Big Ships, Quick Trips
For cruising, don't block out a chunk of time. All you need are a few spare days.

By Andrea Sachs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 5, 2008

The captain woke me up, then freaked me out.

"Some of you may have gotten up this morning and not seen any land," Capt. Roger Gustavsen announced over the speaker, his strong and steady voice rousing hundreds of passengers aboard the Norwegian Sky.

Could this be a tale of a fateful trip that started from a Miami port?

Our ship had been scheduled to arrive that morning at Norwegian Cruise Line's private island, Great Stirrup Cay, after a full night of sailing. In my windowless, changing-room-size cabin, I was already a bit confused, never quite knowing day from night, sky from sea. Adding to the confusion was my itinerary. I was headed to the second destination aboard the first boat on the third day of my trip. I still had two more ships, six ports (including Miami twice) and eight days left. So, when the captain informed us that there was no land on the horizon, I felt my body start to spin in a disorienting undertow. Just stay calm and swim to the surface.

After further explanation, I realized the drama was not of Gilliganian proportions. Two hurricanes, Gustav and Hanna, had made the water too rough for safe passage to the Bahamian island. The captain decided the safest course was to stay at sea, promising to chase down the sun for us.

Unlike some of the other guests, I wasn't too disappointed about missing the island. Because I had booked myself on three ships, back-to-back-to-back, I was scheduled to disembark nearly a week later on another sandy slice of heaven, that one owned by Royal Caribbean International, and to visit Key West, Fla.; Cozumel, Mexico; Nassau, Bahamas; and, yep, Nassau again. I was hardly in a position to lament a lost day at the beach.

Why not just take one 10-day cruise instead of three ships in a row? Because short hops are in vogue and are a blossoming trend in the industry. According to the Cruise Lines International Association, between 1980 and 2007 the number of passengers sailing for two to five days increased by 1,012 percent; by comparison, the number of six- to eight-day sojourns rose by 660 percent. In addition, quickie trips make up 31 percent of the market, up from 24 percent in 1980. I did not have to search long or wide to find three short cruises that I could line up in a row.

The spurt can be traced back to multifarious sources. The development of home ports, for example. "Now, you find short cruises all over the coastline, even Norfolk and Baltimore," says Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of Cruise Critic, an online cruising guide. "It's a great way to take a quick trip for not a lot of money." (The cruises I took, for example, fell in the $200-per-trip range, per person double occupancy, not including taxes and fees.) In addition, these "samplers," even a string of them, are less of a commitment than one long voyage.

"If you've never taken a cruise before, this is a good way to get a taste of it," said Trevor Block, cruise director of the Carnival ship Fascination. "If you don't like it, you are on and off."

Or, in my case, back on again.

* * *

None of my three cruise lines looked or acted alike.

Norwegian, for example, markets its "freestyle" arrangement, which for the most part allows passengers to do whatever they want whenever they choose. (On its flier of activities, the Freestyle Daily, the slogan reads, "You're free to whatever!" Is the staff channeling ninth-graders?) There are no assigned times or tables for dinner, the gym never closes, and the bars are open till . . . whenever. Carnival pushes its fun like a hopped-up camp counselor, with oodles of diversions that often overlap, leaving guests too busy even to contemplate not having fun. Royal Caribbean does not have such a defined motif, but it does seem to have the edge on sportiness (e.g., rock climbing walls, ice skating rinks, onboard surfing) and style (at dinner, I had nearly as many waiters as I did pieces of silverware).

The decor also varies wildly, though oddly it does not reflect the line's dominant theme. For example, I expected the interior of Carnival's Fascination to be bright and festive, as if the boat were dressed for a nonstop party. Instead, I had the sensation that I was trapped inside an Eastern European strip club, with a shadowy palette of black and copper and mysterious opaque doors hiding who knows what. In contrast, the Norwegian Sky, which formerly sailed among the Hawaiian islands as the Pride of Aloha, seemed like Designs by Don Ho, circa 1970. The least jarring scheme was on Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas, which was renovated last year for $40 million. It has the safe, unassuming appearance of a four-star hotel, with open spaces and natural hues, including spongy, color-flecked cream carpeting reminiscent of a Funfetti cake.

Despite the differences, which also extend to the staterooms (loved Fascination's spacious cabin; deplored Norwegian's tiny cave; oddly paid more for the latter) and restaurants, the sameness is unavoidable and undeniable. The boats have similar entertainment, usually a bawdy comedian and/or variety shows with earnest-yet-awkward performers; games that embarrass couples; singalong piano bars; bingo and casinos; and art auctions featuring lesser Picassos. The pool area is usually bubbling to a beat of reggae lite, tropical staples such as "Hot, Hot, Hot" and the newest dance craze, the Cupid Shuffle, this generation's Chicken Dance. The buckets of beer help loosen your steps. Additionally, every fitness center offers a lecture on flat abs, and every buffet is determined to keep those stomachs flabby. Rare is the boat that will make you thin and sober.

* * *

Here was my breakdown of land to sea, spread over 10 days: Factoring in two unscheduled days at sea because of hurricanes, I spent nearly three-quarters of the time floating. I clocked nearly two days in Nassau (8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. the first Saturday, 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. a week later), a full day in Cozumel and five hours in Key West. Between voyages, I walked no more than 15 minutes between terminals in Miami. You can count that as an onshore excursion or not.

A wise man of the sea, Majesty of the Seas cruise director Jimmy Rhodes, said to me: "This is not reality by any means. I spend at least an hour at every port of call and put my feet on solid ground." The next-generation Julie McCoy logs four months on the ship.

