For at least one decade, my dear wife and I have been unwaveringly unanimous - very rare indeed - in declining all invitations to join groups of friends on a cruise. Visuals in commercials of the huge cruise ship and the oh-so-blue ocean in the commercials were good, but not tempting enough, so we stayed away. Only because we thought that a cruise could wait till we are closer to the wheel-chair phase of our lives! When, finally, we disembarked from our first cruise a month back, our judgement got a thundering affirmation. If you are the reasonably active kind, cruises can wait. We consciously chose a short 5 day cruise from Miami to the Caribbean islands of Turks & Caicos and Dominican Republic, to limit the cumulative boredom that we could absorb. There are quite a few enjoyable things about the cruise, but a longer one would have probably stifled us too much. Juxtapose that with the fact that there are very strange people who stay afloat on cruises for months, across continents. God bless them! And we even heard the story of a widow who prefers to criss-cross continents on different cruises for months, without getting to anything remotely looking like a home on shore. A very different breed indeed.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the most physically draining activity on a cruise is to get out of the bed in the morning and reach the deck where the activities, especially the one exercising the food-pipe, are concentrated. A day's routine for many individuals/groups seemed to be "breakfast-sunbathing-drinks-lunch-pool-tea-bar-dinner-back to bed"; but there were those whose days stretched to 16 hours of the above routine, thereby indicating it was far from monotonous for them. We guess our types were the wrong ones on the ship because these chaps knew what they wanted to do on board and stuck aggressively to their plan, having fun all the way. One common denominator for all these groups was that they all had purchased a Drinks Package for the cruise, which gave them access to sufficient quantity of liquor, any time of the day, during the cruise. Just so that the usually recalcitrant kids did not complain, they bribed them with the Soft Drinks Package; consequently, there was this particular brand of absolutely noisy peace on board, as the drinks flowed liberally.
The only other phenomenon that assumed greater proportions than drinking was of course, eating. Let me put things in perspective by saying that out of the 24 hours in a day, there was not a single hour something was not being put out by the cruise's chefs for people to gorge on. The completely captive audience, perennially looking to fill up some unidentified crevice in an already over-burdened stomach with something more, was an eager and willing partner in this tango. I would say that about three quarters of the cruisers were members of the brigade striving to stuff their face all the time. About 15% were those whose spirits were willing to participate in this gluttonous orgy but their bodies rejected the overture due to lack of capacity. The residual lot managed to retain their innate discipline, ate what they had to and looked distastefully at the massive spread of food as well as those who were having a hearty go at that. My dear wife succinctly described the scene as a non-stop buffet for 5 days, where food was aplenty, plates were on hand and payment had already been made - whether you eat or not. So.
For all that, we found the vegetarian selections to be limited and repetitive. One night, at the formal dinner, for want of anything else I asked for a strawberry bisque, which was listed as a starter. What arrived was a dessert, masquerading as a solid soup/starter. Not bad it was, but it sort of turned the sequence of my dinner dishes on its head and I was almost ready to leave the table after the beginning. There seemed to a sizable group of chefs of Indian origin and for that, there was an awful spread of Indian/Asian food. These chefs somehow gave me the impression that they did not want to indulge in pow-wows; they probably thought I would ask for idli, dosa or curd rice. They thought right!!
We kinda estimated that about half the cruisers were happily obese. Either they were life-time cruise hoppers on an eating binge or were just avidly practising their art on the ship instead of in their homes. When we were next to a group of such gifted people, we felt like midgets in the midst of giants and shrank ourselves a bit to make way for them. To think that a few ounces of extra flesh on my body is a frequent subject matter for discussion at home, brought a wry smile to our faces. The question we tried to find answer to was do obese and fat people actively seek out cruises, because the whole cruise system seems to lend to their way of life of huge amount of eating and very little exercise??
