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Warning: Not-So-Great-Photo Alert!
(Although, next time you’re trying to shoot in low indoor light with an ancient Nikon Coolpix while the room you’re in is tossing about on the ocean, let’s see how well you fare.)
Here’s a little something from the Crafty Chica Cruise. Each night while we were at dinner, we’d get turndown service. And as part of that, our cabin steward would make up a little animal from towels and leave it sitting on the bed.
How freaking cool is that?
Each night, it was something different. Apparently, there are many, many designs – do a Google Image search on “towel animals” to see what I mean.
They sold a whole how-to book on the ship, and there was even a class. But in most cases, a little careful reverse engineering revealed the secrets.
You definitely need older, harder, stiffer towels for this kind of folding. Your lovely, fluffy towels will yield animals that just kind of flop over.
According to the Towel Animal Wikipedia Page (HAHAHAHAHAHA!), these animals are a tradition on Carnival cruises, and on some other lines as well. If you’re curious, you might also like this Squidoo page.
(Bet you’re wondering about those eyes and noses. Well, they’re torn bits from the ship’s daily newsletters.)
Sigh… aside from the crafty, I have to say, the thing I miss most about the cruise was turndown service. And having someone clean my room every day.
Aw I love them! I had towel animals made for me at the Bahia Mar hotel in Fort Lauderdale and they even put my sunglasses on them for accessories lol. I'm so jealous that I missed such an amazing cruise!
Man, I would SO love to know who invented these things!
Oh I love these…you just have to smile!
I went on a Carnivale cruise as a kid back in the 80s and they did then then too! And they folded the napkins as well. I remember this vividly because it was one of my favorite things about the ship – I was getting into origami at the time :) I got some of the staff to show me how they were done and I still remember a few of napkins techniques…
Ahh! That's always one of the parts of cruises I forget until I come into the room and there's a towel critter there. I love them, it's so simple but fun!
what a fab thing to have a towel animal on your bed when you got back from a hard day creating…. fabulous!!!
i love the dinosaur one :D
I've been fortunate enough to be able to join my family on a few cruises – I love the towel animals! On one cruise I had a bunch of fancy hair ornaments – feathered hairsticks I had made and sparkly clips, and such – and almost every day they grabbed something from my little stash of fanciness to decorate the animals. This might have been my favorite: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiralshannon/7394…. So much fun!
Yaaay! That could not be more adorable! Thanks for the link!
Oh my that brings back some memories! My sister won a trip to Canada some years ago and she took me with her. The trip included a 7 day cruise through Inside Passage onboard a Holland America ship, and every day our cabin steward would do the room clean and leave a towel animal or shape on the end of each bed along with a little choccie or two. We took photos of each one.
I agree though that someone cleaning and doing the turndown is something I still miss greatly today! :D Those seven days were just heaven!!
Oh my goodness. This takes me right straight back to my childhood. There was a comic book character named “Little Lulu”, and it seems to me that at the end of every comic book there'd be instructions for making an animal or person from Kleenex! The towels are just like that, only bigger.
I found a link to a photo of a golden book with several on the cover. Check it out!
http://michelesworld.net/dmm2/lulu/klbook.jpg
I want the elephant! That was seriously cool!!
Wow, how cool is that?! Thanks for the link – what a lovely idea – I'll definitely be keeping a radar out for these at thrift stores in future…
I love towel animals! Wouldn't it be fun to have one made for you on a regular basis?! I'm definitely putting that on my wish list!