Tag Archives: cruise

Cruising Into Another World

Scenes like this are quite common at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

Somewhere between the $14.3-million Hargrave custom yacht and the 200-foot Diamonds are Forever, it hit me: this must be how the one-tenth of one-tenth of one percent live. If you’ve never attended the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in South Florida, then you might not appreciate the parade of wealth on display at the Las Olas Marina. Within a mile-long strip of dock frontage on the southeast coast of Florida, about $3 billion worth of exotic boats, cars and other merchandise converge in late October to attract more than 130,000 visitors from around the world. From Oct. 25 to 28, I had the privilege to attend the 53rd ... [Read More]

The Art of Cruising

I’ll admit that I’ve always held a stereotypical if not openly cynical image of vacation travel aboard a cruise ship -- matched-clothing couples swapping surgery stories over a game of shuffleboard, bloated bodies on sun decks ordering trays of crème puffs between meals, and those stimulating conversations at your pre-assigned group dining table -- “Now Arthur, put that down. You know how fried foods give you terrible gas.” Cruises are for, well, old folks -- not adventurous sixty-somethings like Carol and me! I mean, where on a cruise would be our usual European adventure of hauling overstuffed bags up narrow hotel stairways to tiny, ill-equipped rooms (“The ... [Read More]

Sinking of the Concordia

It's a long horrifying story of the traumatic impact; people, objects, furnishings flying; the confusion, loss of power, the earpiercing sirens causing babies and children to scream from fright and pain; generations of families vacationing, pregnant women holding dear to their unborns, while the crew held back stampeding humans desperate to get on lifeboats, all competing in volume to be heard. Only 50% of the lifeboats were available, shifting all the weight to the evacuating side with dangling lifeboats filled to capacity and slowing the evacuation. Hysteria became less contained. It was a major scene from a disaster movie. The shore of the tiny island littered with ... [Read More]