the Culture of Cruising

We recently returned from a week-long Caribbean Cruise on Carnival. It was my first cruise, and I wasn't 100% excited about the idea, but I went along with it anyway. Cruising turned out to be a lot of fun! And none of the bad stuff I was worried about happened (seasickness, norovirus, shipwreck, being stranded at sea...) so that was nice.

We had 4 sea days and 3 port days. This means we had a lot of time aboard to interact with our 3,500+ fellow passengers. Some things I observed:

1. Home state pride. This cruise departed from New Orleans, so many people on board were from Louisiana. And they were proud of it! I'm glad I already had lived in the south for almost a year before taking this cruise because otherwise it would have been kind of disorienting to hear so many people talking about college football and other Southern things. The first night during the Welcome Aboard show, a raucous chant of "LSU! LSU!" broke out, and when the host said something about Auburn, there was lots of booing.

During the week, everyone kept saying "Who dat?" in response to someone asking about Louisiana and/or New Orleans. I found out that is a chant for the Saints.

2. People like to make fun of Cajuns. Cajuns are descendants of French-speaking settlers of Louisiana, and they've created their own unique subculture. Apparently they are now most famous for being on a show called "Swamp People." I really knew hardly anything about Cajuns before except that their food is usually spicy. The ship had comedy shows almost every night, and one comedian spent most of his show making fun of Cajuns. The audience was roaring! I mean, falling out of their chairs, laughing so hard some people were crying. I really didn't get what was so funny. You probably have to know some Cajuns to understand.

3. There was a lot of food available. I got the feeling that Carnival was trying to fatten us all up. There is literally some food option available 24/7 on the ship. Breakfast in various forms can be found from 6:30am - 1:00pm. There are 5 or 6 lunch options. You've got an assigned time for dinner, but you can also hit up the buffet. In between, there are numerous snack opportunities, as well as the midnight snack time. On the last day they had this lavish chocolate decadence bar that was overflowing with desserts. To be honest, I was kind of grossed out by the end of the week. And no wonder norovirus spreads quickly on ships! People are always eating, and you're serving yourself with common buffet utensils, then eating with your hands! I always used silverware on board and washed my hands frequently. Call me paranoid, but I didn't get sick :)

Now that I'm a cruising veteran, I can say that I think this type of vacation has its place. If there if somewhere you want to visit but not spend a very long time, or if you enjoy just getting away from it all and letting a travel company take care of all the details, then a cruise might be the right choice. For me, I usually prefer having more time to explore new places and experience different aspects of cultures - more than you can see in a half-day excursion. I also like having some actual peace and quiet once in awhile.

Home Sweet Home :)