Don't Miss the Boat

Maybe I scared them, or maybe they didn't consider me fun, either. All I know is that the wife ducked inside the first store we passed. The husband made it clear they weren't planning to go in my direction, saying from the doorway, "We don't want to go to the beach."

I feel relieved of my self-imposed responsibility and happily settle at an outdoor table of a nice restaurant on the beach. I'm minding my own business when a British guy at least 20 years my junior at the next table asks if he can join me. He says he's a golf pro and is in Playa to check out a new course. I take a rather motherly interest in this handsome young man, who seems a bit lonely. It seems a little odd when he suggests that we take a swim, but there aren't any lifeguards in sight, so the buddy system seems like a good idea.

We head into the waves, and soon he makes it clear his interest is more Oedipal than innocent. Like any faithful wife, I'm still capable of being flattered by attention, but no thanks. I say I'm going to go arrange a snorkel tour. He warns me that a lot of the boat operators on the beach aren't insured and that their safety might be questionable. I say I'm not worried.

In fact, though, he has made a good point: I should have paid a little extra to book through the cruise line, which vets operators. Still, I pretend to be heading down the beach for a trip, but when well away, find total contentment by renting a beach chair and umbrella. I happily while away my remaining shore hours with a Hemingway biography I picked up in Key West.

Back on the Imagination, I've missed the early dinner seating to which I've been assigned, but the maitre d' finds me a place at a later seating. A little girl at the table says she has so many cousins she can't count them all, and this begins a conversation between me and her father about his large family. He asks about my family, and I tell him I'm married and have one child.

"Don't take this personally," he says, "but I think it's mean to have only one child. They need brothers and sisters; it's very important."

"How could I not take that personally?" I retort, before leaving the table, even though my dinner had been ordered.

I head to the pool deck and gather some food from the buffet. The thing about cruises is, if you don't like the people you find yourself dining with, you can just move. With a bit of luck, you'll find someone more to your liking -- like maybe yourself.

Epilogue

The best thing about a last-minute cruise, beyond the remarkable savings possible, is the feeling of savoir-faire it gives you: I might seem an uptight Washington establishment type, but did you hear how I pulled this devil-may-care, I'm-getting-out-of-here thing?

Then again, even last minute, I could have spent a little more time thinking about the personality of the ship I was taking. At the risk of seeming a snob, a ship with a hairy chest contest is probably going to provide little more than, as Democracy Travel's Dolan puts it, "a trip on a ship."

Back home, I call travel agent Maxwell and ask what type of cruise she would have recommended for me, had I taken a few minutes to call her in advance.

The very short Caribbean trips on older Carnival ships -- anything built in the 1990s is considered an ark in the cruise world -- tend to attract a higher-than-usual ratio of cruisers from the beer-and-tank-top crowd, she says. She figures me as more of a white wine type, and says she would have suggested Celebrity or Holland America as both affordable and sophisticated -- this, of course, assuming I can't afford the real high-end lines, such as Regent Seven Seas.

That's no doubt sound advice. Last week, with little effort, I found last-minute seven-day Caribbean cruises on Holland America for as low as $461 per person for an ocean-view cabin for next month. Celebrity had five nights starting at $299, same time frame.

But even if I wasn't on the perfectly matched cruise, I've arrived home relaxed. With those few extra laid-back summer days under my belt, along with a couple of midnight buffets, I'm enjoying the beautiful autumn days and looking forward to the changing of the leaves.