Hello Fellow Travelers!
Recently, my best friend since high school was prevailed upon to go on a cruise for nine days. She didn't ask for my opinion. She knew she wouldn't have to. Once I get started on making fun of something I'm hard to stop! There are many past times (calling this an activity is too much of a stretch) both great and small I feel left out of. There are some leisure past times I rarely consider, never pine for or lose a moment's sleep lamenting I haven't been on enough of them: Cruises. Cruises tout many features I try to avoid in every day life.Eating is, at best, a dodgy activity for me. Now that eating is so difficult being on a boat with unlimited food doesn't sound great to me.Putting on a bib and eating your way through the high seas sounds less than idyllic too.
The other concern all the cruises raise is space or lack of space. If you have ever been on a cruise you know what I'm talking about if you have never been just replay any old episode of "The Love Boat". It's just as useful and is a lot cheaper. What they don't tell you is that boat real estate is a lot like Japanese hotel real estate (or so I've been told) really cramped and expensive. Your'e not even going to get a window unless you pay more. How much more? A lot more. (A halfway decent cruise can set you back two large at least for two people without a window!).Cruises are not designed for claustrophobic like myself. I get the creeps just thinking about a stateroom without a window.
I also don't care how many "Royals" you put in front of the name; a floating casino/buffet is a floating buffet/hotel with tiny rooms. Or as demonstrated by The Carnival Cruise Line, a floating toilet. The Real Poop-deck (As it came to be known), was full of affluent Americans and when the media came calling they were outside and trying to get away but their kids were hilarious! The kids were only too happy to tell Wolf (Blitzer) and the Silver Fox (Anderson Cooper) the state of the ship - it was like the Super Dome after Katrina - powerless and full of raw sewage.
It wasn't a tragedy. The Titanic, The Lusitania; those were tragedies! Hurricane Katrina was a disaster. The Carnival Ship was just stinky. Really stinky but not sinking. The teens described a scene out of The Shining only with poop splashing instead of blood on the walls. When those intrepid adventurers on the Good Ship Stank were talking to CNN they weren't patriots or survivors. They were embarrassed! Their teens were too happy to describe the disgusting conditions aboard the boat but their parents couldn't get off that boat fast enough. I did a little research on maritime law and watched a special about the dangers of cruise ships to US citizens on CNN. And it just confirmed what I have always suspected: I'm not surprised that the cruise vessel broke down I'm just surprised it doesn't happen more.You want to know why? I know you do. The ships are all registered in far-flung. some countries on the other side of the world. Many of these countries are tiny and 3rd world status. The cruise ships answer to nobody but themselves. The standards are all set by the cruise lines themselves. And good luck bringing a lawsuit against them! Fires happen which in turn, knock out the power, and that shuts down everything else. No matter how many "Vikings" are in the logo, cruise ships can and do break down and sink we just don't hear about it.
We heard about "The Ship O' Stench" because it was highly visible and full of unhappy Americans, listing around the Gulf of Mexico. Embarrassed. Not kidnapped not dead or shot. Some of these mid-westerners had already booked their cruises for the following year! Oh please. I saw "Fargo", I get how month after month of the same frigid weather could drive a person nuts but a cruise? A Carnival Cruise? Carnival is known as the Motel 6 of cruises. One place you should not try to save a buck is on a cruise. Going on an off-season Alaskan cruise means being cold and damp. You're just asking for trouble. Hotels that float and hotels that float that are also casinos get booked and slept in a lot. This means that a lot to me, because it's all I think about when I'm in any hotel are all the bodies that have been there before me.
Even considering such an ill-advised journey gave me the willies! The only cruise ship I've ever seen a stateroom I’d like to stay in was the stateroom Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell had in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and that wasn't even real. So I'm not the best person to tell that you're going on a cruise. But I am still the best person to tell if you're wanting an argument against going!
PS - Before you ask,of course, my friend did not go. She was probably never going. She just knows how starved for fun I am and "threw me a friggin' bone" to chew on. Those are most of my thoughts on the subject, if you have been on a great cruise (and who hasn't) don't feel like you have to tell me. You don't. If, however you had a less-than-blissful boat experience, tell me all about it. I only want stories that bolster my snarky assertion. CNN calling that particular Carnival Cruise the "Poop Cruise" is all the bolstering I require.
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