Cruise Characters

Cruising is an interesting way to travel. It has become a real cult for some people and they book their cruises nearly as an exclusive way to get away from home. It is a very comfortable and safe way to be pampered, with just a bit of exploration. A cruise takes all the hassle out of travel and if you have cruised before you know what to expect. We have had four cruises now, and I have to say that I have observed some very predictable characters that you will find on just about any cruise ship. No one falls into just one category, but see if you recognize yourself in any of the following:

The Shopper: The cruise lines tempt you with their shops and sales. The world’s greatest shopper seems to always buy a new watch on every cruise. Each day of the cruise there will be a special sale of some class of items you cannot live without. These include perfumes, gems, cruise line logo wear, watches and the list goes on. The objective is to have you spend all your shipboard credits (used to entice you on to the cruise) and then get you into spending new money. As wonder woman can attest you can go through a lot of those credits by using the spa. A massage, manicure, pedicure, and leg treatment (whatever that is) can make a big dent. The bigger the ship the more shops and opportunities to satisfy that buying urge. Everyone has a bit of shopper in them!

The Sun Worshiper: As you walk on to the pool and hot tub decks you immediately see signs everywhere that say not to save the deck chairs and lounges. Ha! If you arrive after 8 a.m. the place is covered with books, towels, hats, and related paraphernalia, but very few people. Obviously, this is a very tough issue for the cruise staff. They don’t want people to be left out of the sun worshiping, but they also do not want to irritate their guests by being deck police. Oh heck, I get bored lying in the sun anyway.

The Professional: In the back of my mind I knew that some people were really addicted to cruises, but I had no idea to what extent. On our recent cruise to the Caribbean, we were by ourselves, so at every meal we asked to share a table. Thus we talked to a lot of people and found out how really serious some people were about this travel “genre”. Over half the people on our ship had traveled on this cruise line before. We talked with many people who were on their 20th, 30th, or even a higher number of cruises. Our cruise line, Oceania, has only been in existence since 2002, and there was a lady on board who was on her 18th cruise with Oceania. Figure out how many cruises a year she must take!

The Impaired: You always hear a lot of comment about how cruising is for those really “old” people! On our previous cruises I really did not feel the guests were really old, just maybe middle aged. Needless to say we are not traveling on the “young family” cruise lines like Walt Disney or Carnival. However, on our recent cruise there were some really, really old people there. I am going to attribute this to their always escaping from the cold of the northeast to the warmth of the Caribbean and just haven’t bought a condo or mobile home in the Florida tornado alley! And how did I know there were so many old people? It is a tip-off when you see a whole lot of people on a ship with walkers, canes, wheel-chairs, and motorized scooters. Thank goodness there is a doctor and nurse on the ship because there were always people falling down on our shore excursions.

The Players: On a cruise, especially on “at sea” days, there are so many things you can find to do. My idea is to sit down and read a book or take a nap. Others however, are constantly going from one playing activity to another all day long. The options seem endless. You can partake in golf putting, shuffleboard, ping pong, team trivia, wine sampling, martini sampling, dancing lessons (preferably before you sample wine and martinis), mahjong, bridge lessons, political and history lectures, computer lessons, and for total addiction just sit down all day in the casino.

The Affinities: A good part of the ship population can be taken up with the affinities. These are groups who have booked together and have something in common. They tend to stick pretty much together and have special events such as before dinner cocktail parties that we weren’t invited to. On our most recent cruise these groups included the Texas A&M alumni, the Victoria, British Columbia, ballroom dance club, and a group of 50+ who always book together from Sun Tours in Albuquerque. You sure couldn’t miss the “Aggies” as they were always wearing lanyards with ID cards and had signs on their stateroom doors that said “Aggie on Board”. They are obviously not traveling incognito.

The Drinker: Speaking of wine, martinis, and cocktail parties, there are just an incredible number of ways on a cruise to hit the booze. If you sit down in any public area expect to talk with a cocktail waitress. You can drink in any of the four restaurants, pool deck, casino, cocktail lounges, entertainment lounge, your room service, and in the disco club. My, you do have to pace yourself, but keep in mind you have to use up all those shipboard credits!

