Students of St. Mary's Move to a Cruise Ship by: Marcella Marquez

After an outbreak of mold, in two dorms of St. Mary’s College in Maryland students are relocated. The mold built up around ventilation pipes, from excess moisture after Hurricane Irene. This caused the dorms to be shutdown, and therefore made the students move to hotels miles from campus.  Then college officials began to look for safer and closer options. With the suggestion of a student they soon moved 239 students and Ms. Fitzgerald to the 286-foot cruise ship, the Sea Voyager.  Since the ship docked last Sunday it has attracted many students and visitors. Although the student have just moved in a week ago so to some delay. The students will be living on the ship until the semester is over, and their dorms on land have been cleaned completely. “The whole idea of a residential college is you don’t have to worry about where you live and where your next meal is coming from. You just study, and this has sort of interrupted that a little bit,” said Mr. Argo. After some complaints from student s and parent, who were worried of the relocating happening during midterm exams. Yet  many students seem excited about living on a cruise ship, even some of them who were not affected by the mold tried to get rooms in the new dormitory.  According to the NY times “The ship’s gift shop has been converted to an office for residence officials, the ballroom functions as a social lounge, and the pub as a coffee ship.” “It’s not super-extravagant, but it works,” said Ms. Fitzgerald. There are also some great advantages for the students, who get their linens and towels replaces twice a week. They also have laundry service, and share their bathroom with one other person as opposed to a whole floor of co-eds.


source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/maryland-college-students-take-to-floating-dorm.html?_r=1&ref=us