Cruises Are Awesome
July 8, 2018 1:43 AM   Subscribe

Cruises Are So Uncool They Are Cool: Everything about the weeklong Caribbean cruise is meant to buff life’s unpleasant edges into sea glass. If it sounds like I am making fun, I am not. I love it. Michael Ian Black for the NYT.
posted by ellieBOA (158 comments total) 37 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have always wanted to go on a cruise, as I have never heard they are supposed to be uncool. I mean... it's a huge boat! On the ocean! It takes you places! How's that not cool?

After reading the article, I want to go on a cruise EVEN MORE.
posted by Vesihiisi at 3:19 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Most of what I know about cruises comes from reading threads on a saxophone forum. Apparently they are still a solid gig in that you are paid reasonably for just showing up and playing, and attract the young graduate or veterans on hard times particularly because you don't have to pay for accommodation.
posted by solarion at 3:41 AM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


Michael Ian Black has also been a performer on at least one "JoCo Cruise", which started out as a small music fan cruise charter group for fans of Jonathan Coulton and has since grown into a whole-ship-charter thing that is culturally unlike any other cruise I'd been on.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:51 AM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


Most of what I know about cruises comes from reading threads on a saxophone forum.

Interesting coincidence, as my most recent exposure to cruise life was hearing the stories of one of my teachers, who just came off a gig as a cruise ship saxophonist.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:18 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


There is an Alaskan cruise that drops you off onto a train that travels inland. That sounds cool to me. But no mention of all the ship-wide poisonings?
posted by Brocktoon at 4:42 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


The reason he hadn’t yet participated in America’s most popular vacation choice? “It hadn’t seemed like my bag.” Your “bag?” My dude, it’s a Disney cruise, not Burning Man.

Oh this is a charming read. I love Michael Ian Black's standup, but I hadn't read his writing before. This is great. He's a wonderful writer. It almost made me want to ignore the norovirus paranoia and go on a cruise....
posted by biscotti at 4:43 AM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


I don't know if I can overcome my claustrophobia and sense of unease about being adrift on the vastness of the ocean to actually go on a cruise, but I really enjoyed the article. Michael Ian Black has such a great sense of empathy, and he really is a great writer.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 4:50 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I applaud Ian Black for writing a non-snarky article about the people who go on cruises (and Peter Arkle for that illustration). I'm not so sure about this option of choosing to ignore the environmental impact, however. A lot of the differences in environmental performance between different cruise lines and ships is hidden from passengers in precisely the way that a good journalist should be revealing. Also, many of the variables (sewage treatment, air pollution reduction) offer quite substantial potential for improvement with a little bit of a push. By way of a contrasting view consider this account of a resident of Marseilles who fears being killed by the pollution from the cruise ships that dock near his home - becoming one of 50,000 Europeans who are estimated to die annually from shipping pollution (which, unlike land-based pollution has been rising recently).
posted by rongorongo at 4:50 AM on July 8, 2018 [26 favorites]


Everything research-based I've ever read supports the view that one's chance of getting norovirus on a cruise ship is not that much worse than in a similarly sized resort complex, or just going about your daily life. There does seem to be some elevation of risk, but we take part in all kinds of other activities with similar or worse elevations of risk without feeling the need to comment on it every time the topic comes up.

It's because of all the shitting it makes people do, isn't it?
posted by howfar at 4:54 AM on July 8, 2018 [9 favorites]


You know what makes cruises awesome?

A kindle.
posted by ocschwar at 5:13 AM on July 8, 2018 [18 favorites]


Just run your own private emergency drill the first day: At lunch drink your personal maximum alcohol, return to your cabin, have your partner blindfold you (remember worst case it'll be dark), have him spin you around a few times, then still blindfolded find the liferafts.
posted by sammyo at 5:16 AM on July 8, 2018 [33 favorites]


Nobody kinkshame sammyo!
posted by howfar at 5:21 AM on July 8, 2018 [31 favorites]


Kinkshame, hell, I want to sign up for that
posted by delfin at 5:28 AM on July 8, 2018 [15 favorites]


This was just...nice. I still remain unconvinced that cruises are a thing I will love, but it was delightful reading. It was...wholesome. And happy. My Sunday morning with coffee and a sleeping cat has been completed perfectly.

And much like Michael Ian Black, I too mostly consistently want a cheeseburger.
posted by kalimac at 5:47 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have always wanted to go on a cruise, as I have never heard they are supposed to be uncool. I mean... it's a huge boat! On the ocean! It takes you places! How's that not cool?

To update Dr. Johnson, they strike many as being in Branson, Missouri, with a chance of being drowned.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:54 AM on July 8, 2018 [54 favorites]


This is a great article, kinda reminds me of Ian Frazier's celebrations of the ordinary through simple and empathic observation, except in this case I can read it in a Michael Ian Black voice which makes it ten times funnier.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 6:05 AM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


If I could sneak aboard some weed I'd probably enjoy myself just fine on a cruise. But I've heard cruise lines are pretty strict about cannabis use.
posted by zardoz at 6:06 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


gotta protect those binge-drinking bar tabs
posted by thelonius at 6:10 AM on July 8, 2018


Every time someone brings up cruises I have to mention Jane McDonald's fabulously fun Channel 5 show appropriately called Cruising With Jane McDonald.
posted by mdonley at 6:13 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I went on a Caribbean cruise a couple years ago. I doubt I will do another one, though my partner and I have discussed the possibility of an Alaskan cruise someday. I didn't hate it all in all, but my feelings are definitely mixed.

FTA: Did I mention ports of call? I did not. The destinations along the way are not the point. At least, not for me. But if you must know, we stopped in St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Bermuda. I barely got off the boat.

If I WERE to go again, I would take this approach for sure. Visiting the ports of call seems like a chance to explore new places. It isn't. It's a chance to have everyone on and near the boat try to cram a million pre-packaged experiences into your four to eight hours, and while it can be hella fun, you are not experiencing anything real about the places you are visiting, you are experiencing a Disney-fied* version that is experienced literally only by the people who come there on cruises. You won't learn anything real about the lives of folks in the Dominican Republic. You won't get any insight into the history of San José.

And more deeply, going on those "excursions" breaks the flow of what was to me the hands-down best part of cruising - having a million things to do, and having precisely zero obligation to do any of them. Don't get me wrong, in addition to zipping around to tourist traps at the ports, we did a bunch of things on the boat too - saw some stand-up, played trivia, attended a concert, tried as many different restaurants and bars as we could find. All entirely enjoyable, all entirely forgettable. By far my favorite memories of that trip are sipping drinks on the balcony watching an unmoving blue horizon, having nowhere particular to be and being in no particular hurry to get there.

*It wasn't a Disney cruise, I mean this in a more generic sense.
posted by solotoro at 6:13 AM on July 8, 2018 [16 favorites]


If I could sneak aboard some weed I'd probably enjoy myself just fine on a cruise. But I've heard cruise lines are pretty strict about cannabis use.

I mean, you could probably bring some weed-infused gummi bears on board or something, but based on my few experiences with edibles, you would be stoned without relief for approximately one thousand years, so maybe not.
posted by duffell at 6:17 AM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


What makes me extremely uncomfortable about cruises is that, unlike the writer's mild observation, the majority of the guests are white and the majority of the non-glamorous work is done by POC (waiters, servers, cleaning). At one point he describes it as "suburbia," and that term is quite apt. He is absolutely allowed to write a lovefest about a cruise, and my parents certainly love them, but it's definitely not my bag.
posted by honey badger at 6:17 AM on July 8, 2018 [29 favorites]


Are they strict about drugs? Cuz several years ago my boss called me from the bar of his Caribbean cruise. He was drinking sizzurp.
posted by Brocktoon at 6:18 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


"Unlike David Foster Wallace, I reject irony and appreciate simple sincerity" is ... a weird take.

I have been one one cruise, about 15 years ago, and did indeed get norovirus, but overall I enjoyed it and would classify it as a reasonably fun thing I will probably someday do again.
posted by escabeche at 6:26 AM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


I went on a writing-retreat cruise a couple years ago, and enjoyed it for almost exactly the reasons this essay describes. (My wife, who does not deal well with crowds, did not.) I'm probably going to go again, one of these years. (And I might do the JoCo cruise, just because it sounds a little more fun than the standard half-retiree demographic of the usual cruise ship.)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:30 AM on July 8, 2018


being in Branson, Missouri, with a chance of being drowned.

The opportunity of being drowned.
posted by pracowity at 6:41 AM on July 8, 2018 [40 favorites]


Just run your own private emergency drill the first day: At lunch drink your personal maximum alcohol, return to your cabin, have your partner blindfold you (remember worst case it'll be dark), have him spin you around a few times, then still blindfolded find the liferafts.

What if instead of trying to find the liferaft I just lay down on my bed and wait for the inevitablity of death? That seems like a more likely scenario.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:48 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


Metafilter: It's because of all the shitting it makes people do, isn't it?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:50 AM on July 8, 2018 [11 favorites]


I will gladly go on a cruise as long as someone else pays for it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:54 AM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


> "Unlike David Foster Wallace, I reject irony and appreciate simple sincerity" is ... a weird take.

I wonder if it's somehow a reference to the article for Harpers that Wallace wrote about his experience on a cruise ship (which is probably my favorite piece of writing of his).
posted by Old Kentucky Shark at 6:55 AM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


At one point he describes it as "suburbia," and that term is quite apt.

The question I ask myself is: would I want to be trapped on a boat with these people? In every case so far, the answer has been "no".

