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GRAY MATTER
Cruises
If ocean cruising is your idea of travel heaven, this is your time of the year.
“Float your boat,” say I, “just count me among the absent.”
Remember? I’m president-for-life of the “I Hate Cruises” posse. For the last 10 years, I’ve been
singing the same tune; here comes my chorus:
 “Ocean cruises are a testament to the American predilection for excess consumption. Consider, we
regularly witness gleaming ‘cities-at-sea’ bound for warm waters, with hordes of boisterous adults,
largely strangers to one another, determined to eat and drink, drink some more and then eat again.”
My definition of a vacation puts me on a sparsely populated beach, one notable for its adjacency to
splendid saltwater swimming. Think California, the Cayman Islands, and Florida’s east coast at Lake
Worth. A small bag of non-fiction reading awaits me on shore and wife Jan is nearby, riding
horseback, or in a yoga class. Later, we’ll meet for a meal, a glass of wine, and we’ll share the
calming rhythm of waves brushing against the shoreline, perhaps offering shells for a souvenir bag.
Admittedly, mine represents a minority opinion and, yes, I know the arguments in support of cruises:
“You only have to pack once; the food is nonpareil; the port cities are adventuresome, places you’d
never go on your own; the ocean lulls you to restful sleep; you can do most anything, even rock
climb, or get married in the wedding chapel.”
I’ve heard all this, from pals, readers (one, or two, dozen of whom are demonstrably upset with this
scribbler), and travel agents intent on dragging me toward their truth. I remain unconvinced and,
understand please that I’ve been on cruises, journeys where I experienced claustrophobia, to name
one negative. (I also recall breakfast buffets that seemed competitive, with first come gets most,
best, and almost all!)
I stubbornly agree with my reader who writes: “I marvel at the ceaseless cruise advertisements
promising heights of wantonness and gluttony worthy of the last days of the Roman Empire.”
Perhaps this judgment qualifies as a tad overblown. Yet, my opinionated New Jersey correspondent
continues, “I simply don’t require bright lights, luxury, or crowds numbering gossiping women and
boastful men eager to report how many cruises they had previously taken. I prefer long walks in all
kinds of weather, plus the experiencing of nature, followed by modest meals with folks who know
things and wish to talk about them.”
 Allow me today to declare a truce; conceding that 10 years is long enough to crusade against
cruises. I am reminded of an evening in suburban Chicago where I was booked to deliver a talk on
column writing. A kindly man approached, “Mr. Lindeman, my wife adores going on cruises. Can you
skip mentioning your viewpoint, just for tonight?”
No problem. Let’s concur how all life represents one grand journey, and we’re free to choose
differing ways to travel. Author Susan Orlean writes (“My Kind of Place;” Random House, 2004),
“Journeys are the essential text of the human experience—the journey from birth to death, from
innocence to wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge, from where we start to where we end.”
“There is almost no piece of important writing,” she continues, “that isn’t implicitly or explicitly
the story of a journey.” She refers here to the Bible, the Odyssey, Chaucer, and Ulysses, and
concludes her passage with the observation that one of the lures to all our travel is the “beckoning
of home which is always, forever, just over the next horizon.”
Welcome home, fellow voyager. Now, in summary one cautionary note: there have been 20 million cruise
travelers during the last two years. According to reporters for ABC/TV’s Prime Time program, 14 of
these good folk went missing--as in they fell, jumped or were shoved overboard. Our counsel: learn
to swim, don’t drink too much, and be careful when you’re on deck in the enveloping darkness.
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Outrageous Associations
