Pam knows this because she and I met on a Windstar cruise. A couple years ago, I met some other folks on a Windstar cruise crossing the Pacific. The ship holds over 200 people and there were less than 30 of us on the ship. The crossing was AMAZING, and we had a great time spending two weeks being greatly outnumbered by the crew. The folks I met on that cruise were planning on this one, and invited me to join.
This cruise held particular interest because it is the maiden voyage of a new Windstar ship. I'll admit a certain level of curiosity as to what Windstar was coming up with on its next generation of ships. What I had not counted on was the curiosity level of other folks. While that Pacific crossing was near empty, this ship is full. I'm told every cabin is occupied.
They did some testing and a short shakedown cruise (she floats!) but we're basically the Beta testers here. So, yeah, it took a stunning amount of time to actually get served dinner - it was the first time they've actually had to serve a full ship. I'm not COMPLAINING here -- good Lord, I'm on a freakin' CRUISE for crying out loud. More than that, I'm on vacation, enjoying conversation with nice people -- it isn't like there was someplace else we had to be for those two hours. But, still, I'm sure it got marked down in a book someplace as something they were going to work on.
Which brings us (finally) to the toilet roll holder. Cabins in other Windstar ships have a certain logic to them. And that logic is: make the best of use of space. There's storage EVERYWHERE. Folks on this cruise are (politely and quietly, but near unanimously) questioning the itty bitty closet space and insufficient hangers.
I'm going to go a bit further - and I'm doing it on my personal blog rather than the Facebook group for this cruise (because I feel like if I say anything negative about the ship, I'm going to get glared at by Windstar Groupies for the next two weeks.) But the fact is the space just isn't well thought-out. If I were to come up with an overall theme for the design of the cabins, it would be: Luxurious appearance, practicality be damned.
Observe the toilet roll holder. Simple, elegant.
Look again. Angled slightly downward. And at the downward edge...
That itty bitty little stopper supposed to keep the roll on the holder. Even though it is pointing downward. And on a moving ship. As soon as you pull on the sheet to get yourself some TP, it spins, jumps the stopper, and rolls across the bathroom floor.
Could've prevented this with a less sleek design. Or even angling it slightly upward. But the elegance of this design is going to result in everyone dropping their TP on the floor, likely more than once.
(I don't want to say this design philosophy permeates everything, but it does. The TV mounted with a lovely backlight, but the mounting prevents you from watching TV from the sofa. The bizarrely-designed shower with a hand-wand, a rainforest head, AND a body spray -- but there's no moving or angling the hand wand holder, so the shower is basically a dance where you're constantly adjusting among water coming at you from one side, the other side, or above. And don't get me started on the onboard spa facilities - housed on Deck 4, but you have to enter via a winding staircase on Deck 5. Because that makes sense.)
So, here I am on a LOVELY ship, with friends, a charming crew, and cabins that appear designed more for instagram than for actual human use. There is NO WAY I'm going to bitch about this or let it undermine my vacation in any way. But I am going to have a laugh about it every time I'm chasing my toilet roll across the floor.
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