By Lee Tulloch
The spa in the Regent Suite of the Seven Seas Explorer cruise liner.Credit:
In the 21st century we don't need to make long journeys across the world's oceans to get anywhere, as they did in the first half of last century.
And yet, ocean cruising increases in popularity each year, with globally 24 million passengers expected to sail away this year.
Those passengers aren't doing it purely to reach a destination; flying takes travellers around the world more quickly and cost-effectively. They're doing it because of the "cruise" in cruising.
The dictionary definition of cruise is "to sail about in an area without a precise destination, especially for pleasure". It's not just applied to sailing but to anything that involves easy pleasure or achievement.
Ocean cruising is a slower form of travel, but that is its attraction. Taking your time to do something can give you a deeper, richer experience of life. When travel ceases to be about getting from A to B or Z, the long space between leaving and arriving can be an event in itself, filled with experiences to savour - this is what I call the "cruise".
Is it better to travel hopefully than to arrive? Perhaps not if you're stuck down the back of an A380 and a 15-hour flight ahead of you. But once you sail away from a port on a cruise ship, you've embarked on a form of travel that is its own reward. Unless you get seasick, of course, in which case the journey may be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
I love watching the white water churn behind the ship as we depart, the port disappearing with my cares. Once I've stepped aboard, I know there's no escaping until the next port, so there's a kind of release of control that lifts the spirits. The sea is a vast, unpredictable entity that deserves respect so the adventure does not come without its dangers, but that only adds to the frisson of excitement. There is also something about a shore glimpsed from sea that is ineffably romantic.
There are lots of practical reasons to love cruising — forgoing all that packing and unpacking is probably number one. On the floating hotel there's no need to lift a finger unless it's to call for a waiter. Whether it's a family cruise or a five-star sailing, a ship can feel like a bubble that bears no relation to everyday life...and that's a good thing.
But the "cruise" is more than this. It can be experienced best on those long days at sea, when there aren't the distractions of shore excursions and there's no hope of getting off. On these days, there's the gentle rhythm of the ship moving (or maybe not so gentle depending on the seas) to give you a sense of going somewhere, but in fact you're not moving unless you care to.
Rather like the movement of a train while you're sitting, there's something very liberating about this, conducive to thinking or daydreaming. You have the space, if you wish, to drift away, not only in a 40,000-tonne vessel, but in your mind as well.
Whether you're just staring out to sea, propping yourself in a deckchair with a book, joining a team playing trivia (I'm very good on the subject of musicals, if you ever want a partner), or pushing a disk around a shuffleboard court, life seems peculiarly retro on a ship, even on one with a climbing wall and X-Box studio. And that, for me, is much of its magic.
White-gloved stewards, apronned maids, butlers, jazz music in the bar, formal dinners, high teas, gentlemen hosts and deckchairs with tartan rugs - some cruise lines go all-out to replicate the glorious heritage of cruising.
But there's something else rather old-fashioned that the cruise does so well - bringing strangers together. In the past, weeks at sea meant that passengers needed to create a social network to make the hours on board as entertaining as possible. So the tradition of the cruise is to provide the socially inclined with an opportunity to meet each other, through organised activities and mixed seating at dinners.
Cruise lines do try to provide everything your heart desires and some of them have 16 decks to do it on. Some people complain there's too much to do, that between meals and bridge classes and film screenings they're run ragged.
But while it's important to grab life with both hands, don't forget to keep the "cruise" in cruising.
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