I'm open to the suggestion that there might be a special-interest cruise of some kind that might fit me. Would I want to be on a boat with 5000 other versions of me? That also might be problematic.
posted by gimonca at 6:57 AM on July 8, 2018 [13 favorites]


If I could sneak aboard some weed I'd probably enjoy myself just fine on a cruise. But I've heard cruise lines are pretty strict about cannabis use.

I've also definitely heard to stay away from people who offer to sell you pot on Caribbean islands; a lot of them work for the police.
posted by thelonius at 6:57 AM on July 8, 2018


isiting the ports of call seems like a chance to explore new places. It isn't. It's a chance to have everyone on and near the boat try to cram a million pre-packaged experiences into your four to eight hours, and while it can be hella fun, you are not experiencing anything real about the places you are visiting, you are experiencing a Disney-fied* version that is experienced literally only by the people who come there on cruises.

One way to avoid this is to book excursions directly through the tour company instead of through the cruise. My SO and I did this in Mexico and got a very educational, thorough tour with one other couple, for the same price had we been crammed in a shuttle with dozens of other people.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:11 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


This is a very timely article/discussion because I was just thinking about cruises the other day. I have an extremely high-energy five-year-old (who is also extremely five years old) and I was thinking, "What is the most low-parental-input vacation we could possibly take that would satisfy all members of the family?" And for the very first time in my life I thought, "Maybe we should think about a cruise?"

Cruise-goers advise, pls.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 7:23 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


A lot of us need care. Not just the many wobbly older passengers, but the younger ones, too. The harried parents, the cop from North Carolina, the New Jersey couple explaining to some first-timers why they cruise: “You’re forced to do nothin’.”

QFT
posted by Gorgik at 7:24 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've been on two, the first to the Caribbean which was only okay; I really enjoyed visiting the islands (I always did the cultural tour on offer), but the focus of the cruise was very much alcohol-and-sunshine, and lots of very drunk young people, which isn't really my sort of vacation. (And of course I had that uneasy feeling you have as a First World tourist visiting much poorer places where it feels kinda exploitative but otoh the people in the ports who cater to cruises are making really good money by local standards and anyway you end up having appropriately mixed feelings about it.)

The second was to Alaska and I enjoyed the SHIT out of it. It was mostly families (I was with my large extended family too), and people were mostly there to see Alaska, not get super-drunk in the sunshine. Every day we'd all have breakfast together and then break into a bunch of groups based on who was doing what outings that day -- there were history and culture tours, shopping tours, nature tours, sport tours -- and then all come back together and dinner and then maybe dork around the ship a little (see a movie, watch a show, play 25-cent blackjack). And then you go to sleep and wake up in a new place! It's glorious to visit half a dozen towns/parks without having to move your luggage or mess around with transit!

My parents have been doing small-boat river cruises; the boats carry between 10 and 50 people, and they mosey down the (usually European) river, hitting cities and towns along the river. Again all the benefits of your hotel being the thing that moves so you don't have to fuss with luggage or worry about transit, and they like the small-boat size. On the very small ones you get to know everyone, and even on the big small ones, your boat doesn't arrive in town and take over the entire city like a big ocean cruise ship does.

I wouldn't want to go on them ALL the time (obviously, since I've done 2 in the past 20 years), but I can definitely think of places I'd like to see where a cruise would be a nice way of doing it. (And the river cruises my parents do sound great!) We've also been considering a Disney cruise with the kids; they cater really well to children with special needs, something that can make family vacations tricky for us. (I haven't gotten over being nervous about the kids falling off the boat, though.) On our family Alaska cruise (long before I had kids), one of my cousins has some disabilities, and they were absolutely brilliant about arranging and providing for his needs, right down to when we went on excursions and the food was going to be something he couldn't eat, the ship would pack him a brown-bag lunch according to his fairly restrictive specifications, so that he could go on the excursions with everyone else. They were ON IT with extensive information and support about all the excursions and were able to make it possible to accommodate him on almost every excursion available. So that's definitely another big upside to cruises, if you or a cruising partners have any disabilities or special needs.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:25 AM on July 8, 2018 [33 favorites]


lollymccatburlar, that would be a great Ask Metafilter question.

I've been on one cruise, for three days, and that was enough for me. It was fine back when I smoked, drank, and ate and was happy spending all of my time doing those things. Now? Not so much.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:27 AM on July 8, 2018


I yearn to do one of the barefoot cruises on a sailing ship in the Caribbean, but the wife, not so much. The idea of being stuck on a sideways sky scraper for a week has never appealed to me, though. I can have plenty of mediocre, moderated, ordinary experiences right here at home.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:28 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


Also, anyone who is thinking of going on a cruise should read the forums on Cruise Critic. More info on cruising than you can possibly want or need.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:31 AM on July 8, 2018 [10 favorites]


But where Wallace felt infantilized, I feel gratitude.

Behold: the generational divide.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:36 AM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


What makes me extremely uncomfortable about cruises is that, unlike the writer's mild observation, the majority of the guests are white and the majority of the non-glamorous work is done by POC (waiters, servers, cleaning).
I'm Filipino and my parents have gotten into cruises as A Thing over the last couple of decades, largely for some of the reasons that Eyebrows McGee describes (you can see a bunch of places and do a bunch of things without having to be stressed out about logistics).

Still, I remember one year, they were taking a Maritimes/New England small boat cruise from Montreal to New York, and stopped to visit me in Boston. So I came out to meet them and they took me on a tour of the boat, which included stopping by the kitchen and introducing me to all of the Filipino kitchen staff, because my mom, of course, had befriended them all. So one of them asked me, "have you had breakfast?"

"Oh, thank you, but, yes I've had breakfast."

"Well, would you like a second breakfast? We're frying ourselves up a nice piece of daing."

And, man, I never realized how much I miss a good filet of vinegar-y, garlick-y whitefish for breakfast until that offer was made, and so my parents and I spent fifteen minutes in the kitchen, joining the crew at picking some fish with our hands. It was great.

It's not my thing because I like to spend more of my travel time soaking in neighborhoods and locales, and the limited hours for shore excursions just feel constraining and limited to me. But I get why people like it, and wouldn't poo-poo it as a way to travel. But, honestly, I don't feel super terrible about Filipinos emerging as one of the predominant populations of cruise ship employees. We've had a long history of serving in merchant marine, and it's been a path to a good life for many folks in my generation. It might feel nicer when more of us start participating in cruises as leisure, but that may also be an area where the thing you do for work means you're less keen to do it for leisure.
posted by bl1nk at 7:40 AM on July 8, 2018 [82 favorites]


The question I ask myself is: would I want to be trapped on a boat with these people? In every case so far, the answer has been "no".

my last cruise, thirty plus years ago now, had a vibe like this. I distinctly remember having a sinking feeling the instant the boat left the dock along the lines of, "holy shit, I am now stuck with these people ... for the next three hours." Fortunately, it was only a party cruise, up an inlet, stop for a while, back down the inlet. Unfortunately, I'd dropped acid. I survived. But it was a prolonged and epic ordeal of containing one's higher self that kept wanting to jump ship and just go, go, go, away from all of these ... hydras, chimeras, charbydises, gorgons, ipotanes, manticores and other weird beasts out of antiquity. By the time we'd hit the dock again, they were all just people again, and say what you will of stupid drug-taking choices, I don't remember anything else I did that day in 1983, or week, the whole damned month probably. So here's to cruises!
posted by philip-random at 7:44 AM on July 8, 2018 [18 favorites]


I’ve been on 4 cruises because my parents are cruise addicts and go on 2-3 a year including sometimes month-long ones. I would do one to see the fjords or go from Helsinki to Russia without a visa but otherwise I hope never to have to again.

My mother loves them I think because she suffers from NPD and a cruise is basically built for that. She is supplied with deferential, cheerful staff dedicated to her ease, new friends for the length of the cruise, activities, a feeling of world travel without ever having to experience another culture with any discomfort, confusion, or uncomfortable realities, and of course, food and drink.

What I experienced on our latest cruise (Alaska) was watching adults shove my 7 year old out of the way to get to a pasta bar, and a lot of attempts to sell me shit, and I actually hate feeling for lack of a better phrase coddled, so I had to kind of zone out on some of the actual cruise rituals. (Also related to being with my family of origin.) but it was indeed really nice to have an environment where my kids and I could all hang out and have everything taken care of...no search for food at that awkward time or worry about parasites in the pool. The glaciers were spectacular.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:49 AM on July 8, 2018 [5 favorites]


I will write the definitive "cruises are great and here's why" piece for the Times if you will send me.

Yeah, if I got the whole thing for free and were paid to write about it, I'm sure I'd be a lot more "Hey, you hipsters, unclench! Cruises are great! And so are these free cheeseburgers!" than I would be if I had to burn up my own vacation days and savings on such a thing.
posted by pracowity at 7:53 AM on July 8, 2018 [5 favorites]


I've never been on a cruise, and I think I would end up being pretty claustrophobic. (I mean that literally. I have issues with airplanes, because you can't get off. A week trapped on a ship is a guaranteed weeklong anxiety attack, I think.) But I did go to a Disney resort with my parents, my brother, my brother's wife, and their three little kids. And that was pretty great. The thing about family vacations is that they require a ton of planning and coordinating, and that work almost always falls to my mom and my sister-in-law. They spend all their time finding out what various people want to do, figuring out how everyone is going to get where they want to go, making sure that everyone has stuff to do, balancing everyone's competing needs, etc. And at the resort, there was a ton less of that to do. You can walk everywhere, so you don't need to coordinate transportation. There's a menu of activities, and everyone chooses the ones they want. Food is really easy. It's all really easy. And I think that easiness is probably particularly noticeable and appealing to the people who get stuck with the hard stuff when you're traveling on your own, which is to say, typically, women in general and mothers in particular.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:11 AM on July 8, 2018 [18 favorites]


Maybe it's okay to like things, even without a protective veneer of irony.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:12 AM on July 8, 2018 [59 favorites]


This is awesome, thank you for the post! Michael Ian Black is just the bestest. His gentle and hilarious anti-class-snobbery messaging is always on point.

