vision was probably fit as many people and their belongings in here as possible. And somehow, it works.

The bunk beds

The bed is probably the most important part of the whole room.

After a long shift, you don't particularly care whether the cabin has beautiful furniture. You care whether you can get into bed.

Crew beds are usually bunk beds, with a ladder taking you to the upper one. Each bunk has a couple of drawers underneath for extra storage too.

The mattress is fairly narrow, and the ship provides the basic bedding you need.

If you're preparing for your first contract, my packing list for cruise ship crew covers what I actually found useful to bring.

A curtain around each bunk gives you a little bit of privacy.

The lower bunk is obviously easier to get into, particularly when you’re exhausted. The upper bunk is fine until your cabinmate is already asleep below you and you realise that climbing the ladder without rattling the whole thing is suddenly a precision exercise.

The tiny bathroom

The bathroom contains a shower, toilet and sink in a space where you can practically reach all three without moving. A shower curtain is about the only thing separating the shower from everything else. There are a few small shelves in the shower, and a mirror cabinet above the sink.

If you’re sharing with three other people, suddenly those few shelves don't seem like very much.

I’ve shared a bathroom with people who had the bare minimum and people who seemed to have brought an entire beauty counter with them.

One towel bar and a couple of hooks on the door complete the setup.

The wardrobe situation

There’s a wardrobe or locker for each person, although exactly how much space you get depends on the ship. Some have more hanging space than others, along with shelves or drawers for smaller things.

It doesn't look like much, but this is where you're expected to keep several months' worth of clothes and the other things you bring onboard.

How much space do cruise ship crew cabins have?

This is probably the question people are most curious about. The honest answer is: it depends.

I've been in cabins where two people could stand comfortably in the middle, and others where two people could barely stand there without being in each other’s personal bubble.

I’ve also stayed in four-person cabins that felt roomy, although they were never fully occupied while I was there. I’ve seen fully occupied four-person cabins too, and even with four people, they weren’t always as cramped as you might imagine.

Single cabins can vary quite a bit too. I’ve seen smaller ones with a shared bathroom, as well as much larger single cabins for more senior crew.

So the number of people a cabin is designed for doesn't necessarily tell you how spacious it will feel. The layout matters too.

And what changes things dramatically is having everyone actually there.

When there are only two people, it’s usually easier to move around each other without much thought. Add another person, a few suitcases, clothes drying somewhere, and everyone getting ready for work at the same time, and suddenly you become very aware of where you’ve left your things.

The funny thing is, you don't really live in the whole room. You have your bunk, your section of the wardrobe, your little corner of the desk. Maybe a shelf or two. And you learn to stay within your territory. There are a few tricks to making a tiny crew cabin work, though.

I’ve always been quite comfortable with small spaces, so I never found the cabins particularly difficult to live in. That doesn’t mean everyone would feel the same way, of course. Maybe I’ve just become good at adjusting to whatever space I’m given.

What does it feel like to live in a cruise ship crew cabin?

The first thing I noticed was probably the lack of natural light.

Most crew cabins don’t have windows, so you can wake up and have absolutely no idea whether it’s 6am or 6pm until you check your phone. The lighting is usually practical rather than atmospheric – bright enough to get ready, but not exactly the sort of thing that gives you a good selfie.

Then there’s the sound.

A ship is never completely quiet. There’s the low hum of the engines, the vibration beneath your feet, doors opening and closing in the corridor, footsteps passing outside, alarms going off somewhere, and the occasional movement from your cabinmate. Depending on where your cabin is, you might hear more of some things than others.

And then there are the rare moments when everyone seems to be asleep. The ship doesn't suddenly become silent, but everything feels softer.

Your cabinmate changes the experience too.

When you get along well, sharing a tiny room can be surprisingly easy. You develop your own routines without really discussing them. One person gets ready while the other is still asleep. You leave a little space here, move something there.

When you’re tired, stressed, or simply not particularly compatible, that same room can feel very different.

And somehow, after a while, the cabin becomes familiar.

You know which drawer sticks. You know where the light switch is without looking. You know which part of the floor creaks, which noises mean someone is coming down the corridor. You also learn very quickly that the doors close automatically – although apparently not quickly enough for me to stop locking myself out of my own cabin.

Before long, you stop thinking of it as the crew cabin and simply think of it as your cabin.

After months onboard, it becomes the place you return to after work, where you take off your uniform, get into bed and finally stop being “on” for the day.

Eventually, though, you have to pack it all up again.