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Wednesday, August 23, 2000
Bing bong! "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Matt, your entertainment director. Don't forget that at 2 today there will be competitive golf-ball chipping in the Lido pool, followed at 3 by an ice-carving demonstration by members of our talented catering staff. At 4:30 there's another round of Snowball Bingo with Kevin the Bingo King in the Vermeer Lounge. You can't get paid if you don't play!"
Yep, I'm back from my very first cruise. Went to Alaska with my mom, and it was her first cruise, too. Cruises are all about service and luxury, and -- maybe this says something unfortunate about my life -- as delightful as the experience is, it is like spending a week in the Twilight Zone.
For one thing, the priorities seem a little skewed. The staff did a lot of things for me that I don't consider burdensome to do myself. I can put my own napkin in my lap, thanks. I can open up my own bed to get in it at night. What really feels like luxury to me is to have my own time to myself. And that they weren't always willing to give me. I haven't spent so much time waiting in lines since the first week of college. Even the DMV doesn't make you wait in lines like that anymore.
We waited in a mammoth line to board the ship. I waited in a line to return some vouchers at the Shore Excursions Office, and it was then that I realized the true meaning of the title "Glacier Discovery Cruise": The line moved at a rate of 10-12 inches a year.
But the longest, most agonizing lines were created specially for our enjoyment by the crack corps of ship's photographers (motto: "And ready and -- " ). Mom doesn't like to have her picture taken anymore; she says she doesn't know who this old lady is who always seems to be standing where she was. As for me, I haven't had more than two or three good pictures taken since the age of 7, and the one accompanying this column is one of them (Thank you, John Beale.).
So neither of us was interested in being photographed. It was easy enough to decline, but we still had to wait in the endless queues. It was like having to sit in a traffic jam even though you don't want to look at the accident.
No, I don't want my photo taken with a poster before I get on the ship. I'm not even having fun yet!
No, I don't want my photo taken with the captain. And hey -- if he's here shaking 1,300 hands, who's driving?
No, I don't want my photo taken while I'm eating and have radicchio in my teeth.
No, I don't want my photo taken with a guy wearing an eagle costume. Would you?
The weirdest photo op of all was a "glamorous" portrait available on formal-wear nights. You and your companion could be photographed in front of a backdrop depicting the main staircase of the Titanic, which strikes me as being not only cheesy but in rather questionable taste under the circumstances.
Oh, the crew assured us there were plenty of lifeboats for everyone. Our first day aboard we had a lifeboat drill just so that, in the event we plowed full-tilt into an iceberg, there wouldn't be chaos and people trapped in steerage and Leonardo DiCaprio going all blue.
The drill was not optional. We were informed that anyone who attempted to blow it off would be sternly summoned to a remedial lifeboat drill the next day.
So we put on our puffy orange life jackets and went up on deck to stand near our assigned lifeboats. Mom had her jacket on inside out and I had mine tied wrong, so deckhands tied us in properly while we stood like obedient toddlers.
I was almost surprised to hear that it's still women and children first; men were instructed to stand back against the ship while the rest of us stood by the rail. (As if half these guys wouldn't be on a cell phone to their lawyers with one hand, and shoving us out of their way with the other.) Meanwhile, the kids had all discovered the emergency whistles on the vests and were making a sound like a London bobby convention.
At length, after the roll was called, we were allowed to return sheepishly to our cabins, bumping each other with our flotation gear and apologizing. Without even a "well done" from the captain or a chorus of "Nearer My God To Thee" or anything. But we were glad to get it over with, because I can't imagine anything more tedious than a remedial lifeboat drill.
Except maybe having my picture taken attending it.
Samantha Bennett can be reached by e-mail a sbennett@post-gazette.com