A Long List to Things to Report

After receiving reams and reams of paper every day in our little mail box (which is one of the very long list of things I am going to reference in our promised post-cruise questionnaire), we have been told our questionnaire will be sent to us by email "in the interests of saving paper". My guess it is more in the interests of limiting responses!

These last few days, it's been quite amusing to hear about people's high and low moments of the trip. The high moments invariably revolve around some on-the-ground experience and the low moments always reference some shortcoming of the ship. Well, except for the poor 87 year-old woman who got in the middle of a fight between two kangaroos and ended up very battered and bruised. That was the low point for her no doubt, but the fact that the ship made her sign something while she was still in shock, and tried to charge her an exorbitant amount to make use of a wheelchair for the rest of her stay until someone intervened brings it back to the gist of the story.

I don't have much to compare it to, cruising not having been my modus operandi for travel to date, so I have been keen to hear Beasy's and other more seasoned cruisers' comments. In general, there is agreement that the ship is safe on the seas, clean and the staff are uniformly wonderfully helpful and pleasant and hardworking.

But, the entertainment is mediocre, the shops are overpriced and poor, the tours are overpriced and (often) poor, the library is a mess, the food is fair but not great, the extra restaurants are not really 'special' and the general décor is shoddy. I am summarising here - the comments were generally more vehement. The best analogy I heard was that it is like staying in a decent Best Western Executive hotel that floats.

So I am not completely won over on cruising. However, being able to sit on our deck and watch the sea and the sky all day long, to connect with the few people we have really enjoyed connecting to, to float in the swimming pool and feel the motion of the sea, to exercise in the (poor) gym and face the bow, seeing miles ahead and watching birds lead the way and to sleep in a bed that rocks and cradles with the motion of the ocean - this I liked very, very much and ache to experience again.

Maybe on a smaller boat, perhaps with sails, one that skips past and through islands that are not so different as to require more time spent on them to get under their skin culturally speaking. One that provides more information about where we are and less about how to spend time doing things other than being at one with that ocean.

It has been the most wonderful trip though - no shortcomings of any greedy corporation could negatively impact the wonderful time we've had, my mom and I, travelling together, listening to each other's stories, sharing each other's thoughts and feeling each other's spirit.