RETHINKING WHAT A CRUISE MEANS

What luxury cruises are really like

It’s a funny thing, our relationship with words and the ideas and imaginings we have behind them.

Take the idea of a cruise.

For me, that conjures up cruise ships the size of hospitals: slow cities on the move that heave into ports and cough up hundreds upon hundreds of people into, say, the waterways of Venice or the golden streets of Dubrovnik before whisking them back to kids clubs, deck pools and corridors of identikit doors.

Perhaps that’s the same for you, perhaps it’s not. Either way, what I find curious is thatI’ve never actually been on one of those cruises, those large ones that live in my mind.

Smaller Cruises. Luxury Cruises

So why do I have that idea? I’ve rustled it up from somewhere, from the odd advert or brochure, perhaps.

Yet when it comes down to it, I’ve plenty of cruise experience.

Smaller cruises. Luxury cruises. Short and longer stay ones (although I’ve yet to cross an ocean except by air, of course.)

In other words: cruises that don’t feel like cruises.

My first ever cruise experience was even called the “un-cruise,” a 20 passenger adventure into the icy wilderness of Alaska.

LUXURY CRUISE THROUGH ALASKA

With so few passengers on board, that wilderness became our own.

The solitary drip, drip, drip of water from the kayak’s blade. The snort and sky-high spray of the humpback whales on Frederick Sound. The spongy moss and sparkling mud that cloaked the blue-tinged glaciers.

And the quiet, green shadows of the Northern Lights at night.

Some six thousand miles away, and a whole wardrobe warmer, I next stepped on board on a very different kind of cruise: into Halong Bay, Vietnam.

Luxury Cruise Through Halong Bay, Vietnam

Here, amid a pink sky and piercing, limestone peaks, the eyes of the world congregate to cruise around the karst for just a night or two.

With Tai Chi at dawn, cooking lessons by day and star-gazing by night, this small luxury cruise blended local culture with the timeless majesty of those limestone peaks slip-sliding over the horizon.

After that, perhaps I was hooked.

Hooked on surround-sound landscape and the kind of wildlife that just swims right by.

So it seemed natural to long to head to the Galapagos.

Luxury Cruise Through the Galapagos

In this pristine wilderness, accessible only by boat, I graduated to what I suppose you’d call a medium-sized cruise aboard La Pinta, with a fellow 47 guests.

Walking tours took us over glassy volcanic swirls while turtles and dolphins accompanied us on the move. Sandy beaches with scarlet crabs glided past craggy rocks with baby seals. Higher up, we searched for nests, for Darwin’s inspiration and the appearance of the incredible blue footed booby.

Yes. It was fair to say I’d found a whole new form of travel to fall in love with.

So why am I telling you all this? Because this month happens to be Plan A Cruise Month,with goings on from guides to Q&As to chats all gathered together under the hashtag #cruisemonth.

And because, perhaps like me, you may have otherwise missed out because you had in your mind a certain idea of what a cruise was like.

http://www.onlinenewspaper.co.in/2016/10/24/rethinking-cruise-means/
#CRUISE_MEANS, #RETHINKING