Working on a cruise ship seems like an adventure, and in many ways it is. But there are sacrifices: Crew members work long hours and get little time off.
Their ships may take them to exotic locations, but they may not have time off in many ports so they can explore. And even when crew members have a few free hours, they often need to spend that time completing mundane tasks like doing laundry and cleaning their cabins.
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In addition, while passenger cabins are small, crew cabins are even smaller. They also are generally shared by two crew members who have to deal with bunk beds.
Outside the military, there aren't a lot of situations where adults sleep in bunk beds, but that's generally how crew cabins are set up. Cruising With Essy shared a look inside a typical Carnival Cruise Line cabin on her YouTube page.
Take a quick look at a Carnival Cruise Line cabin
"Basically this is where you'll be living when you decide to finally come and work on board Most of the cabins are shared cabins. So this is one of the shared cabins that I will take you through," she said. "So, as you can see, the cabins, they're quite like just a normal room at home."
She quickly pointed out the sleeping situation.
"Your bed will be a bunk bed One bed on the top and another bed on the bottom But the mattresses they're quite comfortable, you know, you can sleep comfortably in them. No problems for me so far," she added.
Each room, she added, features a large mirror. There's also a ladder that can be used to access the top bunk. Every room, she said, also has a television and a refrigerator as well as a small area that Essy described as "the space where you get to put our lotions and perfumes."
"There's a chair there. There's a wardrobe and you can see on top there are life jackets just in case," she said.
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Each crew room has a private bathroom.
"So, here we are in the bathroom. It's a shower You can have a hot or cold bath in there This is where we keep our towels or detergents and our toiletries So it's a combination — there's the bathroom and there's the toilets in that one room. So as you can see this is where you'll be living when you decide to finally come and work on board," she added.
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