“Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook.” William Arthur Ward

As you know I am a mobile worker. I teach as an adjunct distance education classes. It is my full time job. In addition I am a student. My obligations as a student weigh me down far more than my obligations as a faculty member.

I have taught my classes from all over the world. Including Europe, Africa, Central and South America, as well as all over the US. However I usually take trips where I am in control of the moving about. In Europe I can skip lunch and do my work. My husband likes to sleep in so I can let him catch a few zzz's or after we retire I can sit up working. Because I don't just work for 1 institution I rarely have any time off as mentioned here.

However my spring break coincided with my Stepdaugther's this year. I was excited. So we decided to take a trip as a family. When I say family I mean more than just me and that handsome guy that lives here. :) We took our daughter and his mother. We had two side by side cabins on a cruise ship. His mother and I had been on a cruise before. Hubby was a Marine so had been on several cruises...just not the kind where you don't work the entire time. Stepdaughter had never been on a cruise.

I was fortuitous enough to have a week that was light on the work side. However I still had to work. There is internet available via the boat. The boat's internet costs a whopping 24 dollars an hour. However they do have ship specials such as happy hour from 7-9 PM where if you spend 24 dollars you get 1.5 hours instead of 1. I decided that I had to work. It was the cost of doing business...I can take it off on my taxes.

I got up early the morning of embarkation. I did all of my work in a little less than 6 hours. Then we got on the boat. That took care of DAY 1 work. Total cost: Zero the hotel had free Wifi

On Day 2 I decided to take the day off because I had scratched my cornea and I was in a great deal of pain. Total cost: Zero but I was anxious about it.

Day 3 we docked in Cozumel very early in the morning. Hubby and I got off with the laptop leaving daughter and his mom to sleep and get breakfast. I went to an internet cafe and got all my work done that I could in 3 hours at (5 dollars an hours and that includes 2 cokes). We went back to the boat and then spent the rest of the day in Cozumel. I got on that night during happy hour and finished up in 2 hours. Total Cost: Fifteen dollars plus Fifty dollars plus the 3.95 set up fee. So $69 bucks for the day.

The following day we were in Calica (Playa del Carmen). The town is quite far from the port. Since it was Thursday one of my lightest work day I managed to get everything done in 2 hours during happy hour that night. Total cost: $50

Day 5 we were at sea again. I had to do quite a bit this day, and ended up getting up at 6. No happy hour then, but I wanted to be with my family when they were awake. So I worked from 6 to 8. Then again at happy hour for 1.5 hours. Total cost: $75

Extra cost: The ship had cellular service. All of my emails go to my Blackberry. I believe it was like 3 cents an email to send and 3 to receive. Since I send and receive about 100 a day. Figure an extra 15-20 dollars for email. However because while on the ship I could answer emails it cut down on the time I had to spend in the Internet cafe.

We got off on Saturday. I managed to work from home.

Here are the work hints and tips that I found.

1. Do as much as you can before you leave. If you can get grades posted etc before you leave it will be more smooth than trying to do your normal work load on the boat. I tried to make sure I had worked ahead as much as possible.
2. Read the ships internet specials on the first day if you bought an hour you got 10 minutes free. But you shouldn't have to work on the first day. Try to do that before you get on. By the 3rd day if you bought an hour you got 30 minutes free.
3. If you have a blackberry try to not do emails while at the cafe. It is quicker to just take care of emails via your phone and not have to deal with email in the internet cafe.
4. The ships internet is satellite. The speed is roughly fast dial up. So a T1 it is not. I highly recommend that not grade if at all possible while on ship. It took quite some time to open a document that I had to download. I did all of my grading that had to be done in port.
5. Research what can be done in port. Most major cities have internet cafes. They will be a good deal cheaper and quite a bit faster than the ship's internet. You might have to miss out on an hour or two of the port. I just had my family sleep a bit late, get some breakfast, and get ready while I got a bit of work done.
6. Plan the cruise for a slow week. I have slow times and terrible times. I recommend taking a cruise during slow times. In Miami, I didn't have a problem working because I had Internet at my fingertips. I could wake up at 5 AM and get all my work done before my husband woke up. It is quite a bit different on ship where there is not Internet in the stateroom.
7. Because I am a student I planned the trip when I did not have to work. I think it would have been impossible to do if I had had to do schoolwork as well as work work. It would not have been a good vacation for me at all.
   

I do have some wonderful cruise stories about my family that I will share. However I wanted to get this work related one out of the way.