Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Cruises promise paradise with lots of food

By Carl Heintze

Far away places with strange-sounding names, Far away over the sea ...

I don't know how your junk mail is these days, but ours is running to cruises. We average about four brochures a week--sometimes three in one day--telling us the wonders of travel by ship.

There are trips along the coast of China, cruises around the Mediterranean, around South America, up and down rivers--almost anywhere where there's water.

The pictures make your mouth water, great gluttonous piles of wonderful food, dancing, spectacular stage shows, sparkling water, palm trees, friendly natives--it's a dream come true.

And I suppose it may be.

We've been on four or five cruises along the usual routes--through the Panama Canal and to Alaska--and on some that weren't so usual: the Atlantic intercoastal waterway, for instance, and the Erie Canal.

And I kind of think--although I know travel agents will consider this heresy--as Ronald Reagan is reputed to have said about redwood trees--when you've seen one cruise, you've seen them all.

For instance, almost every cruise ends with a dinner at which baked Alaska, held high and flaming by waiters, enters the dining room to cheers. Almost every cruise has a photographer standing at the gangplank shooting you and your loved one as you come aboard or debark in such glamorous places as Bermuda or Acapulco.

He or she isn't doing this for the joy of it, but for the bucks.

It's a souvenir to show the folks back home, right? Along with the straw hat from Jamaica, the pot from Mexico or the T-shirt from Hawaii. There's a lot of that on any cruise because most cruises are pretty much alike. That's what the passengers want and so that, of course, is what they get.

Even the entertainment tends to fall into a pattern. There are four or five energetic chorus girls who double as activity directors, leading you in the early-morning stretch exercises; a master of ceremonies who is also the cruise director--a former Broadway star, nightclub performer and movie bit player (no need to ask when; it was a while ago).

There's bingo to fill the afternoons, and food--my gosh, everything from tea to full-blown, really big dinners. The food thing started where all cruises began: in the Atlantic trade before and after World War I, when the elite traveled back and forth to Europe. It's this tradition of the good life now made into mass appeal that fuels the cruise business. It's a dream of that age when the wealthy could have almost anything they wanted while on shipboard, and although not many people cross the Atlantic by ship these days, they do go to a lot of other ports of call.

The ports of call, however, usually are somewhat less than advertised, perhaps because ports, like railway stations, are not necessarily the best part of town.

Step off the ship in Third World countries, and you're besieged by sellers of almost anything. It's a survival of the fittest. Work at it awhile, if you will, and you may get a bargain.

For instance, in Turkey a boy got aboard the bus to the ship and hawked whistles (except he called them flutes) for $5 each. By the time the bus pulled out, he was selling them five for a dollar.

Do I should crabby and jaded? I guess.

I don't really mean to knock the cruise life too hard. Lots of people love it. We met a couple going through the Panama Canal--he was a retired rear admiral--who had been on 35 cruises and were still at it. They were wearing jackets on which were printed maps of the world, and they would gladly show on their shoulders, chests or even backs where they had been.

These veteran travelers don't waste much time on the sights. They do spend a lot of time comparing the current cruise with past experiences. This show was better than the last; the food on the last trip was better than this, and so on.

For these people, but not for me, cruising is an escape to the paradise promised by the mail that each week falls through our mail slot. They don't see the squatters on the hills in Colombia, for instance, nor the boys diving at their peril for coins in the harbor at Acapulco.

The world below decks where the waiters and maids and deck crew live doesn't exist, as far as they're concerned, and they don't speculate on how many times this same show has been produced in Sitka for the ship that left yesterday or the week before.

Cruises are great for those who need them, for those who have never been on them, for travel agents, for the printers of brochures, maybe even for the boys diving for coins, but I think I'm near my limit.

And yet, I must admit, I can't help looking at the catalogues and brochures as they arrive, week after week. You know, we've never been to the Bahamas ... or Peru. ...

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

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