by Pa Rock
Land Lubber
My first cruise was a jaunt across the Caribbean that sailed out of Puerto Rico and hit nine islands in ten days - or something like that. It was in the early months of 1997 and I had just gotten married. My bride and I sailed with a group of bicyclists and literally bicycled our way across the Caribbean. When the ship landed each morning we set out, as a group, to enjoy a leisurely (and sometimes not-so-leisurely) peddle across the island. A lady from the bicycle shop in San Juan where we rented our bikes followed along and made sure our rides stayed in good repair.
The cruise lasted almost as long as the marriage - and was much more relaxing.
Then in very early 2007 I took an "educational" cruise with what National Association of Social Workers and Ms Magazine, to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, which provided me with a great sailing experience and the opportunity to earn social work CEUs. I even met a few celebrities on that voyage including the feminist activist Eleanor Smeal and actress Tyne Daly.
A year or so later I took another educational cruise, one with political overtones sponsored by The Nation magazine. It was on that cruise that I met Howard Dean and managed to have a brief conversation with novelist E.L.Doctorow as I took over his spot at a computer in the ship's computer center.
And finally, in early 2009, I took my oldest son and grandson on a cruise across the Caribbean to Nassau in the Bahamas. It was there that Boone discovered the Hard Rock Cafe and probably his love of guitars.
In 2010 I moved - for work - to Okinawa, Japan, on a two-year assignment. While there I began doing some dabbling in the stock market, and I always looked to invest in companies with which I had personal and successful experience. I bought Walgreen's which was busy putting up new stores all over Phoenix, the place that I had moved from - and Wendy's - for essentially the same reason. The market was on a steady rise during the Obama years - when the recession was ending - and everything I touched seemed to be golden.
Until that fateful day when I decided to invest some money in a major cruise ship line. I had been on some nice cruises, and they appeared to be the easiest way for the true middle class to enjoy a luxury vacation. And things were fine for a couple of years until the Carnival Cruise Ship "Triumph" caught fire off of the coast of Mexico in early 2013 and "listed" across the Caribbean for five days as it desperately tried to reach its homeport in Alabama - with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 passengers and crew aboard.
Social media allowed passengers aboard the "Triumph" to post their horror stories in real time, and the world listened in rapt disgust to tales of backed-up toilets, cabins without lights, floors covered with vomit, and a hundred other things not normally associated with "luxury" vacations.
And stock prices fell.
And there were other cruise ship horror stories - and stock prices fell some more.
Understanding how the market worked, I held on the cruise ship stock until the price got back up close to what I had paid for it - and then I bailed and never looked back. And I also didn't go any more cruises - well, for a few years years - because I had begun to see them as being self-contained fire and health hazards.
Yesterday I believe that I referred to cruise ships as "petri dishes," or places where bacteria cultures could grow and flourish.
My next - and last cruise - was in the summer of 2015 when I went on an "Alaskan" cruise with my sister. During that voyage I was shocked at how every aspect of the once luxurious cruise experience had slipped. The food wasn't the caliber of that served on my previous voyages, and the portions were smaller, the entertainment was far below the level that it once had been, and the staff, particularly the office staff, was churlish and seemed to be deliberately unhelpful.
I have not been on a cruise ship since.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday, there is a cruise ship, the "Diamond Princess,"is parked in Yokohama Harbor, Japan, and passengers are not being allowed to disembark because the coronavirus is present among passengers and appears to still be spreading. I heard on the radio this morning that another cruise ship, a Holland America ship called the "Westerdam" is apparently trapped at sea due to fears of the deadly virus.
(Princess Cruises and Holland America are both owned and operated by Carnival Cruise Lines.)
The "Westerdam" left Hong Kong on February 1st for a fourteen-day cruise to Taiwan and Japan, and although it reportedly has no known cases of the coronavirus, it has so far been denied the right to dock in five ports: Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, and now Thailand. World Health Organization doctors are trying to get to the ship to screen passengers for the dangerous virus. Apparently national governments are beginning to also see cruise ships as exceptional breeding grounds for deadly viruses.
The moral of all of these cruising notes is this: If it's an adventure that you are searching for, a cruise might just fit the bill, but if it's quiet luxury you're after, send the kids to camp and buy some bubble bath! And if you do decide to take a cruise, pack well because it may be a while before you are able to leave the ship!
