Santorini, Greece © Russell Johnson
Where are the surly waiters? Where are the soggy pommes frites? Where is the water blasting out of the showerhead like an Arctic squall? Where are all of those travel horror stories that you laugh about later?
Some people I know think travel means travail, that Christ-like suffering is honorable and that cruising is sensory euthanasia. I suggest that they "get a life" (albeit an expensive one) and try, just once, one of the luxury cruise ships. A cruise on a good luxury ship can be like floating weightlessly in a bullshit deprivation tank. It can also be quite enjoyable.
I have only taken one body painting, silly-hat, cheap party cruise…to Mexico. It featured your standard failed lounge singer, your standard-issue ventriloquist, a clique of passengers who, like pig and yam-eating islanders, probably thought that showing off the bulges under their tight Disney tee shirts made them look "chiefly". The pre-teen boys that ran around all night in packs didn’t help matters either, as did the fact that the highlight of the cruise was a stop in Ensenada.
Sorry, but I’m not a party kind of guy.
My Mediterranean sojourn on the Seabourn Spirit was a more civilized sort, thank you.