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For those who have traveled solo and roomed with a random person, what have been your best and worst experiences with them? I'm doing a liveaboard solo for the first time later this year, and need to get my head in the proper frame of mind. My friends' best advice, which reflects upon the quality of the friends, has been "be the big spoon". Slingshot
I'm just not willing to risk it. I want to be able to sleep so when I am on a liveaboard I am either with my wife or I pay 1/2 extra for my own room.
These trips are too expensive and the travel is too far to risk a roomate who makes sleep impossible. I 'm a very light sleeper. Earplugs help a bit but that is all. And I'm talking the special fitted earplugs. No roomies for me thanks
For those who have traveled solo and roomed with a random person, what have been your best and worst experiences with them? I'm doing a liveaboard solo for the first time later this year, and need to get my head in the proper frame of mind. My friends' best advice, which reflects upon the quality of the friends, has been "be the big spoon". Slingshot
The only time you're in your cabin is when you're sleeping and getting dressed. Who care's if there's someone else there? What's the worst that can happen - someone snores? Get ear plugs, get noise cancelling headphones, get used to it. It's not a big deal. In fact, there are so many other noises on a boat - engines, generators, compressors, A/C units, mooring lines, water lapping, etc - that the likelihood of hearing all but the most relentless snorers is very low.
I would NEVER pay the single supplement.
In fact, if anyone wants to pay a single supplement I will agree to book the same trip as your "room mate." You pay half my charter cost, I'll pay the other half and I promise to sleep in the salon, shower on the dive platform, and use the deck head. I'll even promise not to sit next to you at meals. You'll never even know I was there!
Let's see, I have traveled as a single on 9 liveaboard trips. I have paid the single supplement a few times*, and I have gotten a single a couple of times by the luck of the draw (or the captain's whim—I don't know how the sleeping arrangements are adjudicated). Of my roommates, none are memorable. I got along with all of them, buddied with none of them, and none of them stand out. Which is how it should be, really. Don't worry about the roommate; as RJP pointed out above, the necessary contact is minimal, and you will be dead tired and strangely relaxed come bed time.
The best roommate I was ever thrown together with on a dive trip (not a liveaboard) was arranged by my dive shop. She needed somebody to split costs with so I reluctantly agreed to bunk with her. I stumbled into our hotel room in Jakarta braced for the worst and instead was greeted with a smart, lovely grad student who I spent a nice week with and continued to see for quite a while after that. Luck of the draw, again. Maybe I'm just lucky.
You've grasped the point of the thread. I need to brace myself for the worst, while hoping for the best. I think it is interesting to meet someone new, but there are interesting people and then there are interesting people.
Sounds like you were lucky vlad. Were you strangely relaxed at bed time?
I roomed with a guy who I actually got along well with...but he drove the rest of the boat nuts. He made some very off-color jokes, constantly complained/made wise cracks about how the diving in PNG didn't have enough big stuff. I mean, who goes to the other side of the world to an expensive place like PNG and expects nothing but wrecks, whale sharks, non-stop mantas, and schooling hammerheads? It got to be really annoying.
BUT - behind closed doors I got along with him famously.
I roomed with someone on the Kona Aggressor who was a great roommate, and when I did the Tropic Dancer in Palau we only had 6 guests onboard and my roommate requested a private room and thus - I got my own too! It was awesome! But on that trip all the guests got along well on that trip.
I'm headed back to PNG (Milne Bay this time) in February. I'm told I'm a great roommate and a model dive buddy - especially for fellow macro and photography-interested divers. Anyone want to pair up? I would more than be open to a really attractive female diver who requests to room with me!
Bottom line - don't be worried. Just be-friend everyone onboard and be social. Liveaboards are filled with like-minded divers (usually) who all are interested in diving as much as possible and relaxing and taking in the scenery.
I'm a firm believer that if you "expect the worst" you will ultimately find it. When I'm on vacation, I don't let anything bother me. When I'm diving, I don't let anything bother me. If you try to find something that will bother you... you will. Especially if you're looking for something about a person that will bother you.
PS - I think it's funny that all these threads are about "I don't want to be stuck with an a-hole roommate on a liveaboard..." but I've never seen one that asked "how can I avoid being an a-hole roommate on a liveaboard?" Does anyone ever consider that it's entirely possible that THEY might be the "problem" roommate?
PS - I think it's funny that all these threads are about "I don't want to be stuck with an a-hole roommate on a liveaboard..." but I've never seen one that asked "how can I avoid being an a-hole roommate on a liveaboard?" Does anyone ever consider that it's entirely possible that THEY might be the "problem" roommate?
You rock, and can come back anytime. You mean like the folks that get sick before departure but insist on coming on the boat anyway, just to get the crew sick and the passengers on the follow on trip? Because they didn't want to spend the extra 59 bucks on trip insurance, but they can't dive anyway because their sinus's are plugged with green goo? Or the guy who snores like a chainsaw, and knows he has sleep apnea but refuses to have a sleep study done and use a CPAP because ......? Or the person who comes on the boat to "party", but when the bar closes at midnight carry on and whine and stomp around the boat and when they finally go to bed they piss in it?
I've only been on one liveaboard as a single. My dive trip/safari to Pemba/Tanzania. I was roomed with a wonderful, highly educated woman, a single mother who was about my age.
we couldn't have been a better match as roommates. It was perfect!
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