So we have gone North for the weekend. I am attempting to sell my apartment in Bergen, and for the occasion, Bolle got her first ferry trip. She celebrated this by doing a massive poo on the way there.
Our fault really, we thought we would beat traffic by leaving the house just after 0600, which is her official morning poo time. I swear when that child can sit, I shall duct tape her to a potty every morning. How I envy her those regular bowel movements.
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| All hands on deck, especially with no strap |
He came back and said «no straps, no paper» (he knows I blog about this).
You gotta love these little diaper decks (we are on a ferry, it’s called a deck.. coincidence or clever thematized changing room, I ask!) with their little slot for a kleenex box of changing sheets. They never, ever ever have any in it! At least I’ve yet to encounter one.
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Mwahaha, I, the giant baby, got tissue towel! You,
stupid mummy, get none!
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Notice those instruction photos on the left. I have taken a close-up, because I find it particularly ironic that they tell you to do the two things you clearly can’t. Hurrah.
The empty tissue paper slot teases you with its reminder of how hygienic and lovely it would have been had you been granted access to these clean and smooth, if not very environmentally friendly, pieces of tissue paper.
In addition, the strap was broken, which given the location and the proneness of the Norwegian west coast to high winds, is rather dangerous.
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| A worthy entry in the «giant baby hits floor
with one foot still resting
on the changing table» competition.
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Even if you don’t «leave the baby unattended», the inability to strap down that child could, in the event of you losing your footing due to high seas, lead to this
<==, which is clearly not not good.
This sort of thing particularly irritates me when you can’t go to a posher mall to get a better space. You are on a frigging ferry, the alternatives are doing it on a table from which people will spend the rest of the day eating, I think not so much.
Or you can wait and do it as soon as you get off the ferry, in which case you will subsequently end up suicidal from being behind every single lorry and bus also parked on the car deck of said ferry, all of which will overtake you if you stop.
I forgot to add that the smell of this combo handicap loo and changing room is pretty weird, a mixture of pee and chemicals, but then again ferry toilets always in my experience smell a bit weird, so maybe that’s to be expected.
However, the changing facility room / toilet is positioned right next to the kiddie TV corner, which tends to show straight to video Disney films you’ll only have heard of if you have spent the previous ten years glued to the Scandinavian Disney channel. I feel a bit sorry for those kids who have to endure that smell if they want to watch TV on a well-deserved break from staring out at the sky through the rear windscreen of the car (does that window have another name?).
Oh, and Bergen? Bergen was lovely! It hasn’t even rained.
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| I have no idea what this says, but way to go, tagger! |
VERDICT:
Choppy.
Changing facilities: I don’t know if I would call them that.
Breast feeding facilities: Nope, and you wouldn’t want to. I recommend a table by the window outside, relatively discreet and comfy and only disturbed by elderly ladies cooing at the baby.
Parent peeing facilities: Yup, even if you’re a disabled parent! Sort of clean-ish although the base of the toilet was wrapped in suspicously damp paper.
Best feature: The tag on the floor behind the toilet. Excellent entertainment value. You, hormonal pubescent child, have left your signature behind a disabled toilet in a baby changing room. Yup, I can see why you became territorial just there. The mind boggles. Oh, and you can sort of almost reach the sink from the deck if you have extremely long arms.
Worst feature: Smelly. No strap, no tissue paper.
Would I use again? Wouldn’t like to, but probably will.
Bolle says: «I feel a bit seasick.»