Back From The Cruise

Welcome Home and Merry Christmas!
That is a real shame about your cruise. My son and I went on a cruise to (well from) Alaska this last summer and it was AWESOME!!
Silver lining like you said, though: You don't have to shell out $$ on a cruise again and they are spendy.

I really fail to see how a cruise is a good time. Several of my coworkers are always counting down the days to their next cruise. If they had a cigar smoking lounge I might be tempted but like Indiana said, what is there to do? And then if you visit the islands you need to be careful because fraud is rampant at the merchants. You get home from a nice cruise and a week later find out you just bought $1000 worth of jewelry. I guess a smaller cruise like wyfbane mentioned would be cool since you can see a lot of nature and what not. Lets not forget all the nasty bugs that can rear their ugly head and cause everyone to get sick or idiot captains who abandon ship at the first sign of trouble or even Mother Nature getting pissed off and throwing some rogue waves at you.

Yeah, I know it is apples and oranges. Our cruise started in Seward, an hit the glaciers one day, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait, and Ketchikan other days. Food was great. Took II (my son is a II, not a JR) to our one fancy dinner and then an onboard restaurant 2 other times. We swam a lot watched stuff. I went to art auctions onboard. It was fun!
In fact it was amazing because I didn't have internet or cable tv the entire week and it was just fine. We had a cigar bar on the tailfan and I was free to smoke out there and read. SO NICE.

At least some woman didn't report you for smoking your pipe.

'frank, you've done us all a favor pointing out the potential shortcomings of cruise vacations. Many people

like to be taken care of and have the food and drink flow in their direction and don't mind the unending

exposure to strangers or temporary "friends." Some Alaskan cruises and some river cruises, and maybe

a few thematic ocean cruises offer more time off the ship/river boat and aren't quite as socially stressful,

but it's difficult to pick out which cruises they are. People with mobility problems, or other health problems,

who can't navigate the rigors of self-initiated travel rely on cruises to get away from home. Be glad you're

not in that boat, so to speak. Happy future travels by some other means. My one major ocean cruise years

ago involved the United States Navy and the coastal combat zone off the DMZ of Vietnam and provided an

expense paid, earn-your-own-way means of seeing the world while listening to small arms fire and defending

against swimmer sappers bearing mines while in harbor. It was ... exciting. After underway replenishment,

I went around and collected four or five airline bottles of brandy supplied by the corpsman from non-drinkers

and had a happy hour and long nap warming up from my ocean bath.

I need to get my glasses checked. I thought the title was Back From The Curse.

Considering your experience, maybe it was.