If we were entertaining any stray thoughts of sailing alongside some whale or shark or for a stellar show by a school of dolphins, we banished that within a few hours of boarding. Nothing showed up for long hours, except a few sea birds which probably had lost their way. We will never find out. We wondered where they park themselves when they get tired, unless they could land on the waves like sea-planes do. The obvious answer is they never tire of flying, probably. We got excited whenever we saw a few coast-lines and by looking at the ship's position, guessed the land parcels to belong to Cuba or some other Caribbean island. Few stray vessels showed up and other cruise ships crossed us in inky darkness, reminding me of that famous quip by PG Wodehouse about `ships crossing in the sea at midnight'. Having said that, it was tremendously peaceful to just watch the ocean slip by for hours and the changing colour of the sea depending upon the depth, stuff lying underneath, the sun etc was just fascinating. With a book, one can sit in the state-room's balcony and shut out all the hubbub on the main deck, if necessary and we chose to do that often.
Strangely, we did not hobnob with anybody for considerable lengths of time. No friends were made. Was it due to our desire to keep away from crowded locations and raucous groups or did others shun us because we were looking like the weird ones?? Compare that with a train journey in India, when overnight we effortlessly make friends of strangers and food get exchanged four times in a few hours!! So, why is a cruise different? I am sure there were a few others like us on the cruise, but they must have been hiding from us too! The answer is that there were no berths to share and everyone was in a room, however cramped it was.
Some enjoyable parts of the cruise involved a trio of young violists from Belarus, who were fantastic and kept us engaged for a couple of hours each evening, without repeating too many songs. Also, an Australian singer, who had a great voice and sang songs from the past that we could identify with. What more, he asked for requests and all ours were belted out with fervour. And what more, he acknowledged us among that decent crowd. Good stuff. And our valet for the 5 days was a smiling Balinese man, who grinned broadly the first time he saw us, pronounced my name faultlessly and did a `namaste' in true Indian/Balinese fashion. Felt very good and he became a good ally for short conversations about his beautiful country and people.
Fifth day on the cruise, at breakfast, I looked forlornly at what I had on my plate - the same omelette and hash browns I have had for the previous four days. I recalled ST Coleridge's lines `Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink'. So much food all around and somehow I was feeling constrained in choice!! A sense of relief and pleasure swept over me when I realised that was our final meal on the cruise and in a couple of hours, we would be disembarking.
Will we go on another cruise ever?? My dear wife thinks yes. But with a group of friends and on a cruise where a lot of vegetarian food is available. I may be able to live with that.
Until then, `land ahoy' it is for us.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the most physically draining activity on a cruise is to get out of the bed in the morning and reach the deck where the activities, especially the one exercising the food-pipe, are concentrated. A day's routine for many individuals/groups seemed to be "breakfast-sunbathing-drinks-lunch-pool-tea-bar-dinner-back to bed"; but there were those whose days stretched to 16 hours of the above routine, thereby indicating it was far from monotonous for them. We guess our types were the wrong ones on the ship because these chaps knew what they wanted to do on board and stuck aggressively to their plan, having fun all the way. One common denominator for all these groups was that they all had purchased a Drinks Package for the cruise, which gave them access to sufficient quantity of liquor, any time of the day, during the cruise. Just so that the usually recalcitrant kids did not complain, they bribed them with the Soft Drinks Package; consequently, there was this particular brand of absolutely noisy peace on board, as the drinks flowed liberally.
The only other phenomenon that assumed greater proportions than drinking was of course, eating. Let me put things in perspective by saying that out of the 24 hours in a day, there was not a single hour something was not being put out by the cruise's chefs for people to gorge on. The completely captive audience, perennially looking to fill up some unidentified crevice in an already over-burdened stomach with something more, was an eager and willing partner in this tango. I would say that about three quarters of the cruisers were members of the brigade striving to stuff their face all the time. About 15% were those whose spirits were willing to participate in this gluttonous orgy but their bodies rejected the overture due to lack of capacity. The residual lot managed to retain their innate discipline, ate what they had to and looked distastefully at the massive spread of food as well as those who were having a hearty go at that. My dear wife succinctly described the scene as a non-stop buffet for 5 days, where food was aplenty, plates were on hand and payment had already been made - whether you eat or not. So.
