August 28, 2025
I know what you’re thinking.
A luxury cruise, Rob? You? Mr. Suffer in Silence? Mr. Point Me Toward Adversity? Mr. Why Wear Cashmere When You Can Suffer in a Scratchy Pendleton? Give me austerity or give me death? Idle hands are the devil’s playground? Everybody look busy, God is coming?
Really?
You luxuriate? The guy who rode his bike in the dark in the rain in Normandy rather than pop for a cab? The guy who convinced his fiancé on the eve of their wedding that a thatch roofed cottage in the Mourne Mountains would be comfy?
On a cruise? Seriously?
Cruise, as in pretentious chit chat on the shuffleboard deck?
Cruise, as in seconds, maybe thirds, in the buffet dessert line?
Cruise, as in hundred-dollar daily drink packages that seem wildly excessive now ten days before we leave, but might, after we’re two days in, seem sadly prudent?
You Rob? Mr. “Never Ask Someone to Do for You What You Can Do For Yourself?” You really expect us to believe you will enjoy being waited on hand and foot by people wearing a Fez and white gloves?
A cruise? As in the bane of Barcelonans, Venetians, Alaskans and other locals who fear, quite rightly, that the daily parade of gawkers each cruise ship purges from its bowels into their hometowns will overwhelm and undermine the very charm the gawkers crave and the culture the locals have worked generations to nurture?
A cruise? As in the ocean-going, deep sea, effluent spewing scourge of the environmentally conscious?
Has it come to this? Has it finally happened? Have you become the over indulged, lazy ass, white hair White Star traveler you once disparaged as unimaginative creatures of comfort?
Yep. Pretty much.
Doesn’t it sound like fun?
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 
Never thought I’d be on a big boat cruise shy of my 70th birthday. But my husband wanted our daughter to see SE Alaska where he’d worked, and his mobility issues meant that traveling on the deck of an Alaska State Ferry was no longer reasonable. So 10 years ago, we found ourselves on the Love Boat, as Princess had both Skagway and Glacier Bay on their itinerary. While there were things I didn’t like (a QVC atmosphere in many of the common areas; spa employees pointing out my many imperfections in a ploy to sell products; food not outstanding, as we live in foodie paradise here in the left coast), it was a very memorable vacation. And I was awestruck by Alaska.
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