I love cruises for precisely the reasons some others hate them -- they're full of old people, or salt of the earth middle Americans, or unapologetic-body-having fat people, or loud, drunk and obnoxiously entertaining college kids. It's just humanity up close and in your face. And I tend to love that. I swear, it's daaaamn fine fun for the money as a way to let your guard down, relax, dance and laugh hysterically with random strangers whilst downing shots of tequila and regretting that third cone of ice cream.

I recommend everyone go on a cruise, at least once. You might just love the USS Branson, Missouri.
posted by bologna on wry at 8:14 AM on July 8, 2018 [15 favorites]


I really want to leave my apartment, go on a ship, and have it take me to another place, another actual country. I researched transatlantic cruises, and you can still do these, but they're a lot rarer and more trouble than I would have thought. It looks like a more realistic option for me is taking a cruise to Bermuda, which is not in a ghoulishly exploited situation as far as tourism goes, and would give me some time to stare at the open water, which is my favorite thing in life.

I was very interested in the JoCo Cruise, and I still am, but I would need a traveling partner. It seems like an enormous watergoing con, which is ... potentially a lot, especially if you found a roommate sight unseen on the internet. Plus it books up very fast.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:14 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I retract my "generational divide" comment seeing as MIB is a GenXer just like DFW. It is clear, though, that his enjoynent of cruises is influenced heavily by his early experiences of being a VIP with all costs covered and a cohort of other VIPs with whom to mingle. Of course he loves cruises - they make (or made) him feel important and innoculated him against the less savory aspects. It is also suspect that he is literally championing banality.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:17 AM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fuck, even if it were free, you’d have to look past the third world slave labor, the horrific environmental destruction, and avoid norovirus. And that’s assuming you like really mediocre food. And also assuming you’re not going on one because it was the one vacation all the in-laws could agree on even though you were right here the whole time saying you didn’t agree to this.

Even here in the US, cruise ships were dumping the raw sewage from a week of over fed Americans into Puget Sound where my kids swim *after* they were ordered not to do that.

My parents are also cruise addicts and continued to plan family vacations on them while we kept politely indicating no, we’d prefer something else, just not our thing, and finally after reluctantly going on three cruises so we could spend a little time with the grandparents, when the fourth invite came, and a polite no wasn’t accepted, i was forced to give them the litany of reasons why I find cruises personally revolting. No one in the family talked to us for 6 months. They still go on cruises all the time, but at least they don’t bother to ask us and some years the kids don’t see their grandparents because they rather be served frozen margaritas and bad nachos by Filipino kids making 50 cents a day. Yes, they voted Trump why do you ask?

Yeah, I suppose cruises might be kitschy ironic fun to some but I can’t suspend my knowledge of the ugliness of it all to enjoy it. There are lots of ways to have kitcschy ironic fun that don’t involve insulating yourself from the very real economic and environmental costs of your kinda dumb and boring choice of fun.

Sorry, I’m an uptight hipster I guess.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:18 AM on July 8, 2018 [67 favorites]


Day 1. I am filled with a sense of anticipation mixed with mild screaming terror at the thought of spending a fortnight on this inaugural Metafilter cruise. I am sure that the politeness and camaraderie of the Blue will make the trip less daunting than I fear.

Day 2. My sleep was disturbed. Odd noises from the next cabin as though someone was being spun around and around and around. The sounds of breaking furniture and cries of anguish eventually died down and I was able to seize a few hours of welcome respite.

...

Day 11. They have eaten the ship’s Burser

...

Day 14. Tekeli-li, tekeli-li!
posted by fallingbadgers at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2018 [42 favorites]


Sorry, I can't tell if you're exaggerating for effect, Slarty Bartfast, but are there honestly minors being paid 50 cents a day on your parents' cruises?
posted by ODiV at 8:24 AM on July 8, 2018


Anyone younger than 30 is “a kid” since I became an old. I hope they are 18 at least. Carnival’s published salary is 7.93 USD per hour. But when ships are registered in Liberia and Panama, who knows what kind of laws they have to follow and whether they actually do so?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:36 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


So are there any ethically run cruise companies out there? Especially Alaskan ones?
posted by cooker girl at 8:39 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


It is racist to assume that a person of color working a job gets paid slave wages without evidence of that.
posted by Barry David at 8:41 AM on July 8, 2018 [15 favorites]


It's because of all the shitting it makes people do, isn't it?

I had norovirus once.

For three days I either threw up or shit things I had eaten for the last three years. Sometimes at the same time. I was kneeling in front of the toilet vomiting, and shitting on my feet behind me at the same time. Sometimes I would switch it up and sit on the toilet to shit and vomit on myself. I'm a single parent too, so as this was happening I also had to clean and disinfect, as well as take care of my kid.

And the entire time my stomach cramped, I ran a fever, and my legs started cramping because I was becoming dehydrated.

The last day I just lay on the bathroom floor and prayed for death.

Then my son got it.

So yeah, it's all the shitting.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 8:44 AM on July 8, 2018 [34 favorites]


A friend of mine was sexually assualted on one of those cheap Caribbean boozy cruises. Like, we're talking about being pinned up against a wall at the start, and other stuff happening from there. And she told me that afterwards, while trying to make sense of what happened to her, she ended up comparing notes with other women who she saw the dude talking to on the cruise. Apparently, she wasn't the only one assaulted on that cruise by him. In addition, once she talked to the other women, it became very clear that this probably wasn't his first time using a cruise this way. He had his MO and patter and lies and misdirection down.

My friend reported him to the cruise line as soon as she got off the boat and was confident she was safe, but she has never gotten any follow up. So as far as she knows, he's still out there, using cruise ships as his own personal hunting ground.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:46 AM on July 8, 2018 [9 favorites]


Nice essay, but I am constitutionally unable to understand the appeal of a cruise ship. It's like a nice hotel with an ocean view, except the hotel can sink and also you can't leave.
posted by runcibleshaw at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2018 [15 favorites]


The hand-waving in this essay and in some of these comments about the awful wages and work conditions for workers on cruise ships is a little disturbing. It does not require a ton of effort to find stories about the crappy conditions on cruise ships. Here, I went and found one for you..
posted by protocoach at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2018 [13 favorites]


Day 11. They have eaten the ship’s Burser

Day 12. Emerged from my barricaded cabin to discover graffiti scrawled across the bulkhead. Written in different hands, in crayon and some unknown dark fluid:
IT’S SPELLED PURSER
DIE, PRESCRIPTIVIST, DIE
posted by zamboni at 8:49 AM on July 8, 2018 [20 favorites]


It is racist to assume that a person of color working a job gets paid slave wages without evidence of that.

It is not racist to draw that conclusion based on the many, many articles, books, and documentaries about exactly this topic as it pertains to the cruise ship industry.

As Slarty Bartfast mentioned, many cruise ships fly flags of convenience, meaning they are only obligated to abide by the maritime safety and labour laws of the country whose flag they fly. They don't choose countries with strong regulations regarding safety, working conditions, and wages.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:51 AM on July 8, 2018 [27 favorites]


Are they strict about drugs? Cuz several years ago my boss called me from the bar of his Caribbean cruise. He was drinking sizzurp.

I have a very good friend who spent a weekend in Jamaican jail because he was holding some weed for his mother in law when they were getting back on the ship and he is no longer allowed to in Jamaica.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:51 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm always mildly jealous when I read novels set in the age of empire, when the colonials would take the long voyage from England to India. In reality I am sure it was mostly hot tedium (paid for by the blood and sweat of the oppressed, of course), but week after week of watching the ocean and sipping gin and tonic sounds really nice to me.

I'm glad the author had a great time on his (paid-for) cruise, but no, definitely not my bag. The large cruise ships, like in the article, look like my idea of hell, but I could totally see us taking a smaller, more "boutique" (for lack of a better term) cruise at some point. In restaurant terms, I would want a cruise equivalent of my local brewpub (small, quirky, high quality), not a big chain restaurant (cheap, consistent, predictable).
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


My first, and most vivid experiencing of cruising was about the SS Uganda - a British ship that took kids , escorted by long suffering teachers, to learn about places by visiting them. Not a bad idea really. I note with shock that the experience is now old enough to be depicted with Pathé news reel background music. Conditions and food aboard were spartan. I remember being delighted that somebody had given us all paper bags to play with - you could draw a face on them, cut holes for eyes and put them on your head like a mask. It was a craze. The morning after a force 10 gale I remember finding a beautifully decorated bag and putting it - only to discover it had previously been... filled.

We also saw some temples and churches and stuff, apparently.
posted by rongorongo at 8:56 AM on July 8, 2018 [5 favorites]


That harper's article by DFW has always made me more interested in taking a cruise than ever before because it sounds extremely entertaining to be grumpy and jaded on a huge ship full of drunk people, idk. But my ideal oceangoing vessel is the hms victory.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:03 AM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


If I could sneak aboard some weed I'd probably enjoy myself just fine on a cruise.

