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On a cruise open thread

Jill

Sorry posting has been light this week — I’m with the Nation magazine on a cruise through Nova Scotia. It is very interesting, but also cruises are very weird. And there’s extremely limited, extremely expensive internet. Have you ever gone on a weird but kind of great vacation? Discuss below.

11 thoughts on On a cruise open thread

  1. I went on a cruise to Southeast Alaska when I was 15, with my family. We flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, first. Then we boarded the ship for a week-long trip.

    My grandmother enjoyed the more upscale ships, which meant that ours was peopled mostly by senior citizens. I’ve learned since then that the lower priced cruises appeal to younger folks who can afford them. Being around people the age of my Grandparents for a week solid took some getting used to, for sure.

    After the cruise was over, we took the ferry from Vancouver into Victoria. After a day of sight-seeing, we rented a van and then found a nearby hotel. We made the mistake of leaving most of our luggage in the rental car. The next morning, we found that most of it had been stolen.

    I suppose we must have been hard to confuse as anything other than tourists. Some of it was ditched at a local train station, but the thief or thieves kept some of our clothes.

    I enjoyed Alaska. It felt far removed from any place I’d ever been before. It rained constantly and felt chilly, very much like what I thought of as fall weather, even during the first week of June. I remember getting confused while walking down the streets of Juneau, thinking that autumn had arrived far earlier than it ever had before.

    Alaska is sparsely populated and some of the people I encountered there would have fit in well in a Twin Peaks episode.

  2. ” I’m with the Nation magazine on a cruise through Nova Scotia. It is very interesting, ”

    Nice perk Jill. I’m jealous. I hope you have a great time.

  3. Went to Antarctica in 1999. Wonderfully strange and beautiful. The nice thing about cruises is the LACK of internet.

    1. Ugh, that’s cool. I have a friend who worked for awhile in Antarctica – what did he say about it? That it was like a church lock-in that lasted for months only everyone was increasingly drunk.

        1. In my experience, a church lock-in is when a bunch of church-going kids hold a massive slumber party inside the church building. Sugary, caffeinated drinks are consumed and everyone stays up all night long, acting hyperactive.

          They’re great fun, especially when you’re around 11!

        2. Yeah, what Comrade Kevin said, basically! A massive slumber party held in a church. I went to a shitload of them growing up. Everyone did – you didn’t have to be a member of the church and after about 9p they usually kind of shut down the churchy aspects and you’d spend the rest of the night playing in the church’s sports facilities and like having heart-to-hearts in the stairwell with your closest bros.

        3. On the plus side, church lock ins can be a fun, safe(r) way for teens to have an all night party free from drugs and alcohol (depending on how closely the chaperones check bags when the teens arrive).

          On the negative side, I’ve seen some shady spiritual manipulation take place during lock ins, such as waiting til the very end of the event to do an emotional prayer service with a come-to-Jesus “altar call” when the teens are sleep deprived and more emotionally vulnerable.

        4. On the plus side, church lock ins can be a fun, safe(r) way for teens to have an all night party free from drugs and alcohol (depending on how closely the chaperones check bags when the teens arrive).

          On the negative side, I’ve seen some shady spiritual manipulation take place during lock ins, such as waiting til the very end of the event to do an emotional prayer service with a come-to-Jesus “altar call” when the teens are sleep deprived and more emotionally vulnerable.

          Yeah, true true. I grew up Pentecostal and I wouldn’t be surprised if this kind of thing went down at my former church’s lock-ins.

          When I was a teenager, though, the ones I went to (mostly at a college-focused Baptist church or the bigger Methodist church in town) were the best kind – no bag checks, no supervision, minimal Jesus, donuts in the morning!

  4. I’ve rarely been on Real Vacation. I’ve been places, but I was either on, like, an abroad study (for most of the time I spent in Europe) or working (Alaska).

    The ~weirdest vacation I ever took was probably to Branson with my family when I was 13. My grandparents had decided we would ‘just love’ all the ‘adorable’ shows. I mean, I was thirteen. I hated it. We went to the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede and to see a bunch of magicians. But looking back it’s kind of hilarious.

  5. Never been on a cruise, but I just saw your Quebec City pictures on tumblr.. QC is one of my absolute favorite places! I hope you’re enjoying it!

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