No matter which cruise line you prefer, they all seem to have the same issue—what about drying wet swimsuits or washed clothing WITHOUT a balcony? You're screwed. There's a couple places to hang things in the shower area—where they won't dry well nor quickly, since the air doesn't move around in that small, closed space very much...
So, how do you solve this problem? You can't nail anything into the walls because they're made of steel. You can't hang anything from the ceiling because they didn't provide any hooks and they strictly forbid hanging things from the fire suppression and smoke detector system.
The go-to solution has always been magnets. But many people spend a ton of money and go to great lengths to buy 100lb magnets, which are both expensive AND difficult to use. We found a much simpler solution, for which you DON'T need to buy the strongest magnets available on the market!
My wife and I get along fine with a handful of 2kg(~5lb) pull magnets. They're cheap to buy, easy to use and available nearly anywhere. On our first few cruises, my wife and I used to bring these magnets with hooks on them to hang up our clothes. It worked, but we could only hang up so many, one-per-hook, and the hooks don't allow things to dry properly unless you use a hanger.
While browsing through a 100 yen shop in Japan, I stumbled upon the perfect improvement—a steel extending curtain rod that slides into the hooks on our magnets. It's the type meant for kitchen curtains, I think. (The one I found was just shorter than my suitcase, and just lies flat against one side as I start to pack.)
I bought the rod (it was 100 yen, of course), hung it up between two hooks, and voila!
In seconds we could assemble a portable ceiling-mounted "closet rod" that could hold and allow to dry multiple items on hangers at once.
Hang this arrangement in front of an air inlet, and we no longer need care what the weather outside is like today, or indeed whether we have a balcony on this cruise—our wet clothing will dry out quickly anyhow.
If things get a bit too heavy, we can easily place a third (or even fourth) hook in the middle of the rod. To keep things lighter, we started packing those thin wire hangers in our suitcase. (No more heavy wooden cruise line hangers weighing down our clothesline.)
Now we can hang up any clothing with ease to let them air dry. We usually carry fifteen wire hangers, nine magnets and three of these little curtain rods, letting us hang and dry at least 15 wet items at the same time—an entire "hand-wash" worth of clothing.
Try it and see!
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