I have heard rumors of flavored hash oil pen vapes that look and smell exactly like the nicotine kind. Likewise, I have heard rumors that one can often enjoy such pen vapes openly, in public, without anyone being the wiser. If said rumors are true, it is reasonable to think one could bring such conveyances with them on their hypothetical cruise ship vacations.
posted by panama joe at 9:05 AM on July 8, 2018 [11 favorites]


I took one cruise like this (Mexican Riviera, an optimistic name) and the author does a great job explaining what the cruise gestalt is like. I discovered it was not for me; I'm at a point in my life where I want my trips to be interesting and challenging, not a respite from my hectic daily life.

So I wanted to call out this bit from the article:
Did I mention ports of call? I did not. The destinations along the way are not the point.
What a shame! Why not mix your Rancho-Relaxo style vacation with a little bit of something interesting along the way. It's hard in North America, unfortunately. You'd think the Caribbean would offer the chance for some interesting tourism but everyone I know who's gone says the ports of call are just more bland tourist crap.

I'm going on a Rhine river cruise this fall and am curious to see how the experience compares. There's certainly the opportunity for something interesting at every port of call and the small boats seem like a good thing for me.
posted by Nelson at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2018


When I lived in Venice I was shocked by the size of the cruise ships that would come into the lagoon -- they were larger than the biggest churches in the city. Thousands of people would descend on the city for the day, spend money in pre-approved shops owned by non-Venetians selling cheap imported art, and basically contribute to the mess and crowds without putting any money into the local economy. My understanding is that the ships were extremely damaging to the lagoon and its ecosystem. A friend who grew up in Alaska said it was similar with cruise ships there. I understand that big foreign-owned resorts probably aren't a lot better for the local economy or environment, either, but at least they'd be more subject to local laws and regulations.

I don't know how that plays out with smaller boats, or in less environmentally fragile places.
posted by lazuli at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


I'd heard of the JoCo Cruise, but I'd thought that it was a much smaller deal--the kind that tends to share a megacruise with other themed excursions. 2019 is sold out already! It must be the equivalent of a floating Gen Con. I wouldn't mind going on a cruise, as long as there was the option of... (quick search) yep, there are a bunch of sober cruises.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:10 AM on July 8, 2018


Came here to post about the evils of the cruise industry, seems I was beaten to it.. Guess I'll just head to the beach and kick over little kids sandcastles instead. Thank goodness it's nice out.
posted by some loser at 9:10 AM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


I've only done one Caribbean cruise, and I wasn't very keen on it. I love cruising in Alaska. Instead of an unmoving blue horizon, you're going through an ever-changing panorama of mountains and glaciers and sometimes whales and it's the most beautiful place in the world. Yes, there are problematic aspects, but there are problematic aspects to every kind of tourism, not to mention everything else one does as a middle-class inhabitant of a first world country.
posted by Daily Alice at 9:15 AM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


I don't know how that plays out with smaller boats, or in less environmentally fragile places.

I lived in a cruise ship port for 10 years in the Med and mostly it meant everyone you know having a stomach virus every 2 weeks.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:16 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


Why are they not required to have their sewage tanks drained properly in port?
posted by pracowity at 9:19 AM on July 8, 2018


I mean... it's a huge boat! On the ocean! It takes you places! How's that not cool?

Oddly, judging from the commercials, it seems like they pack everything possible into the cruise to make you forget you're on a boat. On the ocean. Going places.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:24 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


In this case I think it was more from the local antediluvian sewage system in town not being able to handle the repeated influx of visitors on top of the 1 million non-cruise tourists per month. Whenever it rained heavily, the streets became alarmingly medieval and people literally wore platform shoes as modern-day pattens to tower above the rivers of shit.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:26 AM on July 8, 2018 [11 favorites]


>> If I could sneak aboard some weed I'd probably enjoy myself just fine on a cruise

> gotta protect those binge-drinking bar tabs

Charge $7.50 for a small bag of Doritos or Cheetos, and $10.00 for Twinkies. Problem solved.
posted by Frayed Knot at 9:28 AM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


So are there any ethically run cruise companies out there?

I haven't checked to see if the claims are valid, and it is a 2009 article, and there is no mention of how well crew are treated, but ...

7 Ocean-Friendly Eco Cruises Hitting the High Seas
posted by philip-random at 9:29 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Did I mention ports of call? I did not. The destinations along the way are not the point.

If you like destinations, let me second the idea of river cruises. They're a cross between a cruise and a standard European vacation, with the advantages of both. They typically sail at night, and stop for a day or two at a time to give you meaningful time to explore interesting places. Certainly the best way to see multiple cities in one trip: take your hotel with you. Think how many interesting cultural/historical sites you'd find along the banks of the Rhine, the Volga, or the Danube.

I've only tried it once, did get norovirus, worth it, +1 would poop again.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:29 AM on July 8, 2018 [12 favorites]


"I wouldn't mind going on a cruise, as long as there was the option of... (quick search) yep, there are a bunch of sober cruises."

Also, any (alcohol-providing) big-boat cruise from the major companies will have at least one and often several AA meetings a day -- "Friends of Bill W." is always on the list of events for the day.

(I asked my mom, "Who is this Bill W. guy and why do his friends have meetings every day?" I got edumucated!)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:30 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


It is racist to assume that a person of color working a job gets paid slave wages without evidence of that.

Sorry, yes that would be racist! I thought this evidence was widely known to anyone with an internet connection. Let me google that for you:

Sweatships (pdf)

Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers. It’s a good job. Until it isn’t.

For Cruise Ship Workers, Voyages are No Vacation.

And to round out my ranting:

Taking a close look at cruise ship pollution

The world's largest cruise ship and it's supersized pollution problem.

Cruise Ship Pollution

The number of cruise ships failing health and safety inspections hits 10-year high

Bottom line: Carnival is by far the worst abuser of workers' rights, by far the worst polluter, and by far the has the worst health and safety record. If you want kitschy ironic fun, at least don't do it on Carnival. Other cruise lines are pretty bad as well.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:33 AM on July 8, 2018 [57 favorites]


Incredibly dirty, though. A typical cruise ship produce a LOT of C02, not to mention tons of highly toxic particulate.

I live near a cruise ship terminal, and the harbour authority has worked hard to increase the number of cruise ships that come into port. Before we moved (to a new place in the same neighborhood) we used to have to sweep ash off our balcony at least once a week.

That's what cruise ships mean to me.
posted by JamesBay at 9:45 AM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


Thanks for the linked articles, Slarty.

The good news is that the workers are able to talk honestly about working 4 or 6 months in a row (no days off whatsoever, yes you read that correctly), with maybe an afternoon off here and there. One afternoon on our Alaska cruise was designated as "workers afternoon off" which was announced over the loudspeaker because it was not scheduled, and the WHOOP! of delight from all the workers in my immediate vicinity made me simultaneously happy and sad. That's when I started asking questions of the workers and became sadder and sadder when I heard the answers.

Because of course the workers are trained in being overtly joyful and extroverted at all times, for an Excellent Cruise Experience. And, deferential, to boot! My recall is that every guest is addressed as either Sir or Ma'am.

The most bizarre aspect to me was the taking of photos of your family/group you are traveling with at the formal dinner nights, and purchasing 8x10's at inflated prices. As if we all didn't have our own photos anyway that we took. I assume this is a throwback to trans-Atlantic crossings of old for the aristocracy when every person didn't own a phone camera. "Mildred, this is a photo when I crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary."

I will admit that it's an easy way to host a family reunion/big group vacation, but it's certainly not something I willingly choose to spend my hard-earned money on.
posted by honey badger at 10:01 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Thanks for the links, Slarty. I've enjoyed going on cruises in the past, and while there are some unique experiences and benefits they offer, particularly for families (as mentioned above), there's a real pollution problem.

Friends of the Earth have a Cruise Ship Report Card, last updated in Sept 2016, with ratings for each major cruise line and cruise ship. Disney comes out reasonably well, with all the other lines being pretty poor.
posted by adrianhon at 10:01 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


On the MeFi cannibal cruise, we might eat pursers and/or bursers, but at least we have cameras.
posted by biscotti at 10:18 AM on July 8, 2018 [5 favorites]


Interestingly while Celebrity as a whole seems to have a bad environmental rating there is this comment on the NYTimes article:

Matthew
Boca Raton, FloridaJuly 3
My only comment is on your environmental rating. While Celebrity as a whole might have a D+, the ship you were on holds the highest rating possible. The ship you were on runs on a form of Jet fuel known as MGO (Marine Gas Oil), not HMO (Heavy Marine Oil, or more commonly known as bunker fuel). The ship is as clean as an airplane and emits effectively no exhaust. This is because it operates using two jet engines -- the same model that are flown on a Boeing 747 if I'm not mistaken (although modified for electric generation, not direct propulsion). It's rare they run the supplementary diesel engines. In fact, the ship you were on is one of the few ships globally that happens to be permitted to sail to Antarctica as a result of how clean burning it is.

posted by peacheater at 10:31 AM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I wonder if it's somehow a reference to the article for Harpers that Wallace wrote about his experience on a cruise ship

It's an explicit reference to that article. Sorry, the point I was trying to make is that a rejection of irony and praise for simple sincerity was kind of David Foster Wallace's whole thing so it's weird to praise sincerity and then assert you're in opposition to DFW thereby.
posted by escabeche at 10:32 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


now I suddenly want to write cruise ship fanfic set in the Sunless Sea universe where passengers go on excursions to visit the undead colonists of Venderbight and gaze upon the threshold of the Avid Horizon in sublime terror, and passing time wagering their souls in games of dice against devils from the Brass Embassy or attending introductory meetings for Cults of the Dawn Machine. And in evenings they might dine on choice cuts of the best meats while the crew and passenger list grows steadily fewer, and they occasionally gossip about how fascinated they are by the ship's engine and how its fiery heart seems to call to each of them.
posted by bl1nk at 10:32 AM on July 8, 2018 [9 favorites]


I thought the role a Burser
Instead I should say Purser
My fault I would reverse, sir
But alas must sit and curse, ah
posted by fallingbadgers at 10:34 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


For three days I either threw up or shit things I had eaten for the last three years. Sometimes at the same time. I was kneeling in front of the toilet vomiting, and shitting on my feet behind me at the same time. Sometimes I would switch it up and sit on the toilet to shit and vomit on myself. I'm a single parent too, so as this was happening I also had to clean and disinfect, as well as take care of my kid.

