We finally got home from the holiday on Thursday. Ever since I have alternately been playing catch-up with email, cleaning the house, filling the rubbish bins outside, washing and drying clothes, and chasing my own tail relentlessly. Along the way I discovered a mountain of cardboard stacked in the kitchen, the lawn mower dumped in the garden with it’s extension cable (so it’s probably dead), and mountains of dirty clothes hidden in various places around the house.
I started counting yesterday – I ended up stood at the sink washing up at least six times. I cleaned the kitchen down three times. It just never stops. I think part of it is what the kids think of as “fine” is a million miles from what I think of as “fine”.
Anyway.
I need to empty the thoughts out of my head about “the holiday” while they are still relatively fresh. We saved for two years. It really was the holiday of a lifetime, but it also wasn’t what we expected at all. I’ll try to explain.
The last time we went on a cruise was twenty five years ago – for our honeymoon. We spent about 12 days visiting various ports around the Mediterranean.
At the time the P&O Cruise ships were very much a time portal to a long gone age – with a brass band playing on the dock-side at departure, streamers bedecking the ship, and champagne being handed out to all passengers. On-board, Philippine bar waitresses and Goan dinner waiters were ever-present. Three standards of dress were expected for dinner – “smart casual” (shirt and trousers), “formal”(suit), and “black tie” (dinner jacket). The staff were professional and fast – actively watching your drinks to predict when next to arrive at your table. Fellow passengers were a cross section of people from all ages and backgrounds that had worked hard to be on an aspirational holiday. It was very much a “moveable feast” – travelling from port to port, with “big name” entertainment acts playing in shows each night, and the most exclusive bar on the boat – the “Crows Nest” – had an under-lit dance floors alongside a stage for live music. Along the way, the ship’s newsletter was delivered each day with the on-board itinerary, and at the end of the cruise your cabin steward presented a folder of menus from the main dining restaurant during your time aboard as a keepsake.
That world has gone.
There is now no brass band, no send-off, no streamers, and no champagne. Instead the on-board theatre company do a holiday-camp style song and dance routine during departure. The Philippine waitresses have gone – replaced almost exclusively by East Asian male staff. The three levels of dress have dress have gone – replaced by just “smart casual”, and “black tie”. The dance-floor in the Crows Nest has gone – replaced by a lounge. Perhaps the biggest difference was the nature of the entire enterprise – it no longer felt aspirational at all – and was reflected in the age range of people on board.
The vast majority of passengers – and we’re talking perhaps nine out of ten – were of advanced age. Perhaps seventy years old, or older. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing at all – but when you factor in that many of them were relatively infirm, and seemed to enjoy complaining about anything and everything over any sort of excitement about the countries we were visiting – because many of them had visited many of the places before – it took a fair amount of shine off everything. Given the advanced age of so many people, night life on the ship was pretty much non-existent too – after the second dinner sitting, the entire ship became a ghost town – the memories we had of dancing the night away on packed dance-floors in the various venues on-board simply didn’t happen this time.
A couple of evenings on-board really shone a light on the situation. During the first night on-board, after dinner we went and explored the ship a little – and discovered a dance club venue – with seating for several hundred people, professional lighting, a fully staffed bar, and a DJ playing a great set-list – for nobody. We threw ourselves onto the dance-floor – making our own fun for several numbers – but nobody else appeared – nobody even looked in or walked past. It wasn’t even that late – but it appeared almost everybody on-board had gone to bed. On another night, we wandered up to the most exclusive bar on-board for a drink – again, it wasn’t late – and were shocked to find the staff closing the bar down around us. We never saw more than a handful of people in that bar during the entire cruise at night-time.
Dinner in the main restaurant was another good example. We were in the second sitting – on purpose – sitting down at 8:15pm each evening with a small group we became fast friends with – which it turns out was luckier than we imagined. Perhaps half of the restaurant was empty every night – we were surrounded by empty tables. Our own table – seating eight – started out not being filled. We never saw the couple that should have filled the remaining two seats, so ended up inviting a couple sitting alone at a nearby table for eight to join us for the rest of the trip. It turned out they had originally been seated at a half-filled table for eight, and because they arrived for dinner together on the first night, the elderly couple already at the table presumed they were together, and were gay, so very obviously blanked them – not even acknowledging their presence. You can’t make it up.
On the final night – while being the loudest and last table to leave the restaurant – one of the ladies in question gave me a hug, and thanked me for saving her holiday. It’s funny really isn’t it – all it takes is to take an interest, and to enjoy people’s stories – no matter who they are, where they’re from, or how they choose to live their lives.
I’m probably making it sound worse than it was – but given the scale of the ship, and the quality and size of the venues on-board, it seemed like SUCH a missed opportunity – and I’m inclined to suggest it was caused entirely by the demographic of the majority of the passengers – not the cruise ship’s fault at all.
For a great number of the people aboard the ship, the cruise was not special at all – it was one of a number of cruises they would be doing this year – with many more booked over the years ahead. Each port was no more than a mild curiosity for them – or a hindrance even, given that many never left the ship. I think that really strikes at the heart of the change in the experience – for me at least. Going on a cruise – for me – was aspirational – a life experience. For the vast majority on-board, it wasn’t. Cruises that only cater to adult passengers during term-time have very much become floating retirement communities – with many passengers knowing each other from past cruises, and spending time in the various lounges aboard debating the pros and cons of the various cruise lines, ships, and destinations they had “done”.
The thing I will take away from the experience – that I will remember – will be the destinations we visited – not the ship, or it’s passengers.
The destinations were incredible. I guess I’m easily pleased because I generally find anywhere or anybody interesting. Here’s the funny thing though – while talking to others over dinner, or listening to conversations at breakfast in the buffet restaurant – I discovered the older passengers had the almost diametrically opposed view than I had about almost all of the destinations.
I loved the likes of Bodrum, Athens, Alexandria, Kusadasi, and Tunis – where we were afforded the chance to explore on foot – to visit the bazaars – to see the “real” cities. We were surrounded by so much life – sometimes a little intimidating, smelly, complicated, or messy – but wonderful none the less. Those are the places I will remember. Many fellow passengers seemed to either deliberately join coach trips – avoiding any real experiences at all – or didn’t leave the ship, having “been there, done that”, or “not interested”.
I wish we could have stayed for longer in each city. One day is not enough to even scratch the surface of a city, it’s people, cultures, history, or customs. Saying that, a month would not have been long enough for the likes of Athens or Alexandria.
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