One: Baa baa I don’t want to be treated like a two-legged fucking sheep
and herded every-where like kids on their first day at school.
Two: I want to get away from people when I travel, relax on
my own in a place of my choosing where, if I so desire, I can stay or leave. Your average ship cabin resembles a prison cells only smaller and endless ocean out of the port-hole as opposed to striped-sunlight.
Three: Which-ever way you look at it a boat is simply a
floating hotel. Who the hell wants to spend most of their holiday in a hotel? A hotel where the predominate view outside is water and the occasional seagull.
Four: When you travel overseas surely you want to meet the
locals not sit next door to a couple from the same town over another ghastly smorgasbord?
What is the point in visiting a country and not embracing their culture, food in
preference to ‘retreating’ every night to your English speaking cosy version of Red Lobster combined
with the The Hilton? A tacky floating Las Vegas.
Five: The lack of adventure. I enjoy exploring places, going
into seedy bars, listening to a local band, going to a remote beach with two dogs as
company, watching sport in a pub with locals. Meanwhile on the cruise ship they
are running bingo and the elderly lady from cabin 2187 has had an angina
attack and is in the infirmary. The only real excitement on-board is the prospect of some-one jumping over the side, only you'll be tucked-up in bed since it's 9 o'clock and miss all the 'excitement'.
Six: You only get to visit ports. Lyttelton (Christchurch)
is definitely not indicative of Canterbury and the South Island as a whole. Think
of the closest port to you. Is that the best place to recommend to a tourist?
Seven: They fuck up pristine coastal town for other
travellers. A huge behemoth vessel pulls up to port and deposits large numbers
of waddling sloth-like tourists, some vessels carry 5,000 plus, into a small village thus destroying
its integrity for everyone. The town is swamped and on-shore all you meet are the people you had breakfast with.
Eight: Old people, let’s be brutally honest you’ll be stuck
in an environment with thousands of people who are either physically challenged or adopted
a mentally old, lazy attitude to travel. No one who is remotely interesting goes on a
cruise.
Nine: When you ‘visited’ a place you never really ‘visited’
it in the truest sense. How can anyone see
say the island of Santorini for half a day and truly say they experienced the
island after buying a tea-towel. It’s like transferring at Dubai Airport and saying you’ve been there.
Ten: Americans. Who wants to be stuck in a confined space
with the world’s worst, rudest predominant cruise-ship travellers?
1 comment:
I agree with pretty much everything you said, except that this is a pretty short-sighted comment to say that Americans are the 'worst' and 'rudest'...it is the genre of person that boards a cruise ship that determines their personality, and not their nationality.
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