Dear Prospective Cal Poly at Sea Student,

Let me tell you why you should not even be thinking about going on this trip - you should be packing your bags already! This has been the most amazing experience of my life, hands down. The places you get to go are beautiful, the things you get to do are incredible, and the people you form bonds with are awesome.

I could sit here and go on about how wonderful this trip is, but I will first tell you that there are a few minor downfalls to this trip. First off, you are on a 500 foot ship and you do start to notice this by the end of the trip. Second, you will be craving good food up until the day you get home, even if you get a few good meals in port. The third thing is that you are living in very tight corridors and you will get VERY close to your roommates. This can be good or bad - in my case it was very good even though I was living in lower berthing with 10 girls! The last thing is that you do have to do light cleaning on the ship, but please don't let this deter you from this remarkable experience. The cleaning I did down in lower berthing consisted of cleaning the bathroom on 6 days out of the 2 months we were on the ship with the help of another lower berthing girl, and we also did minor cleaning in our rooms (you do have to make your bed every day, it is true). The other cleaning that we had to do was participating in Compartment Cleaning, where we were put behind the scenes for a day of meals. This may sound bad, but trust me, it isn't. You have to do this for one, or at most two, days and it actually becomes fun. You wash dinner plates and do a lot of standing around. Is is NOT that bad!! Now that I have told you about the bad things, let me move on to the good.

I cannot touch on every single thing that I loved about this trip, but I will try to give you the main highlights. First, even though the food was not to standards (it is comparable to the Lighthouse, with less variation), Mom is a savior! She makes the desserts and bread, and they make the bad food okay because you have something to look forward to after the main course. Mom begins to know the cadets on the ship and she will make your favorite dessert for you, too! Another perk to this cruise for me was my roommates. I could not have asked for a better group of girls. They have made this trip so much better for me, and if you think that you can handle living with a larger group of people, lower berthing is the place to be. There is always something going on down in LB and the location is great for the mess deck, the classroom level, and the gym. The only thing is that you are far away from the helo deck, where you can tan, if you are into that, which I am, and it can be a little hard to bring a lawn chair up all of the stairs. Lower berthing also has a much better bathroom. Even though there are a lot of people sharing the bathroom, it is much cleaner than the stateroom bathrooms because the lower berthing bathroom was redone recently and there is always someone assigned to keep it clean. So, if you didn't mind the dorm bathrooms, you should have no problem with this.

Probably the best part of this trip was the port time. For our cruise, we went to the South Pacific and visited places like Hawaii, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Australia. Going to these tropical places and hanging out with some of your new best friends can only mean having the time of your life. You will not sleep in port! It is just a fact. You have a curfew to get back on the ship, and then you continue the fun on the ship, just to wake up at eight the next morning to do it all again. The nights in port are when all the bonding takes place. All of the Cal Poly students and the maritime students gather at a common bar and we hang out and dance the night away! The days are amazing too! I did things on this trip that I could not have imagined. I held a Koala, rode a Fun Car all over New Caledonia, snorkeled on beautiful tropical islands, and experienced the culture of different countries. Without a doubt, this is a trip that I will not forget about any time soon.

If I could leave you with one bit of advice, it would be to take this risk and go on this trip. You will not regret it!