The Staff: One of the really fun things about a cruise, particularly on a smaller cruise ship, is meeting and talking with the staff. On Oceania every staff member wears a name tag which includes their country of origin. They are more than willing to talk about themselves, their work experiences, and the pride they have in their cruise line. The staff was very international and really there are very few Americans. However, they all speak excellent English and had received excellent training.

The Eaters: You cannot discuss a cruise without visualizing all the characters that are eating - seemingly all the time! It must be a contest between cruise lines as to who has the best and the most eating experiences. To start with, you have 24 hour room service and so you might never leave your room while eating all the time. It was surely more fun to eat breakfast in the grand dining room enjoying white tablecloth breakfasts and choices from smoked salmon to breakfast steaks. Being still hungry you could go to the cooking class taught by the Executive Chef and sample all the food demos. Then move on to lunch and you could go formal or casual. You could eat gourmet sandwiches, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, or full multi-course lunches, or an 80 foot buffet. In the mid-afternoon why not enjoy the ice cream and milk shake bar! Certainly you can’t make it all the way to dinner so take in the 4 p.m. tea, with all the little sandwiches, and elegant desserts. You could then roll right out of the tea into happy hour so you can wash down all the food and satisfy your appetite with peanuts and pretzels! Finally you could fill yourself up with a five course (at least 2 ½ hour) dinner. The choices were endless with the formal grand dining room, the steak specialty restaurant, the Italian restaurant, or the Tapas buffet. And please don’t forget the wine and drinks at dinner so you can work on those credits! And to complete the day, don’t forget to enjoy the mint left on your pillow, next to the Tums you placed on the nightstand.

Check out the Caribbean Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mawarren.chelan/CaribbeanWebAlbum2010#  

Cruising – An Interesting, Relaxing & Carefree Experience

                The Nautica, Oceania Cruise Line

Judging by the growth of the cruise industry over the past few years most people reading my article may have already had a cruise experience. On the other hand if it is true that only 10% of Americans have passports, maybe you have not been on a cruise. In either case read on for new information or just compare my comments with your own previous cruise experience. A cruise is really an easy way to travel. No driving, most of your travel decisions have been made for you, no unpacking every night, and good food all the time. If you use a travel agent (you should as this is the last bastion of free travel service) all of the details, flight arrangements, hassle, and thinking has been taken care of by your travel expert. It is an obvious popular way to vacation as the industry, and the number of ships, is quickly growing, while travel in general has been declining.

You can customize your cruising choice, as certain ships and cruise companies cater to individual tastes. Mary Ann and I prefer smaller ships with fewer passengers, with a lot of port stops. With fewer passengers, the ports visited do not become so overwhelmed by the visitors. Other ship options can include history emphasis, party ships, ships for children, college alumni groups, long ocean trips, and the list goes on. Recently, we completed a 13 day cruise (our third cruise) in the Eastern Mediterranean with Oceania Cruises on the “Nautica”. Many cruise passengers are older and our cruise was no exception. The average age was 68 (hooray, we were below the average), there were no children on board, and all the activities and entertainment were focused on this age bracket. The Nautica had just 684 passengers, but there were 400 members of the crew to spoil us. Oceania Cruises is a pretty high end operator and pride themselves on unusual ports of call and very few “at sea” days.

The Nautica was truly elegant, and exceedingly well run. Their business plan must be working as the company has two more ships under construction. There was a completely international crew from over 30 countries (all speaking English) and were very well trained to spoil and pamper you. The cuisine, in both quantity and quality, was exceptional. We had our choice of five restaurants, plus throw in high tea in the lounge, appetizers with happy hour, and 24 hour room service all adding up to serious eating. The cruising food formula does not let you pay for anything while on the ship, except for alcohol and wine.

Judging by the mailings I receive, the cruise industry is targeting affinity groups like universities and professional associations. Our cruise on Nautica was in that category as there were 62 Notre Dame Alumni passengers. However you select a cruise, I think it is more fun to have some friends along. We have had friends with us on two cruises, and we were alone on one. On this trip four couples traveled together and I think we all had a wonderful time. If you are not an aggressive new friend maker, traveling with a few friends just shares the fun (and the conversations). Uh, oh, I am now probably in trouble with wonder woman. I am sure I really like talking to her all the time!

