Cruising through a vacation

A relaxing day in the Caribbean.

Traveling does more than provide a break from your daily routine. It also allows you to learn about other parts of the world and see and interact with new people. In the process, you collect memories.

I recently returned from my third cruise in three years. Cruising wasn’t something I dreamed of doing years ago, but it is an easy way to visit places far from home. Like many people, I looked forward to traveling during retirement. My wife is not as excited about leaving home, mainly because she hates to pack and she misses our cat.

One of the benefits of cruising is that you have the same room for the duration of your trip, so there is no continual unpacking and packing or living out of a suitcase. Of course, there also is continually changing scenery, lots of food, a variety of entertainment and numerous decks and stairs to walk so you can burn calories from all of that food.

Here is a collection of observations from our recent trip to the Panama Canal.

It’s interesting to watch the people who become part of your temporary community. Some faces you notice numerous times during the trip; others you may see once. Sometimes you remember them because of the way they dress; others because of how they act or interact.

The first people we met were a couple named Marie and Doug from Canada. Marie introduced herself during breakfast at the hotel before the cruise after she noticed that we had prayed before we ate. We have prayed before meals since we started to date. We noticed numerous other couples and groups who also paused to pray before eating. Seeing that gives me hope for the future of this world.

Cargo ships going through the locks of the Panama Canal.

On the morning when we entered the first lock of the canal, most people were up early to get a good viewing spot on the front of the ship. We moved around to see the canal from different vantage points.

At one point, we were at the front, when a woman behind us asked me to move. She was sitting on a deck box about 10 feet from the front railing where others were standing. She told me I was too tall and she couldn’t see. I offered to let her stand in front of me, but she rejected that and wanted a clear view from her seat. I wasn’t the only one in her way, but I found it interesting that I was the target of height discrimination.

We saw what appeared to be several May-December romances – young women with much older men. Of course, those types of conclusions aren’t always accurate. A couple of years ago, I traveled with my sister, her husband and their daughter to Alaska. When the four of us were together, my niece and I sometimes were the target of stares. Some older women looked with disapproval. Some older men looked with apparent jealousy. Knowing the truth, my family found it all amusing.

Toward the end of this cruise, we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship. We saw normally off-limits areas, including the bridge, laundry, engineering, kitchen, food storage, water and sanitation areas and even the morgue. That’s just a part of a community when many of the people are elderly. On this trip, it was used to keep the flowers fresh.

Any time you’re with a tour group, there always is one person who seems to be the center of attention. Sometimes it’s someone who wants to be a comedian and interact one-on-one with the guide. Other times it’s a person who asks more questions than anyone wants to know. On this tour, it was a man named Alvin, who probably was about my age. His first of many observations was how much the tour cost. I kept thinking about the Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore) and was waiting for someone named Dave to scream “Alvin” in frustration.

On that tour, I found it interesting that in some ways the lower deck of the ship reminded me of the lower floor of a newspaper press room, where there is a lot of storage and less decoration.

Perhaps the most interesting person we saw was an elderly woman, who sat alone every night in the dining room. We wondered if that was by choice or circumstance, so we asked the maître-d. He said she is a member of the “president’s club” of frequent cruisers. All the waiters seemed to know her and stopped to talk. Every evening her table was set in advance with four breadsticks as an appetizer.

Halfway through the cruise, we stopped to ask if she’d like to join us for dinner. She politely refused and said she enjoys her time alone. But she chatted for a few minutes and recommended a show on the ship. She shared that she is from New York and was on this ship for 52 days. I would have loved to have heard her story, but we didn’t want to interfere with her privacy. We did stop briefly to say hello during the next few nights.

When I see people like her, I’m intrigued by what might be their interesting life stories. Sometimes those stories aren’t meant to be shared regardless of how fascinating they might be.

I thought it was interesting where some of the onboard programs were held. As expected, the “morning stretch” was in the fitness center. However, “Pain management workshop” and “How to look 20 years younger” were held in the Pinnacle Bar. Some irony there.

Cable cars gave us a view of the rain forest.

This was a 10-day cruise, and that seemed to be a perfect length for us, especially when it included several days at sea to simply relax. 

Most people know that a big part of cruising is all the food, especially at the buffets. It’s easy to gain weight, so we make sure to walk the decks frequently and to always use the stairs instead of the elevators. That means I don’t have to pass on the amazing sticky buns every morning. We try not to give into temptation and eat too much because of all the food that’s available. Some people aren’t as disciplined and overeat because they can. I gai

ned only three pounds on the trip.

It’s always nice when the weather cooperates, and this trip was a good one. It rained one day at sea on the way home and during our tour through the rain forest in Costa Rica. It wouldn’t have seemed right not to have rain in a rain forest.

Perhaps one of the best parts about this vacation was knowing that when we came home we wouldn’t have to go back to work. Retirement provides a wonderful way to recover from a traveling vacation.