I'm sitting on a boat.
More specially in a cozy one-man cabin on a boat, with a bedside wallpaper of waves and fluttering curtains, and a round mirror where the window would be had there been one, on my way from Stockholm to Mariehamn.
We'll be arriving there at 6:45 tomorrow, and heading back an hour later.
Since they no longer allow you to bring food with you on cruises such as this one - and screen all bags for food (and more dangerous items) when you board, I actually booked a table at the breakfast buffet tomorrow, which I've now learned costs about 30% more on the weekend than it does on regular week days.
I could have booked this on a regular week day! Had I known I would have...
Then again buddy Bear did lend me his commuter card while he's away in the Philippines, and so I can currently get to and from said cruise ship at no extra cost this weekend only.
That's why I booked the trip now rather than later.
I already knew breakfasts and other buffets on board are hella expensive though, and had thus planned to bring my own food with me. And then I read the boarding rules...
So how carefully do they screen luggage?
If you don't happen to get stopped in the metal detector yourself you could smuggle through some food in your clothes. You don't need to remove your coat when you go through, and in winter everybody wears one. But if you do get stopped that'd be embarrassing. And a waste of food.
I brought a big bottle of water with me at least, and a few bars. The edible kind. Bringing your own bottle's supposedly OK, and the tap water's drinkable, so you can refill it easily. Bringing any other beverages or food for consumption in the cabin, is not.
They usually have great food on their buffets though.
If I had a regular full-time job - and a pay thereafter - it's something I'd look forward to. As it is I'm trying to save in all ways possible, on all things, whilst still living the life as much as possible when opportunity presents me with for example overnight trips like this. Apart from the unexpected breakfast cost I'm actually cruising at basically no cost at all.
Viking Line (the main cruise line here) are running a Christmas campaign until the end of February, where your ticket costs only the travel tax they have to pay per passenger and trip. All earnings they get are via additional expenses, like food or tax-free. So of course they want you to buy your food.
It used to be they had trips like this entirely for free. Alas the government started taxing cruises (they've been taxing all other means of transport for some time - especially planes), and they're probably racking in a lot of money on 'em, cause this boat is packed.
Most people usually come here to party. To get drunk, or dance, and/or overindulge on their pricey (but good) seafood buffets - though there are more families with kids here than I was expecting.
I took a few of these trips during the pandemic years too, when they were even cheaper, and became accustomed to ships full of mostly young people and drunks, the clientele they still had when most people were self-isolating, but this clique's pretty different! The customer base today came in a great variety of ages, genders and ethnicities, with a surprising breadth of individually unique human beings represented. It's pretty cool.
I came here to do neither of the above things myself. I'm here to get some time for myself in a cabin on a ship. To shower lengthily wherest water and electricity is free, and see how I sleep in a different bed - cause my own is torment, and sit by the laptop I'm typing this on and get some work done.
Problem #2 (#1 was breakfast): They do not have WiFi in these cabins!
For some reason the possibility they did not have this basic modern amenity we sometimes take for granted here - in this cage of steel beams and plates of metal that greatly deflect and limits outside microwave radiation and other similar interference - never crossed my mind...
I'm stocked up on pods and movies for the night, but I'd really planned on doing a lot of work online too, at a comfortable speed, in my cabin on this here boat.
Before we left the harbor connectivity was OK, but the further away we get the more unstable it becomes, and it probably doesn't help that I have a cabin on the inner part of the ship, without a window.
It's probably a major factor actually.
With but a plate of glass between the cellphone and the outside world it'd be bound to pick up on plenty of masts. At least before we make it out to open sea.
On week days it seems you can get even window cabins at the same price (virtually no price at all, that is!) as the cheaper ones, but on weekends better cabins cost extra, and I'm not paying extra! No matter the cost.
So I've been doing my dues by this computer in sessions.
Sometimes I get up and stretch, or sit down and stretch. And then when the page I'm waiting on has loaded I move back to the computer aaand get something done! And then it's back to stretching again...
Or blogging. I started writing this after a more futile stretch of that surf and stretch routine, with too much stretch and too little surf.
Continually trying to connect to the net is probably really draining my cellphone battery, which has to act as wireless access point and provide the random bursts of wavy Internet I'm getting, but that's OK! Because there are two sockets on the desk, so I can charge both laptop and cellphone simultaneously, and waste the ship's electricity just as much as I'll be wasting their water with their shower later!
Getting some Wifi access points closer to the cabin areas may be a financially beneficial thing for them, but then again... do ships generate their own electricity too? Just like they pump in their own water?
They're really pretty incredible. These cruise ships. Like miniature cities; entirely self-sustaining. Closest thing to the walking worlds in Mortal Engines we may ever get...
I'm skipping back and forth between writing this blog and buying movie tickets right now btw. But the rebate code I've been using via ICA doesn't seem to be working either, so that may be a lost cause anyway...
Maybe I ought just get out and party huh? I'd planned on stopping by the tax-free store at least - be it just for a quick snack if I don't manage a night without one, or for something of greater value, that you can only really get at a good price on a ship like this...
My Internet's not loading at all right now y'all. And I've booked four cruises like this, with similar intentions. On two of them however I do have a window view! Looking forward to testing my connection then...
Time to get out and experience a cruise like it's intended to anywho.
Toodles.