Friday, April 22, 2011

Cruisin' for a bruisin'

I have friends who cruise—you know, take trips on boats whose point is essentially to have the appearance of travel with the substance of remaining stationary. Kind of. & they periodically urge me to join them on one of the trips.

The experience has never appealed to me for a couple of reasons. One: I am not what is known as a good sailor. I got queasy on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. I don’t see the positive aspect of paying out a couple of grand to spend seven days tossing my cookies. If I wanted an internal cleanse, I’d go to an ashram.

But almost as important is the overwhelming fakery of the modern-day cruise industry. A floating casino with hot-&-cold running activities to keep you revved up for the never-ending food spreads. It’s all manufactured, to my mind.

Occasionally they pull into a port—Ketchikan, St Martin, Acapulco, Kristiansand, whatever—so you & 679 of your closest shipmates can swarm over the souvenir shops for six hours before you have to be back on board to heave off for the next leg. This is not my idea of a good time no matter how I look at it. I don’t like being cooped in, herded around or being ordered to be festive.

Then there are the cabins—which, from watching reruns of “The Love Boat” you might anticipate would be analogous to a Marriott room. Well, maybe the Marriott’s room’s bathroom.

Plus the health hazards. Seriously—cruise ships are floating plague infestations. They concentrate more germs than a kindergarten convention. Flu, norovirus, Legionnaire’s Disease. When you coop hundreds of people up for days, & a couple of people get sick, it’s going to spread.

But here’s a new twist on the whole cruisin’ for fun scheme: a woman on board a Scandinavian cruise fell ill & while being transferred to a rescue boat at sea was dropped into the ocean. 

I suppose These Things Happen. But only if you’re daft enough to get on the ship in the first place.

No, you’re not going to get me onto a Fun Ship any time soon.



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