With a fairly small window of time to stomp around on terra firma, I did not want to dillydally when we were in port. Though I wasn't necessarily the first one off the boat, I often was part of the second wave, after the buffet breakfast, of course.

Veteran cruisers recommend skipping the boat's (often overpriced) excursions and signing up with a company onshore. The savings, they say, far outweigh the slight inconvenience of seeking out a local outfitter.

Socking away that recommendation, I decided to go out on my own at every locale except Cozumel. I had visited Nassau and Key West, so I had a strong sense of place there, but I had never set foot on the Mexican island. Plus, my grasp of Spanish does not include such words and phrases as "shark" and "My air is leaking."

To enter the Bahamian capital of Nassau, visitors must pass through a frenzied information center and marketplace where vendors sell conch salad and fried fish, crafts, scooter rides and other diversions. After untangling myself from the crowds, I headed west, to the Land of the Marching Flamingos. Three times a day, the Ardastra Gardens, Zoo & Conservation Center holds a flamingo parade in which the skinny-legged, knobby-kneed birds high-step it around a grassy area.

I arrived early for the procession and just in time for the afternoon feeding of the lory parrots. The birds are gluttons: Hold out an apple slice and they will nibble it down to a thin thread of peel. In addition, the endangered birds disdain personal space, using every part of your body as a kitchen table. Among my group, Robert Shepherd, a cruiser from North Palm Beach, Fla., was transformed into a coat rack, with two parrots perched atop his head and five more forming a daisy chain along his arms.

The flamingos were more aloof, strutting around like divas wrapped in full-length pink boas. Their ringmaster was a gruff man dressed in a yellow slicker who started the show with a loud " Fallll in!" Then he chased the birds around the circle. Every few steps, a voice on an intercom entreated us to applaud. Clap, clap. Run, run. Clap, clap. Getting dizzy. Clap, clap.

Although the birds were amusing to watch, the real show was the drill sergeant. "You are lazy," he reprimanded Bird No. 82, which had strayed from the group to preen. "March!" he hollered to No. 40, which was fluffing its wings, a snub to this pointless exercise.

Between Ardastra and the dock lies the Fish Fry, a ragged strip of seafood shacks on Arawak Cay. Most of the restaurants have the same menu of fried fish, conch salad and fritters, etc., so the majority of people stop into the one that materializes when hunger strikes.

I entered Brother Eddie's Kitchen by accident. I had stuck my head through the open window, curious to see what was inside, and suddenly found myself behind the stove, learning to cook Bahamian style.

To say Eddie Dormens is amiable is an understatement; the guy is your immediate best friend. He showed me how to fry snapper -- "Get the oil very hot before, you don't want the fish to stick, and serve the snapper whole. The locals love it, the tourists love it, everyone loves it!" -- and kill a conch (a hard knock on the shell, followed by a stab). Ever the gentleman, he offered me the pistil, a clear thread with supposedly aphrodisiacal powers. I declined and watched Eddie pop nature's passion pill into his mouth.

In the end, I was quite content with my independent shore excursions, which included Atlantis and Cabbage Beach in Nassau II and the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum and Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park in Key West.

Unfortunately, the one outing I had booked through the ship was almost a washout. When we arrived in Cozumel, the sky turned ominous and dumped fat raindrops on our heads. The dock was chaos as trips were canceled, including my bike-and-snorkel excursion. Fortunately, Erika, who organized Carnival's trips, had a good memory and a phone. Remembering my inquiries about scuba diving, she quickly bundled me off to a boat headed out to the coral reefs.

Our small vessel was a tight squeeze of equipment, passengers carrying cruise ship towels and two dive masters who were tiny in stature yet cut like Michelangelo's David. For the first dive, we dropped 80 feet and landed in a coral city of purples, greens and creamy whites. Pint-size Julio led us through low, narrow arches that opened up into white sand dunes framed by a wide blue wash that blurred sea with sky.

Before descending, Julio demonstrated the hand gestures he would use to communicate the names of the creatures below: turtle, moray eel, stingray, barracuda. He was an adept tracker, pointing out a turtle gliding on stubby flippers and a spiny lobster with saberlike antennae guarding its doorway. I could not remember all of the symbols, but when Julio looked at me with his fingers forming a triangle on his forehead, I knew immediately what was up ahead.

Thanks to the regulator, I could only scream "Shark!" in my head. Watching the dark gray shadow swim gracefully before me, I was pretty certain the shark was not hollering "Human!" to itself. It was the better animal.

* * *

The cruise ships do their best to keep guests entertained while at sea, and so I took them up on nearly all of their suggestions. I learned to cha-cha and disco like Travolta with a broken toe. I built an elephant and dog out of towels; I went to a scrapbooking workshop where I tried to create a pictorial of my trip using only stickers and glitter. I rooted for the guy with a ponytail and topiary facial hair at the Hairy Chest Contest (I know my fur: He won) and cheered men with Orson Wellesian heft as they flew belly-first into the pool. (The winner went to bed with the reddest stomach and a free baseball cap.) I attended a cooking demonstration and learned to make Kahlua creme brulee and carve an angelfish out of a watermelon. When they announced ice cream time, I ate a cone with a twist; when they cranked up the Cupid Shuffle, I went to the left, to the right, now walk it by yourself, walk it by yourself.

Then, I stopped.

The point of cruising, I would argue, is to relax and fall into the slow rhythms of the sea. The waves were not racing off anywhere, nor were the clouds. Everything was floating along, sea mist in the wind, a bird on the current, laughter in the air.

So I set up a chair facing the endless expanse of water, stretched out and fell into a dream state. I awoke in time for dinner, but not a minute earlier.