Living on the ship gives you a lot of options. These included a casino, art auctions, cooking classes, computer classes, wine tasting, history lectures, martini tasting, exercise gym, spa, many choices of evening entertainment, and all sorts of deck sports including hot tubs and swimming pool. However, the main way the cruise line supplemented the cruising flat fee was to encourage shore tours when in port. Depending on the tour length, from four to eight hours, you could end up paying from $80 to $175 per person per tour. We carefully picked and chose from the extensive array of tours and selected four tours over the 13 days. At several ports where the pier (or tendering from the ship) was right in a downtown area, we just walked off the ship and explored or shopped on our own.

Even for someone like Mary Ann and I, who mostly like to travel and explore on our own, cruising once and awhile is a lot of fun and a nice change of pace. Our three cruises have been spread over 15 years, and they seem to be getting better and better (maybe that is because we are getting older and older). There are hundreds, if not thousands, of prices and choices available from the many cruise lines. Check out the brochures and cruise materials from a travel agent and start dreaming. Many of the itineraries offered these days are very exciting and in some exceptional parts of the world.

“Doesn’t Everyone Want to go to Albania?”

           Waterfront promenade in Sarande, Albania

I have to admit, that I may be a bit strange. Our kids think Mary Ann and I are just plain crazy, but surely they are just exaggerating. My slight quirkiness may have exhibited itself on a recent cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean. Was I hyped about stopping in Rhodes, Milos, Santorini, Corfu, or Dubrovnik? Of course not, I was excited about a stop in Saranda, Albania! Anybody can go the Santorini.

Now just how often in your lifetime do you have a chance to visit Albania? This little country emerged from the dark ages of a very repressive form of communism only eight years ago. Very few U.S. citizens have ever been there, so how could you not have this right at the top of your travel list? For some perspective there is only one international airport (Mother Theresa International – she was a native daughter of Albania) located in the capital city of Tirana. There are only three paved airports in the entire country. Where is Albania? On the east it faces the Ionian Sea opposite Italy, Greece on the south, Macedonia on the east, and Serbia, and Montenegro on the north. It is physically a small country with 3 ½ million people and the poorest economically in Europe. For a full overview of Albania and its current situation take a look at the profile of Albania : https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/al.html.

Fortunately, in order to satisfy my travel quirk, our cruise line had a port stop in Saranda, Albania (hmmm, we were the only cruise ship in Saranda while there were 12 cruise ships in Dubrovnik, Croatia – go figure!). Saranda is one of the main (only?) resort towns in Albania with about 40,000 residents. It is trying hard to emerge from the 46 years of communist suppression resulting in a totally isolated country. Currently there is 25% unemployment which explains why 7 million Albanians are living elsewhere in the world. There was a lot of construction in Saranda, but much of it was abandoned or unfinished. There were a few upscale hotels and a very nice waterfront promenade. There was not yet a lot of tourist infrastructure.

The rumors were that if you took a tour out of Saranda, the buses would be without springs, there would be no air conditioning, and any bathrooms would be the proverbial hole in the ground. This did not seem to be very appealing to “wonder woman”, but it certainly was not a deterrent for me! We took a tour to Butrint, a UNESCO World Heritage site about 12 miles south of Saranda. The road was a narrow one lane highway, but it was paved. For goodness sake, what more could you ask for. The bus was up to our air conditioned soft ride western standards. It did take some time to travel the 12 miles as everyone had to stop at wide places on the road so either the bus or the oncoming traffic (usually old Mercedes) could pass by. You see a lot of trash and litter about, but no more than in many emerging and developing countries.

Butrint is an amazingly restored archeological site that goes back to the Greek occupation in the 3rd Century B.C. The ruins then trace the subsequent Roman occupation up through 500 A.D. and finish off with a Venetian fortress atop the hill from about 1500 A.D. The entire site is set on a peninsula which juts out into Lake Butrint which is connected to the Ionian Sea. Helen of Troy is rumored to have been a one time resident, but she did not seem to be around when we were there.