Land Lubber
My first cruise was a jaunt across the Caribbean that sailed out of Puerto Rico and hit nine islands in ten days - or something like that. It was in the early months of 1997 and I had just gotten married. My bride and I sailed with a group of bicyclists and literally bicycled our way across the Caribbean. When the ship landed each morning we set out, as a group, to enjoy a leisurely (and sometimes not-so-leisurely) peddle across the island. A lady from the bicycle shop in San Juan where we rented our bikes followed along and made sure our rides stayed in good repair.
The cruise lasted almost as long as the marriage - and was much more relaxing.
Then in very early 2007 I took an "educational" cruise with what National Association of Social Workers and Ms Magazine, to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, which provided me with a great sailing experience and the opportunity to earn social work CEUs. I even met a few celebrities on that voyage including the feminist activist Eleanor Smeal and actress Tyne Daly.
A year or so later I took another educational cruise, one with political overtones sponsored by The Nation magazine. It was on that cruise that I met Howard Dean and managed to have a brief conversation with novelist E.L.Doctorow as I took over his spot at a computer in the ship's computer center.
And finally, in early 2009, I took my oldest son and grandson on a cruise across the Caribbean to Nassau in the Bahamas. It was there that Boone discovered the Hard Rock Cafe and probably his love of guitars.
In 2010 I moved - for work - to Okinawa, Japan, on a two-year assignment. While there I began doing some dabbling in the stock market, and I always looked to invest in companies with which I had personal and successful experience. I bought Walgreen's which was busy putting up new stores all over Phoenix, the place that I had moved from - and Wendy's - for essentially the same reason. The market was on a steady rise during the Obama years - when the recession was ending - and everything I touched seemed to be golden.
Until that fateful day when I decided to invest some money in a major cruise ship line. I had been on some nice cruises, and they appeared to be the easiest way for the true middle class to enjoy a luxury vacation. And things were fine for a couple of years until the Carnival Cruise Ship "Triumph" caught fire off of the coast of Mexico in early 2013 and "listed" across the Caribbean for five days as it desperately tried to reach its homeport in Alabama - with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 passengers and crew aboard.
Social media allowed passengers aboard the "Triumph" to post their horror stories in real time, and the world listened in rapt disgust to tales of backed-up toilets, cabins without lights, floors covered with vomit, and a hundred other things not normally associated with "luxury" vacations.
And stock prices fell.
And there were other cruise ship horror stories - and stock prices fell some more.
Understanding how the market worked, I held on the cruise ship stock until the price got back up close to what I had paid for it - and then I bailed and never looked back. And I also didn't go any more cruises - well, for a few years years - because I had begun to see them as being self-contained fire and health hazards.
Yesterday I believe that I referred to cruise ships as "petri dishes," or places where bacteria cultures could grow and flourish.
My next - and last cruise - was in the summer of 2015 when I went on an "Alaskan" cruise with my sister. During that voyage I was shocked at how every aspect of the once luxurious cruise experience had slipped. The food wasn't the caliber of that served on my previous voyages, and the portions were smaller, the entertainment was far below the level that it once had been, and the staff, particularly the office staff, was churlish and seemed to be deliberately unhelpful.
I have not been on a cruise ship since.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday, there is a cruise ship, the "Diamond Princess,"is parked in Yokohama Harbor, Japan, and passengers are not being allowed to disembark because the coronavirus is present among passengers and appears to still be spreading. I heard on the radio this morning that another cruise ship, a Holland America ship called the "Westerdam" is apparently trapped at sea due to fears of the deadly virus.
(Princess Cruises and Holland America are both owned and operated by Carnival Cruise Lines.)
The "Westerdam" left Hong Kong on February 1st for a fourteen-day cruise to Taiwan and Japan, and although it reportedly has no known cases of the coronavirus, it has so far been denied the right to dock in five ports: Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, and now Thailand. World Health Organization doctors are trying to get to the ship to screen passengers for the dangerous virus. Apparently national governments are beginning to also see cruise ships as exceptional breeding grounds for deadly viruses.
The moral of all of these cruising notes is this: If it's an adventure that you are searching for, a cruise might just fit the bill, but if it's quiet luxury you're after, send the kids to camp and buy some bubble bath! And if you do decide to take a cruise, pack well because it may be a while before you are able to leave the ship!
"And they never returned, no they never returned - and their fate is still unlearned. They may ride forever on the wild Pacific, they're the cruise that never returned!"
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