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We booked the balcony cabin on Deck 9 for my sister's 60th. Seven nights, a big ship, the kind of trip you save two years for. Our steward was lovely. Refilled the ice bucket without being asked, remembered we liked extra towels, called us by name by day two. That's the job. That's the whole reason it works: you're supposed to trust the person with the key. I didn't think about that key again until I read about a case that's been working through the courts involving a different ship, a different steward, and a camera taped under a bathroom sink. Cruise Law News and CBS Miami both covered it: a cabin attendant on the Symphony of the Seas was sentenced to 30 years after investigators say he used his own key card to plant hidden cameras in guest bathrooms, recording to a memory card, no signal, nothing for anyone to catch by accident. Here's the detail that stuck with me. One attendant can service close to 20 staterooms on a single sailing. Twenty bathrooms. Twenty sinks. One card that opens every one of them, because someone has to make the beds and stock the towels while you're at dinner. That's not a reason to distrust every steward on every ship. Almost all of them are exactly who they seem to be. It's a reason to stop assuming a locked cabin door means a private cabin. I'd always done the same walkthrough at check-in. Look at the smoke detector. Check behind the mirror. Feel a little silly, then unpack. I know now that a camera small enough to hide under a sink pedestal was never going to fail my eyeball test. It isn't designed to. So before this next cruise, I ordered a small handheld sweep, pen-sized, the kind you run around a room before you settle in. You sweep it near the sink, the nightstand, the closet, and it lights up and sounds if it picks up a transmitting device. Takes about the same time as unpacking a carry-on. I ordered one for me, one for my sister, and one for my daughter, who's taking her first solo trip this year and will be checking into cabins and hotel rooms with nobody else there to double check anything. I'm not telling you this to ruin cruises. We had a wonderful week. I'm telling you because the sink was three feet from where I brushed my teeth every night, and I never once thought to check it, because the door was locked and the steward was kind. Sixty seconds with a sweep is what tells you the difference between a locked door and a private one. Do it before you unpack, for yourself and for whoever you're traveling with.