Damn, dude, you ever hear of a bucket?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:37 AM on July 8, 2018 [12 favorites]


Damn, dude, you ever hear of a bucket?

Yeah, I was wondering that. I have sat on a toilet with a bucket in my hands. If there's no bucket, you sit on the toilet and puke on the floor or into a towel or something. You don't puke into the toilet and shit on the floor. But maybe the puking started first and then suddenly...
posted by pracowity at 10:43 AM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


My girlfriend took a cruise with her girlfriends. The upper sundeck of the boat was adults only and optionally topless, and there were nobody up there so they figured why not get some sun on their boobs. As soon as the bikini tops came off, it was like the ship made an announcement "ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS, THERE ARE NOW FOUR TOPLESS WOMEN ON THE UPPER SUN DECK!" Hordes of men showed up all at once just to, you know, check out the view from the top sun deck and badly pretend they weren't oogling the topless women.

Other story, when I was in Bermuda cruise ships would come in and fill the cute little town with tourists, at night they'd return to the ship and the crew would go to the bars for karaoke. I don't much care for karaoke, but I've never had more fun in a bar than hanging out with the ship's crew and watching them absolute kill it singing karaoke. So if there was a cruise that catered to cruise crews, I'd take a cruise on the cruise crew cruise.
posted by peeedro at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2018 [18 favorites]


The ship is as clean as an airplane and emits effectively no exhaust.

This is only true for the broadest, most permissive values of 'effectively'.

(First link from Google search of 'marine gas oil emissions' : [link], short version: only significantly reduces sulphur emissions versus heavy fuel oil, increases smallest particulates.)
posted by bumpkin at 11:18 AM on July 8, 2018


Stonkle: is that the one with the stowaway kid?
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:18 AM on July 8, 2018


This reminds me I had an older male friend who used to get free cruises. He was a guest, stayed in a small shared room, but he got free fare because he was a gigolo. Or the elderly version thereof, a single man whose job it was to flirt and dance with all the older single women guests every evening. He was absolutely charming, handsome, well dressed and a good dancer. I'm sure he was good companionship for the ladies. Also gay as a goose (his term), which is a positive qualification for the cruise ship company for their gigolos. It's fine to hire someone to flirt with your female guests but under no circumstances could the employee have actual sex with the ladies. So instead my friend just fucked around with all the other older gigolo gay guys once the ladies had all gone to bed.
posted by Nelson at 11:27 AM on July 8, 2018 [46 favorites]


There are all vegan European river cruises which I’m really interested in, much to my surprise.
posted by Kitteh at 11:47 AM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


There was no chance. There was normal every day life, then the rush for everything to exit at once. Have you ever had norovirus? You stomach cramps and your like, OK I'm going to vomit. Then you just explode like the elevators opening in a blood explosion in The Shining. Once it starts good luck trying to string two thoughts together beyond, "But why?" and, "So gross!"
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 11:48 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


Mod note: One deleted. Let's reel this back from being a fight about whether people are critical enough about other people being critical about cruises, or whatever involuted thing it's becoming ....and turn it back toward being a discussion with people you actually want to be talking to.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:51 AM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


As a non-cruisy aside, I've been quite enjoying MIB's new podcast Obscure.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:53 AM on July 8, 2018


I'm a snake person and I've been on several cruises with friends!

I really liked reading a book a day, not having to worry about paying for anything once you're on the boat, and not having to think about where to go or what to do. If you plan ahead, it's the cheapest vacation you can possibly do.

I actually really enjoyed the ports of call. At several I hired taxi driver/tour guides and talked to them and learned a lot about their lives. My driver on Antigua was a university-trained electrical engineer who couldn't get work on the island and couldn't get a visa to leave, so he operated a nightclub and a small farm and a radio station... repeat across 5 islands in a week, and you get a little taste of how a bunch of different people live. Just fascinating fascinating conversations that would be hard to experience otherwise.

The parts I didn't like: We were ALWAYS the youngest people on the boat who weren't there with parents. The food was super rich and kept making me feel sick. Everyone drank amounts that would literally kill me. But it's not like they force you to eat and drink, it's all voluntary excess.

Overall, not a bad vacation. Everything has downsides, and I'd say a cruise has a lot of advantages over most of the alternatives.
posted by miyabo at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


Oh, and I completely forgot the best part of a cruise: NO INTERNET ACCESS. I have a really hard time disconnecting normally, so it's a major benefit for my mental health. I would gladly pay double for a hotel on land that could offer this feature.
posted by miyabo at 12:04 PM on July 8, 2018 [7 favorites]


Count me as another qualified fan of cruises. I've been on several but my favorites are long transoceanic cruises with a bunch of sea days out in the middle of nowhere. There's just something very relaxing about hanging out on a balcony with nothing but sea and sky in every direction, no particular place to be or thing to do, other than maybe get some dinner later if you feel like heading out to dinner, and if not, no worries, someone will bring you something.

Yeah the environmental impact is not great, though it's improving with newer ships. And the question of who works on the ship and how much they are paid is sometimes problematic (though I've had some frank conversations with staff who have no complaints and have briefly considered working on a ship myself as a result). I just love being out on the water and a cruise is the most practical way for me to maximize my being-out-on-the-water time.

A bunch of folks have mentioned norovirus and such, and yeah this does happen, I don't think as widely as people think though. Hasn't happened to me yet at least. The main issue is that you've got a lot of folks in close quarters, so if someone does get sick it spreads very easily. But if you're careful with personal hygiene (and every ship I've been on has hand sanitizer dispensers every 30 feet or so) I think the chances of that can be minimized. But then I tend to spend more time in my own cabin than most, so my experience may be atypical.

Also people have mentioned the JoCo cruises, and yeah I've been on a couple of them. It really is essentially a con on a boat, with all the good and bad you might imagine would go along with that, but I've had largely good experiences myself and would recommend it to the curious.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 12:06 PM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


I went on two short cruises during the same holiday. On the leg “out” we toured Scadinavian places in what was pretty much a giant floating sleepover mall. Basically “Sea Trek” like with automagic doors and interactive glowing maps and holo-discotheques. Lots of opportunities to shop, if you’re into that sort of thing. Scandinavia is beautiful, of course, and we hoke around a bit on it. The sea-mall’s sleepytime cabins were like a friendly sort of jail. It was run by a Swedish company from the not too distant future.

On the way back we took a boat offered by a Russian company. It was less like “Sea Trek” and more like “Sea Wars” — semi-derelict, worn, creaking, water pooled in unexpected places, occasional sparks, in every room an endless but short loop of warbling Russian folk tunes that can be dialed down but never turned off. Nausea. Questionable buffets. Fights in the bar. The creaking scow’s cabins were like claustrophobia challenges, coffins.

Checkmark checked, no desire to revisit cruising.
posted by Construction Concern at 12:06 PM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


I believe it's still possible to take passage on cargo ships, if the idea of traveling by ship appeals to you but the artificial conviviality doesn't.

A friend was in the band on a Disney cruise ship. The band's quarters had a lot of plumbing crossing the ceiling. One off period, they were enjoying a video of Titanic when some of that plumbing started spraying water.

My wife likes cruises. She took a Caribbean cruise that featured one stop at an exotic, fun location whose name I forget. Turns out, it's a walled-off enclave on Haiti.

Me, I have no desire to experience cruising.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:08 PM on July 8, 2018


One of the most unethical people I've ever worked with was a cruise fanatic. It's ruined my mental image of them, knowing that at least some of the passengers would gladly throw me overboard so that they could enjoy just one more of the vodkas that they snuck on board in water bottles.

Fortunately, my wife has stated that the only way she would go on a cruise would be if they put a velodrome around the outside of the ship. I think I'm safe.
posted by cowcowgrasstree at 12:09 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


vodkas that they snuck on board in water bottles.

They search your bags?
posted by pracowity at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2018


Not very well. Source: have done that. I like the occasional drink but I'm not paying $500 for a drinks package!
posted by miyabo at 12:47 PM on July 8, 2018


Hard pass for me. I hate:
a) inflated prices with no option to avoid them
b) day-drinking
c) late-stage capitalism
d) people

I might consider a European river cruise as a train alternative but that's my limit when it comes to cruising. Also I've found that I have about a two-day limit for relaxing. I get antsy around day 3 and a full-blown existential crisis arrives on day 4.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:56 PM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


METAFILTER: I hate a) inflated prices with no option to avoid them b) day-drinking c) late-stage capitalism d) people
posted by philip-random at 1:06 PM on July 8, 2018 [39 favorites]


On the leg “out” we toured Scadinavian places in what was pretty much a giant floating sleepover mall.