Following our walk about the restored and excavated ruins, and having completed our tour around the entire peninsula and up to the fort, we had time for refreshments at a perfectly respectable café just outside the gate. Mary Ann assures me their restroom was very acceptable, modern and clean, and certainly not just a hole in the floor. All I can say is that those passengers on the ship who did not take advantage of this rare chance to visit Albania certainly missed out. World travelers must be brave and ready to experience some less than ideal conditions. It would be interesting to see how Saranda might have changed by returning in a few years!

                          Sarande, Albania

“Istanbul – The exciting Mixture of Europe & Asia”

                      Istanbul Blue Mosque

I am certainly not a travel agent but I immensely enjoy the planning and researching of foreign travel. A year in the making was an adventure for four couples from Wenatchee and Chelan. The ultimate goal was a cruise from Istanbul, Turkey into the Aegean Sea, through the Greek Isles, up the Adriatic Sea to Albania and Dubrovnik, Croatia and ending in Athens, Greece.

The planning progressed, and with my suggestions, we all had fun with my new nickname, “no fees – no commissions.” The challenge was to carve some of the expenses off the cruise quote, expand the days in Istanbul and Athens, beat the pre and post cruise prices for hotels (as offered by the cruise line), and hopefully avoid domestic U.S. airlines (who seem to have a business plan of irritating their customers) while arranging direct flights to Europe out of Seattle. But really, I digress, as this article is really about the fun and excitement of Istanbul. How we did with these challenges of modern travel will hopefully be interwoven into this and subsequent articles.

Amazingly at Ataturk Airport, at midnight (after what surely must have been weeks of flying on British Airways from Seattle to London, and then on to Istanbul) we were charged awake from our lethargy by the very alive airport and one of the world’s 24 hour cities (13 million residents) which seemingly never sleeps. From our experience at SeaTac airport at night we had the impression that all airports are pretty sleepy at midnight, but not Ataturk. It was exploding with arrivals, bus and car traffic jams, and this continued right into the city where at 1 a.m. people were still enjoying the life of the city. We, of course, collapsed and hoped for morning energy.

We had opted for two extra days in Istanbul before joining the cruise ship. Our hotel was a delightful very Turkish 16 room hotel in the heart of Old Istanbul just two blocks from most of the major sites in the Sultanahmet district. The hotel, the Keybele, was a site in itself. About 4 stories tall, it was packed with antiques and was very unique with over 4,000 Turkish style ceiling lights all over the hotel. We counted over 70 just in our room and there still was not enough light to properly read a book. So much for oriental décor! The owner was a very gregarious person and must have talked with and helped every guest. Like most Turks he also sold carpet in a nearby business, and had us visit his Turkish Tribal Art Museum and Gallery.

A good travel tip is to arrange an orientation tour the first day in a new and strange city. This will give you the lay of the land for further exploration. Thus the eight of us were off the first day in a mini-van and private guide to explore the main “don’t miss” features of Old Istanbul. These included the Hagia Sophia Church and Mosque (now a state secular museum), the hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, the Spice Market, and the Grand Bazaar. Interspersed over two days, we enjoyed lunches and views on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait, Sea of Marmara, and Golden Horn, and trips across the Galata Bridge into New Istanbul.

Istanbul is truly beautiful, with all of the water dividing portions of the city, and splitting the city between Europe and Asia. The waters of the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara, and the Golden Horn inlet are all in constant motion with hundreds of ferries, the transit of freighters, the many cruise ships, and the tour boats going everywhere. As a day of exploration we opted for a tour boat going the length of the Bosphorus Strait from Istanbul to the Black Sea. This was the bargain of the trip with a roundtrip fare of about $10. We had a great opportunity to view the many mansions along the Strait and a fresh fish lunch at a small town on the Asian side.

With these adventures behind us, we settled into the Oceania Cruise Line ship Nautica. We departed into the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles with the beauty of a darkening city and a rising moon, and the many views of ancient Istanbul. The saga continues.

                 Ready to hit the streets of Istanbul

(Published in Winter 2010 ABA Senior Lawyers Division

“The Voice of Experience” newsletter)