Do this program. There, just in case you’re the kind of person that only skims across the first three words of one of these letters before moving on to the next, at least I got my ultimate point across. Now then, for those who might actually care, I did the quarter at sea as a graduating senior who is actually graduating, not just a person with senior status. If you have a quarter to kill and don’t mind spending the money, this is probably the best possible way to end your undergraduate college experience. If you’re not a graduating senior, do the program anyway because the classes might actually count toward your degree and you’ll have a fun time taking them.

As the first order of business, I feel it’s pertinent to disband all of the rumors of all the horrible things and horrible chores one needs to do while on board. This paragraph is dedicated to any whiney people who, for some reason or another, have read past the first three words of this letter. Here’s what I had to do. Every four days I had to “clean” the “helo deck”. The “helo deck” is a big flat open area on top of all aft housing, also known as “steel beach”. By “clean”, I mean I walked around for a grand total of about 5 minutes picking up stray pieces of whatever, making sure the drains weren’t clogged (they never were), absorbing the sun, waiting for the other guy to show up and walk around for 5 minutes so we could confirm each other’s presence, and then I went back to my room and played computer games. Clean sweep chores were very easy.

Every Cal Poly person will also have a bridge watch and an engine watch. These are also easy, as you don’t actually stay on the entire shift (4 hours). My bridge watch was over 2 hours early and my engine watch was over 3 hours early. I chose to stay a little longer for the bridge watch and stayed the entire engine watch because both of them were actually very interesting. Yes, parts of the engine room can reach 130+ degrees; no, you won’t have to stand in 130 degree heat for 4 hours. If you let yourself enjoy the watches, you’ll have fun.

CC duty. This is the only part of the cruise that really isn’t fun. I won’t bore you with details; just remember everyone had to do it and you only have to do it a couple of times.

Six day school weeks. Yes, there are time’s you’ll have school on Saturdays. Boo freakin hoo. Most of you will be taking bare minimum 12 unit course loads of classes that aren’t difficult. And don’t forget you’re on a boat traveling to a bunch of foreign countries while your SLO counterparts are stuck at home probably voting yes for another fee increase. Oh, and there’s no class on days in port, so mixed in with the six day school weeks are quite a few two and three day school weeks. Whiney people seem to forget this.

Now for the good stuff. Going into ports is absolutely awesome. There are a few things you can do to maximize your time in port though:

1. Save money before hand. Be prepared to spend at least $500 on stuff. Yes, you will spend that much. I thought I wouldn’t, but I did and I don’t regret a single cent of it. Also, pack VERY light and make room for souvenirs. Bring ONE weeks worth of clothes, not six, maybe ONE set of nice clothes, and save room for the stuff you’ll get in port.

2. Rent a car as soon as possible. Usually you won’t get off the ship early enough to rent a car for the same day, but you can easily reserve one for any following day. The day you get off the ship can be spent shopping, cruising the city, etc. Then see what’s around. See what national parks or events are nearby and go. There is PLENTY to keep yourselves occupied.

3. Don’t waste your money at the freakin’ bars. You can get drunk in America just as easily as you can in Japan, Australia, or Chile or wherever you’re going. If you’re 18 and one of your motives for going on this trip is to be able to legally get drunk in another country, you need to punch yourself in the face right now. Then, get my email address from Dr. Poling and send me info on when a good time to meet you would be so I can arrange time to come to SLO and punch you in the face myself. It’s a waste of your money, a waste of your time, and more importantly a waste of my time when I’m kept awake by drunk people running and shouting in the halls. In Sydney, I went to the opera house. It cost a lot of money, but I had a blast, and best of all I remembered going to the opera house when I woke up the next morning.

4. Travel in very small groups with people of about your same intelligence. The collective IQ of a group of people seems to drop exponentially as numbers increase and nothing will annoy you faster than having to wait while some random people take 800 million pictures in different Charlie’s Angel’s poses. Find some people who want to do exactly what you want to do and then go do it. Personally, I liked hiking in whatever parks were nearby. I covered many more miles when there were only 2 or 3 of us than when there were 6 or 8.

5. Talk to the natives. One of the highlights of my trip was talking to a group of Australian students and laughing at each other’s ridiculous pronunciations of words like aluminum. The locals are also the best source of info about stuff to do nearby. Don’t be shy.

6. Buy a digital camera. I know people who have taken 2000+ (yes, two thousand) pictures and disposables or traditional film cameras just won’t cut it.

That’s about it. This trip will be one of the most memorable things you do in your lifetime. For me, I had easy classes, a good group of friends, and the best final quarter ever. This is not a cruise ship. There are light chores, classes, food that’s better than Lighthouse but still not great, and quasi-uncomfortable living quarters, but in the end I had so much fun that none of that mattered. The ship’s motion is very soothing and stargazing is fantastic. To put it bluntly, you’d have to be an idiot to not have fun during the entire cruise. There were many people who found many things to complain about at sea and on shore; they obeyed the previous sentence to the letter. For everybody else, have fun and God speed.