Friends who take the ferry from Poland to Sweden tell me the ferry has plenty of Swedes taking the ferry to Poland and back just to buy (and partially consume along the way) huge amounts of cheap alcohol and cigarettes on the ferry. They get totally shitfaced at sea and then return to land with the makings for much additional shitfacery.
posted by pracowity at 1:08 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


Also, I don't think you can really understand cruises unless you understand that the vast, vast majority of Americans (and cruise-lovers) live in places where you literally can't do anything without driving.

That means kids and impaired adults are basically house-bound, and parents or other folks with cars have to be responsible for driving everyone around all the time. Letting your 10-year-old go to the other end of the boat to find ice cream, or Grandpa deciding what he wants to do all on his own, or rolling out of bed and going to a coffee shop, or having a few drinks and not worrying about getting home might all be truly amazing and unique experiences if you come from deep suburbia.

If you live in a place where there are walkable amenities and public transit already, it's just everyday life, so of course it doesn't seem special.
posted by miyabo at 1:12 PM on July 8, 2018 [68 favorites]


Is it really daydrinking when you're on holiday though? I mean, am I the only one that kicks off vacation with a celebratory drink or three at the airport or on the plane, whatever hour of the day it might be? And despite the disapproving glances of joyless folks, or security, or people who clearly have no sense of whimsy and no love for impromptu karaoke?

on second thought maybe don't answer that
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:14 PM on July 8, 2018 [18 favorites]


the other alternative vacation suggestion I would make if you like having a floating home carrying you, your friends/family, and your stuff from place to place, but don't want to deal with a lot of people or contrived excursion packages or potentially mediocre amenities on a cruise ship: group chartered yachts.

It sounds like an expensive option and for, say, a couple or four people, it is a pretty formidable cost, as you're chartering a whole yacht, but lots of yachts can accommodate 8 or 10, and splitting the cost amongst that number makes it a lot more manageable. We did this for a recent vacation with friends, and it was pretty awesome!

It was basically a few friends on a boat with a captain and mate, sailing along the Aegean between two ports in Turkey. (I'd link to sites, but it's a lot of tour operators, but your search terms of art are: "gulet, blue cruise, Turkey") Because it was just us and our crew, we had a lot of flexibility of negotiating what each day's itinerary was. We basically had to get to our port in five days, but how we got there was up to us. So everyday it was like: wake up, have breakfast with our captain (usually Turkish spread of olives, tomatoes, cheese and fruit), listen to captain explain today's route and look at our map, decide if we want to do more snorkeling or more beaches or more seaside villages, go do those things. Read on the deck as we sailed from point to point. Mate would sometimes catch some fish as we cruised along, and that would be dinner for the night. We drank whatever we bought at villages along the way.

A lot of my friends and I rock climb, and one of the reasons why we picked this area to cruise in was that it was dotted with cliffs that were well suited for deep water soloing, where you can just climb and if you fall, the water is deep enough that it just basically acts as a natural crash pad. So a lot of days, we'd just watch the shore and point out a promising cliff and ask our captain if we could sail closer, then we'd dive off the boat, swim up to the cliff and check out if it was deep enough or not. There weren't a lot of guidebooks for deep water soloing in Turkey, so we're making this up as we went along, and skipped more cliffs than we climbed just to be cautious, but any chance to swim in the Mediterranean was an opportunity that would not go unwasted.

But, yeah, that was our routine. Rise with the sun, have breakfast, choose some beaches and cliffs, sail to those places, read, swim, climb, have lunch, read, swim, climb, grill some fish on the side of the yacht, sleep under stars, repeat next day.

And another nice thing about it, it was pretty much a direct transaction between our captain and his mate and us, so pretty directly putting our patronage dollars into the local economy rather than some big international entertainment conglomerate.

If anyone's interested in doing this, feel free to MeMail and I can put you in touch with Mustafa, our old captain, so you can set something up w/ him directly.
posted by bl1nk at 1:14 PM on July 8, 2018 [55 favorites]


The only cruise I've been on is a Weezer cruise, and while it was pretty cool to see Dinosaur Jr. and Waaves play on the top deck at sunset and almost spill wine on Lou Barlow, I was pretty much ready for it to be over after three days.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:21 PM on July 8, 2018


I've been on cruises twice: once when a teen, heading from Vancouver to Anchorage; once this past spring from Miami to Miami via Key West, Nassau, and Disney's private island. They are simple unwind time, but they are excellent at being exactly that if you are willing to accept that as their ultimate goal. My wife already planned another next year (Disney again) and the kids are already excited about it. The point of a cruise is not to let loose, but to decompress, and in that sense the writer gets their true purpose perfectly.

Also, Disney and Princess only; all other cruise companies you should probably pass on. (In the case of Disney, it works well for both families with kids and couples without, as they know how to run a cruise for everyone.) This is as much my own advice as it is the advice of pretty much everyone I've ever spoken to who's been on multiple cruises.
posted by mystyk at 1:23 PM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


They search your bags?

From my experience a long long time ago, you are searched whenever you board the boat, airport style with metal detectors.

The two things you absolutely forbidden to bring on board are weapons and your own alcohol.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:41 PM on July 8, 2018


I've been on three cruises, though none in the Caribbean - two on Disney and one on Princess. I'd happily go on another any time. In my opinion they're the best way to travel with children. Not only do you get to move cities without having to pack up your room, but the city moves often happen over night, so you're not even aware it's happening. It's like having a vacation teleporter. Plus they always have foods kids are willing to eat, and if it's Disney, there are like 500 characters on board and shorter lines to meet them than at Disneyland. If you happen to have both kids and grandparents and you can get them all on a boat at once?? Oh man! You can send the kids and grandparents on a shore excursion, together, without you, then buy some beers and sit on the deck for a few hours. Or you can drop off the kids at daycare and do that same thing, no grandparents required. By the end of our last cruise our at-the-time-4-year-old was calling the daycare "my club" and begging us to take her there whenever she had more than ten minutes to spare. Her little brother, at 1 year old, was not such a fan of his daycare. Next time!

Especially in these scary times it is AMAZING to be on a trip where every megabyte of data you use costs an insanely stupidly huge amount of money. I completely lost track of the news for ten days last summer. I'd occasionally load up the New York Times and look at the headlines, and think, "Is it worth like nontrivial amounts of cents to read any of these articles???" and of course the answer was no.

I've spent 24 days on cruise ships since 2004 and never gotten norovirus. I would be happy to try to convince any and all of you to make your next vacation a cruise. I'm trying to sell my husband on Alaska next summer, in fact. I really like them.
posted by potrzebie at 1:44 PM on July 8, 2018 [8 favorites]


On the MeFi cannibal cruise, we might eat pursers and/or bursers, but at least we have cameras.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the standard side dish yet: beans! Lots and lots of beans! Unless they're only for counting?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:47 PM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


this anti-bring-your-own booze aspect is a major downer from my end, particularly after having crossed most of Canada by rail a few years back. The train had a bar car, but it was absolutely okay to have your own alcohol on board, even to bring it to the bar, I think. I am talking about Sleeper Plus class here. Not cheap but the food was good to excellent and included in the fair, and if you compare it to both flying the same distance and factoring in three nights at a good hotel -- it gets better. That was a genuinely wonderful trip. Talk about leaving it all behind ...
posted by philip-random at 1:56 PM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


Cruise-goers advise, pls.
posted by lollymccatburglar


My brother loved going on cruises with his kids because they could basically say "bug off, go do your own thing, just make sure you are back on time for dinner" His kids were a bit older than yours, but he really enjoyed the freedom they got to just hang out and not worry about stuff.

I did go on a cruise with my family a few years back, but since I have no kids and a generally relaxed work schedule, I didn't find the whole thing particularly preferable to the sort of vacation I normally take. I was a bit bothered by how wasteful the food situation seemed - there was so much food available that people would take way more than they could eat, and then just leave heaps of it behind to be thrown away.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:57 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've had Norovirus twice, and that alone keeps me from taking a cruise. Two days of laying in nauseated agony, your stomach pumping like a second heart. Every 30 minutes get up to go to the toilet, and pretty much flip a coin--puke first or shit first? Because you'll have to do both, and often it doesn't matter what order. Beyond shitting and puking, there is nothing else you can do. No medicine, little sleep, barely any water so you're dehydrated by the first 12 hours. And you're highly contagious, so you have to worry about spreading one little drop of anything so family members don't also get it. (I learned recently that people with type O blood are far more susceptible to contracting Norovirus, so that might explain why my wife and kids didn't get it).

All that on a ship? No. Thanks.
posted by zardoz at 2:03 PM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


What a sweet article! I've been on 3 cruises: 2 on the Disney Magic over 10 years ago and 1 on Royal Caribbean last year. Great times, no norovirus. It's nice to remember sometimes that not everyone is the "on my vacation I hiked for 10 miles until I found a deserted beach and then pitched my tent" or "even though I couldn't speak the language I ordered randomly from the menu anyway because YOLO" type. There is a delineation between tourist and adventurer and I fall squarely on the tourist side.

As for the professional photos: It was really nice to have some well-shot photos without having to skip being in it because I'm the one taking the photo, or without having to hand my phone to another guest who aims right at the light so our faces are dark/moves the phone when they press the button/turns the phone to portrait when I hand it to them in landscape/pushes the wrong button and takes a selfie by accident, etc.
posted by kimberussell at 3:00 PM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


People are perhaps a little kinder to one another when they know their vacation could end in a cramped lifeboat fighting over pelican scraps.

