When I tell people that I am a recent graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, nine out of 10 will ask me if I was part of the group that lived aboard the St. Mary's cruise ship. My response is usually a drawn out ‘yeah,’ after years of trying to explain to people that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But looking back, it makes for one great story.
It was October 2011, my sophomore year of college, and my biggest concern at the time was what I would wear for Halloween. That’s when news began to spread around campus of mold in the dorms. First it was one dorm, then two. Then it was our dorm. The faculty held a meeting with the affected students and informed us that we would all be moving into hotels either in Lexington Park or on Solomons Island while the dorms were stripped of mold; a project that could last the entire semester.
I moved into a La Quinta 20 minutes from campus with my roommate Katie. That was a strange week of living out of boxes and napping in the library, but then the college president came up with a plan. Most of the student body thought it was a joke. A meme of President Urgo began circulating around campus that read: “I heard you needed a place to live… so I bought you a boat.”
In true St. Mary’s style, our president did indeed find us a boat. The ship was a retired river cruiser, rumored to have come from New Orleans, and none of us knew exactly how Urgo had pulled it off but he really came through for us. We could relocate from ‘livin’ La Quinta loca’ back to our beloved campus. We packed up our belongings once again and moved onto the mysterious ship. Because so many students were displaced, the ship would be filled to capacity. Those not living aboard could only enter with special permission.
The ship was docked next to campus in Historic St. Mary’s City, right behind the Maryland Dove. What a sight that was. The Dove is a replica of the ship that brought settlers from England to St. Mary’s City, along with the Ark, in 1634. It was quite the juxtaposition to see the large cruise ship berthed with the Dove alongside. To get from campus to Historic you would walk through the cemetery of St. Mary’s Church and then down a long hill to the docks. After walking down the hill, students would pass the first check-point: a rather intimidating public safety officer who would check our ID (effectively keeping us from consuming adult beverages for the rest of that semester) and then let us pass. Then we made our way down the dock, past the Dove, and up the gangplank where we would hit the next checkpoint, and then be allowed onboard.
Many students not living on the ship were jealous of us. To this day when people question me about my experiences they ask “was it awesome?” I have mixed feelings. At the time I did not think so. Looking back through old Facebook statuses I find things like “Only one more class between me and freedom but now they’ve disconnected the gangplank, and we are literally stuck on the ship.” Luckily now I can look back and laugh at those times. But in the moment it was something else entirely.
The ‘state rooms’ were clearly made for one occupant, but due to the large number of mold-affected students, two smaller than twin-sized beds were crammed into each space. Luckily my roommate was a very good friend, or that could have been a problem. Our beds were mere inches apart. Then there was the issue of our shower. At first we rejoiced to have our very own bathroom, but it soon proved to be little bigger than a coffin with a shower that continually overflowed into our equally small bedroom, stacked to the ceiling with boxes of our belongings. Katie was awoken on more than one occasion by a string of expletives coming from the bathroom as I tried to scoop up the overflowing water with a red solo cup. To this day I cannot look at red solo cups without conjuring up images of that overflowing shower.
Then our thermostat broke. Our room felt like a furnace, our porthole could not be opened, and when we began sleeping with the door open, hoping for even the smallest breath of fresh air, the cigarette smoke from the crew wafted in, making our room even more stifling than before.
But there were perks to the ship. The dining saloon was turned into a large study room with Wi-Fi and a café serving coffee and muffins. From the top deck I saw some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen over the St. Mary’s River. Because our room was so small, I spent most of my time up there, studying or reading a book, and it was moments like those that make me look back with fondness at our time on the ship.
There were other fun memories, too. There was the time we thought the ship was haunted because of the way it creaked at night. The time we had a ‘fashion show’ with our best party dresses and the “What About Bob” style of orange PFDs we found under our beds. But my favorite memory has to be Katie and me trying to move out in December, one box at a time, down the gangplank and up the icy hill while a guitar-playing hippie serenaded us from the observation deck of the ship.
So maybe it wasn’t the most pleasant experience at the time. In fact there were moments when it was downright awful, but now, for all my years to come, I am able to say that yes, I lived on the cruise ship. A cruise ship was my dorm for a semester in college. How many people can say that? The faculty at St. Mary’s really came through for us that year, as odd as the idea seemed at the time. It got us back to our beloved river, back to our home.
And that ship gained such notoriety that comic Jimmy Fallon even mentioned us during one of his late night shows. He joked how after a night of partying we would have to do the Sunday morning “backstroke of shame.” So thank you St. Mary’s. We may not have appreciated it at the time, but that cruise ship made for one hell of a semester.
By Kaylie Jasinski