For all that, we found the vegetarian selections to be limited and repetitive. One night, at the formal dinner, for want of anything else I asked for a strawberry bisque, which was listed as a starter. What arrived was a dessert, masquerading as a solid soup/starter. Not bad it was, but it sort of turned the sequence of my dinner dishes on its head and I was almost ready to leave the table after the beginning. There seemed to a sizable group of chefs of Indian origin and for that, there was an awful spread of Indian/Asian food. These chefs somehow gave me the impression that they did not want to indulge in pow-wows; they probably thought I would ask for idli, dosa or curd rice. They thought right!!
We kinda estimated that about half the cruisers were happily obese. Either they were life-time cruise hoppers on an eating binge or were just avidly practising their art on the ship instead of in their homes. When we were next to a group of such gifted people, we felt like midgets in the midst of giants and shrank ourselves a bit to make way for them. To think that a few ounces of extra flesh on my body is a frequent subject matter for discussion at home, brought a wry smile to our faces. The question we tried to find answer to was do obese and fat people actively seek out cruises, because the whole cruise system seems to lend to their way of life of huge amount of eating and very little exercise??
If we were entertaining any stray thoughts of sailing alongside some whale or shark or for a stellar show by a school of dolphins, we banished that within a few hours of boarding. Nothing showed up for long hours, except a few sea birds which probably had lost their way. We will never find out. We wondered where they park themselves when they get tired, unless they could land on the waves like sea-planes do. The obvious answer is they never tire of flying, probably. We got excited whenever we saw a few coast-lines and by looking at the ship's position, guessed the land parcels to belong to Cuba or some other Caribbean island. Few stray vessels showed up and other cruise ships crossed us in inky darkness, reminding me of that famous quip by PG Wodehouse about `ships crossing in the sea at midnight'. Having said that, it was tremendously peaceful to just watch the ocean slip by for hours and the changing colour of the sea depending upon the depth, stuff lying underneath, the sun etc was just fascinating. With a book, one can sit in the state-room's balcony and shut out all the hubbub on the main deck, if necessary and we chose to do that often.
Strangely, we did not hobnob with anybody for considerable lengths of time. No friends were made. Was it due to our desire to keep away from crowded locations and raucous groups or did others shun us because we were looking like the weird ones?? Compare that with a train journey in India, when overnight we effortlessly make friends of strangers and food get exchanged four times in a few hours!! So, why is a cruise different? I am sure there were a few others like us on the cruise, but they must have been hiding from us too! The answer is that there were no berths to share and everyone was in a room, however cramped it was.
Some enjoyable parts of the cruise involved a trio of young violists from Belarus, who were fantastic and kept us engaged for a couple of hours each evening, without repeating too many songs. Also, an Australian singer, who had a great voice and sang songs from the past that we could identify with. What more, he asked for requests and all ours were belted out with fervour. And what more, he acknowledged us among that decent crowd. Good stuff. And our valet for the 5 days was a smiling Balinese man, who grinned broadly the first time he saw us, pronounced my name faultlessly and did a `namaste' in true Indian/Balinese fashion. Felt very good and he became a good ally for short conversations about his beautiful country and people.
Fifth day on the cruise, at breakfast, I looked forlornly at what I had on my plate - the same omelette and hash browns I have had for the previous four days. I recalled ST Coleridge's lines `Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink'. So much food all around and somehow I was feeling constrained in choice!! A sense of relief and pleasure swept over me when I realised that was our final meal on the cruise and in a couple of hours, we would be disembarking.
Will we go on another cruise ever?? My dear wife thinks yes. But with a group of friends and on a cruise where a lot of vegetarian food is available. I may be able to live with that.
Until then, `land ahoy' it is for us.