I really enjoy the camaraderie that naturally grows from a mass of people - the differenter the better - confined to a space over a period of time especially when they start talking to each other. Claudia Shear says something along the lines of, "everyone has a story that will stop. your. heart." I love hearing those stories and filing them away in my brain to remind me that people are amazing.

The closest thing to a cruise I've been on was a week aboard the tall ship Roseway in the BVI. This was basically the structure of the trip.

My favorite cousin is chief engineer on the SS Legacy and I'm determined to take one of their Alaska cruises as soon as I can.
posted by bendy at 3:01 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


If I'm going to take a Caribbean cruise I'll need one that offers something other that yellow fizzy corporate beer and last time I checked, none of them did. I think I'd do better on a Euro-river cruise.
posted by Ber at 3:01 PM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


> fallingbadgers: "Day 11. They have eaten the ship’s Burser"
Well, that explains the noro- or other virus.
posted by theora55 at 3:46 PM on July 8, 2018


I think I'd do better on a Euro-river cruise.

Apparently (don't take my word for it), the European river cruises let you bring your own bottles aboard.
posted by pracowity at 3:54 PM on July 8, 2018


So are there any ethically run cruise companies out there? Especially Alaskan ones?

Small ship cruises to Alaska are almost always U.S. flagged so they have to abide by U.S. labor laws. I used to have a job where I occasionally worked with employees from these ships and I always got the impression that people generally enjoyed their jobs. You would often see the same people come back year after year. Of course no one was getting rich working on these boats either.

A few companies that I'm aware of: Uncruise based out of Seattle, Linblad/National Geographic, and Alaskan Dream based out of Sitka, Alaska.

There are a few caveats of course. These cruises tend to be considerably more expensive than the rack rate for a cabin on a large ship. To me though, I think that's just because the price represents the true cost of the cruise. No skirting labor laws through ports of convenience, most excursions are built into the price of the cruise, and some of the ships include alcoholic drinks in their price. I can't speak too much to the environmental records. Obviously a smaller ship is going to produce less pollution, but I don't know how that works out per passenger vs the big ships. The other caveat is that you won't have all the amenities of a large ship. No casinos or abridged Broadway shows. Cabins are often much smaller. But the focus of these cruises is less "floating hotel" and more experiencing the place you're visiting.
posted by timelord at 3:59 PM on July 8, 2018 [11 favorites]


bendy, that’s what I love, too — the leaning in and engaging with all different walks of life.

I think it’s a mark of responsible citizenship to carefully choose eco cruises and ethical companies whenever possible. At the same time, I think it’s also important to remember that not everyone who goes on, say, a Carnival cruise is willfully ignorant or less than. I know I tend to forget that not everyone has the luxury of choosing the least problematic course of action, given that that option often comes at a steeper price.
posted by bologna on wry at 4:01 PM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


> Slarty Bartfast: "Sorry, I’m an uptight hipster I guess."
Hugs Slarty.
posted by theora55 at 4:08 PM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


Small ship cruises to Alaska are almost always U.S. flagged so they have to abide by U.S. labor laws. I used to have a job where I occasionally worked with employees from these ships and I always got the impression that people generally enjoyed their jobs. You would often see the same people come back year after year. Of course no one was getting rich working on these boats either.


You’d have the Jones Act to thank for that. It requires vessels that carry passengers/cargo between US ports to be US flagged, majority US owned, and have a certain percentage of US crew.
posted by dr_dank at 4:08 PM on July 8, 2018


My Mom lived in an independent living place. Turns out it was just like a cruise in many ways. Plenty of adequate food, exercise class, geezers, day trips, barely-adequately-paid staff. Who knew.
posted by theora55 at 4:10 PM on July 8, 2018 [4 favorites]


But where Wallace felt infantilized, I feel gratitude.

DFW did kind of love Tibor.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:10 PM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


I anybody on MeFi is good at arranging stuff, a MeFite-themed package deal for 5 days at a resort-ish place, maybe in Santa Fe, with good lectures, movies, drinking, legal pot (okay, maybe Boulder), crafts, craft beers, hiking, would sell out. Srsly. Worth it for meals with some of the more interesting people around.
posted by theora55 at 4:13 PM on July 8, 2018 [14 favorites]


Isn’t there already a MaxFunCruise?
posted by infinitewindow at 4:22 PM on July 8, 2018


You’d have the Jones Act to thank for that.

Specifically, the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 (the Jones Act is for cargo). The way the major cruise companies get around this is by either doing a "closed loop" cruise from Seattle (with a stop in Victoria, BC). Or by doing a one-way cruise to/from Alaska with Vancouver, BC as either the starting or ending port. A small ship could do the same thing, but then they'd be far more limited in their itineraries (which would reduce part of the whole appeal of a small ship cruise).
posted by timelord at 4:23 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


Cargo/freighter cruising is still very much a thing, and well worth googling for those of you that have expressed interest in having some quality time with an unmoving horizon and endless ocean without having to deal with ::shudders:: tourists.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 5:01 PM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


My folks sprung for a Caribbean cruise for my then-Fiancé-now-Wife. The snorkeling expedition was totally worth it, as brightly colored fish are as common as minnows, even if the "reef" was a wicker laundry hamper the expedition operator planted there. He explained during the spiel on the rules on the way out they did not feed the fish to make them hang around, and we should not feed the fish anything, either. Other than that, I couldn't tell you a bit about the shore excursions, apart from the duty-free shop on St. Maarten that had euro-spec Heineken (shipped cold, expensive but tastier) and wheels of aged Gouda the size of a car tire. I assume they were for yacht-owners with a big fridge, but I can def see a drunken cruise passenger trying to bring that back on the boat.

The cruise itself was fun enough, we had a Mediterranean one for our Honeymoon.

Different game. Ignore the excursions - hop on a tourbus or just wander around town until it's time to come back. Barcelona to Nice to Malta to Citaveccia for the bus to Rome on day one, and just wander around Citaveccia on day two, back to Barcelona for another whole day before flying back.

Usil-no-longer-needs-the-Weirding-Module game changer? You can still wander around town after you get off the tourbus, too, and we did that in Barcelona, Naples and Valetta.

Barcelona, it was a festival day, and the streets were shut down to surface traffic. Just walk in the streets, and enjoy dancing and music and wow, this is good. Chocolate dipped fresh churros from a food truck in front of a giant sculpture. We went somplace at random for dinner, and had a tense moment when Eurovision fans were arguing vehemently with Soccer fans, and since it seemed tonight was Croatia (I remember, because they had a precision 17thCE re-enactment drum corps) and a bunch of Nordic countries

We ordered at random, as the menu was bi-lingual, Spanish and Catalan, and wound up with sardine-stuffed olives as the app, and the Weirdest Burger Ever. Soccer fans were being served platters of thinly shaved ham and cheese, so, I asked and pointed as politely as I could...

...dear reader, I married her! Also the ham was proscuitto set to eleven, and the cheese was like cheddar-mozzarella.

The Naples Experience was.... ahhhhhh... we decided to eat back on the ship. Sketchy as all fuck, despite being beautiful and steeped in history. The stone-paved streets were level enough to use as a guide for precision laser-surveying equipment, fronted by tall and regal apartment blocks, some of which were built with that precision before the Dark Ages. But, the poo in the streets, guys on Vespas trying to sell you stolen iPhones, pick-pockets (wallets up front, guys, and purses latched closed!) and the police running around in wheeled tanks and sporting submachine guns...

Valetta, tho! Our tour bus guide was the only woman on Malta that could not speak fluent English. She made up for this with enthusiasm and dirty jokes. The oldest stone sculptures in Europe, almost close enough to touch. You could feel the weight of their millennia. The giant stone fortresses of the Knights of St. John, with the ever vigilant-eyes carved into them! The aquamarine waters, with the bright and colorful fishing-skiffs, with eyes painted on the bow! The Pepsi vending machines filled with beer that cost one half-euro coin. I can't even remember what we ate for lunch and dinner, but I remember liking it. Valetta was full-on awesome.

Pizza in Rome, after an intense walking tour, and carpaccio salade followed by genuine gellato in Citaveccia!

I got sick. I'm sorry, but it was bad, a cold, no less, in the warm Med! I spent $20 on a tube of cold-cream for fever-chapped lips that was made by the pharmacist in Citaveccia, and it lasted me three years, and nothing, ever, works as well on cold sores and chapped lips.

By the time we got back to Barcelona, I couldn't actually swallow solid food. So I went to the "doc in the box" at the train station. I was charged nothing for the consultation, and was prescribed a pack of 800mg Ibuprofin. Two Euro. "Dos! Manyana, dos! Two! OK?"

I wasn't up for eating out. But after the pills, I could at least swallow. The cheap take-out paella was light-years better than any other paella of my life. Little lobster-like things like salt-water crawdads, shrimp, mussels, tiny peas so fresh they popped at the slightest provocation, and rice that soaked all of it in, and was sticky enough. Jambalaya may owe a bit of its provenance to the Spanish Period in Nawlins, all I'm sayin'.

I want cruise ships to get efficient and clean, and as much fun as my honeymoon was, I don't think I can do it again unless they get with the program.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:40 PM on July 8, 2018 [6 favorites]


Reddit threads of anecdotes by the staff members of cruise lines are quite fascinating.
posted by ovvl at 7:03 PM on July 8, 2018


I used to work on a cruise ship. AMA.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:53 PM on July 8, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ok TWinbrook8, did the crew have any decent off duty areas?
posted by sammyo at 9:21 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have a cruise booked this winter! It will be my first time, in the Caribbean, with my partner's family.

I'm mostly in it for the free and hopefully easy climbing rock, and maybe also the track that goes all the way around the boat. The joy of unlimited food may be diminished for me because my work has unlimited food, but then I remember that it's different free food and I am a sucker for novelty.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:31 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


One way to avoid this is to book excursions directly through the tour company instead of through the cruise.

Protip, although I have not specifically been in a cruise, just been in similar situations:

Get out, clear the initial area thronged with your compatriots, find a taxi. He will almost certainly know where to get you doobies, and depending on your proclivities, he will take you on whatever kind of tour you want.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:35 PM on July 8, 2018 [2 favorites]


bendy, that’s what I love, too — the leaning in and engaging with all different walks of life.

I keep most of my stories on facebook - memail me if you want an invite.

not everyone has the luxury of choosing the least problematic course of action, given that that option often comes at a steeper price

Also not everyone wants a cruise experience outside of the norm. My tall ship cruise was fantastic but I was with my BF at the time and his family and so we were all friends. We spent time hauling sails and pulled our mattress on deck to sleep under the stars. We had delicious meals made by the one cook in the tiny kitchen and rum drinks at 5PM.
posted by bendy at 1:18 AM on July 9, 2018


A few companies that I'm aware of: Uncruise based out of Seattle

My cousin is a chief engineer for Uncruise. I think they're fantastic!
posted by bendy at 1:19 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Reddit threads of anecdotes by the staff members of cruise lines are quite fascinating.
Agreed! Here is one for an example: "...what happens below decks?"
posted by rongorongo at 3:53 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Here's the deal - and I'm so sorry I didn't get to this thread earlier - you must go on a gay cruise. I have been on 4. They are awesome. You can be as debauched as you like, or you can sit in the casino and play poker or you can watch the debauchery or you can play hilarious rounds of bingo for hours with drag queens or you can stand in the hallway and ask people how many pairs of shoes they brought for a weeklong cruise (anywhere from 2 to 25 in my experience).

There is everything on a gay cruise and sightseeing and spa and a library. Seriously something for absolutely everyone. I have danced on ecstasy until my feet bled and I have sat in the library drinking tea and reading a book. I have won 2 trophies for best costume. It's a riot.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:31 AM on July 9, 2018 [11 favorites]


I've been cruising and I second all those who didn't like it. To me, it was exactly like being trapped in a decent hotel for 7 days - and while you are on the ship it doesn't really seem that big. It gets so boring. And sorry, but you can't really experience 'local culture' because all the cruise excursions are between 6am-3:00pm, which are the lamest hours in any place in the world. Sure, you can book local excursions, but you can't really experience their culture because they are all at work/doing whatever. So it's mostly just other people from other cruises is all you see.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:06 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


FYI, you can take alcohol onto Disney Cruises:
You... may bring a maximum of 2 bottles of unopened wine or champagne (no larger than 750 ml) or 6 beers (no larger than 12 ounces) on board at the beginning of the voyage and at each port of call.
That said, at least when we went a few years ago, I don't recall the drinks prices being especially outrageous on Disney vs. other lines.
posted by adrianhon at 7:11 AM on July 9, 2018


I could totally see Disney not being as concerned about BYO booze since they have a gazillion other ways to upsell you via your children. Still, no hard liquor or beer plus a $25 corkage fee in the dining rooms? That's not a pro-BYO policy at all really.

The Carnivals and Royal Caribbeans of the world are selling cabins at extremely low margins to get you on board and get that room-charge wriststrap on you. The last cruise I took so long ago, they were still doing that slip-the-bill-under-your-door thing on the last night.

The balance was...eye-opening.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:33 AM on July 9, 2018


If Disney ever holds an LGBTQ cruise, we would spend just about anything to be those nerds, even with kids (which, BTW, most queer cruises do not allow).
posted by Sophie1 at 8:01 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


I sound like a Disney defender here, which I am certainly not, but while they don't allow hard liquor, their policy does allow six beers per person at the beginning and at each port. The corkage fee is a bit much though.
posted by adrianhon at 8:24 AM on July 9, 2018


The first cruise I went on was a Carnival weekend cruise back in 1999 with family for my father's 70th birthday. It was really not my jam. I didn't have a terrible time, but the cruise part of it was not compelling as far as going on another cruise. I went again on an NCL weekend cruise a couple of years ago to accompany my stepmother and (surprisingly) really enjoyed myself; I ended up going a weekend cruise with my wife partly for my 50th and partly as a trial run before we booked JoCo as a very belated honeymoon. Ships having much more constrained smoking areas was a big improvement for me. But one of the things that made the biggest difference for me is having a balcony. When I run out of deal for interacting with people I don't know, I can go and sit on the balcony and read and have a lovely time experiencing sun and ocean rather than sitting in a small room with a small window and no fresh air.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:09 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Mrs. Fleebnork and I have been on two cruises, and we've decided we're just not cruise people. Our first cruise was Carnival, and it's the Wal Mart of cruise lines. That's all I have to say about that.

We did a Royal Caribbean cruise to Mexico with some friends back in January, because RC was having a BOGO 50% off with kids free, and friends going drew us in.

The upselling I found tedious. People say that everything is pre-paid, but it isn't. Any drink that isn't water, tea or coffee was an additional upcharge or drink package. Alcohol was yet another drink package tier above that.

Our ship had a Johnny Rockets and a Ben & Jerry's, both of which were added cost (although the Johnny Rockets was all you can eat, which wasn't so bad). There were three "premium" restaurants onboard that were also additional cost. We ate at the premium steakhouse one night, which was very good, and less expensive than going to a premium steakhouse restaurant at home.

The buffet restaurant was fine and about what you'd expect. The main dining room was very hit or miss. We ate breakfast there once, and I had cold scrambled eggs and soggy bacon. The lunch we ate there was actually pretty good, and uncrowded. Dinners there were awful. Our waitstaff in particular were extremely slow, compared to nearby tables. The two dinners we ate there took over two hours each time. The food was mediocre at best. I think the high volume of diners in the evening caused the food quality to suffer.

The kids club was nice for Fleebnork Jr. but it unfortunately was closed at meal times, when Mrs. Fleebnork and I would have appreciated some couple time.

The pool areas, well you had better like loud music and noise at all times. There was constantly either a band playing, or other activities like trivia or various people yammering on loudspeaker. The only covered quiet pool area was off limits to children. Unfortunately, our trip was during the arctic blast that caused Atlanta to have snow, which made the Gulf weather just a bit too cool for swimming. That made the pools unusable for us all but the first day onboard. Not really the fault of the cruise, as weather happens.

Our favorite day of the cruise was stopping in Cozumel. We went to a private quiet beach that was all inclusive with food and alcohol. I rode a banana float pulled by jetski with Fleebnork Jr. The taxis to and from the beach were no trouble, although the port was annoying, as they route you through their ticky tacky mall, and on return they had closed some gates that made us have to walk a different route through their mall again.

A lot of this is probably much easier when you have a kid old enough to run off solo.

Don't get me wrong, it was okay and we enjoyed being with friends, but ultimately we would rather travel to a destination and be free to roam around. The ship days at sea were like being stuck inside a Vegas hotel you can't leave.
posted by Fleebnork at 9:29 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


The nightly entertainment, too, is easy and bright and mindless. Everything about the weeklong Caribbean cruise is meant to buff life’s unpleasant edges into sea glass.

OK, really, this is my last comment on this topic, but I seem to remember a drag queen with a gallon drum of mayonnaise with a pump spout pumping mayo into her mouth on stage. I have absolutely zero recollection of the joke or the punchline, I only remember the entire full audience gagging and laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Not easy, bright or mindless by a long shot. Get thee to a queer cruise.
posted by Sophie1 at 9:34 AM on July 9, 2018


also isn't it less the things you're touching with your hands and more the things that are sprayed from the orifices of the infected in your general area? apologies for that mental image.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:32 AM on July 9, 2018


Norovirus, the bus plunge story of the high seas.
posted by peeedro at 11:03 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


what if the bus plunges because everyone is pooping and crying though.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:13 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


If I turn my chair a bit, through my windows, from where I am sitting right now, I can see the top few decks of Norwegian Cruise Lines' "Norwegian Bliss" above the houses and trees. This year, like every other year since I have lived here, cruise ships will bring nearly a million visitors to the small town in which I live. On any given day in the summertime we may have more visitors than we have local residents. I work remotely for a business that is not located here and which has nothing to do with tourism but even though my livelihood does not depend on cruise ship tourism the survival of many of the local businesses upon whom I depend does, along with the livelihood of many of my friends and neighbors.

It's complicated. I do wish that the cruise lines were better neighbors -- their environmental and labor practices leave much to be desired and they're pretty rapacious in extracting every bit of income they can, even at the expense of local communities. On the other hand, this is a spectacular part of the world that comparatively few people get to experience otherwise.

While my feelings towards the cruise lines themselves are pretty ambivalent, I try to always have a greeting and a smile for the passengers and crew that visit. I want people to see this place through my eyes -- as an incredibly beautiful setting, rain or shine, and a community full of interesting, intelligent, friendly people.

Anyway.. if you've concluded that cruising is not for you but have always wanted to see the forested, mountainous islands of the Inside Passage and the myriad waterways that separate AND connect them, feel free to MeMail -- there are other ways to visit.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:57 PM on July 9, 2018 [10 favorites]


Was Dave Matthews doing voodoo when his tour bus pooped on that tiny tour boat

TIME TRAVEL NOROVOODOO
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:27 PM on July 9, 2018


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