All At Sea Part I

As soon as the idea of taking a cruise had been suggested I’d headed straight to the travel agent.  You need a Celebrity cruise, the 30 year old travel agent insisted, they cater for the younger generation of cruisers like us! Well flattery gets you everywhere because I booked on the spot.

Slightly worried that an American cruise ship might well be full of Americans, it was a pleasant surprise to discover once we had settled on board that most of our fellow passengers were either Canadian, British or Australian.

I knew there were Americans on the ship though – I’ve lived amongst them long enough now to be able to sniff them out.  I knew that the gentleman listening to the presentation on "How To Take Better Photographs of the Hubbard Glacier", on a cruise entitled "Cruise To the Hubbard Glacier", who actually put his hand up and asked “Are we going to see a glacier on this cruise?” was American.  As was the woman who whilst being transferred ashore by lifeboat tender at our first port of call asked the officer on board “do the crew have lifeboat training too?”

The Americans were also rather conspicuous in their absence every evening in the formal dining room, which knowing how fond they are of their food did rather puzzle me until I realised the self-service restuarant upstairs offered an alternative all you could eat buffet.  The portions in the main dining room were definitely nouveau cuisine.

However, this gave us ample opportunity to mix and mingle with the other colonials on board and catch up with a welcome bit of news from back home.  We’d chosen the casual dining option in the main restaurant so that we could eat at a different time and table each day. It was a bit like speed dating – you sat with a different couple each night, exchanged life stories and moved on.  The service was a bit like speed dining too – the minute we sat down the menu was presented, less than a second later the waiter was back to take the order, and before we’d even opened up the wine list the starter was there.

No matter how much they dress a cruise up, you're still basically trapped in an upmarket holiday camp and no matter how much money you've already spent, every effort will be made to elicit more.  Would we like to spend $200 for a week's pass to the spa? Did we wish to purchase an all you can drink beverage package? Tempting, but no!   Sea days definitely take a bit of getting used to - I regularly do very little all day but even I was chomping at the bit; sailing up the icy waters off the Alaskan coast it’s hardly the weather to be sat up on deck with a good book or lazing around the pool.

The “Celebrity Life” daily bulletin listed all manner of exciting activities intended to keep us occupied.  We enjoyed a tour of the ship's galley, attended a couple of lectures on the local wildlife and tried our hand one or two trivia quizzes, but even I draw the line at  napkin folding and bath towel origami (although our room steward obviously did not!)

It was definitely a touch of romantic self indulgence to sit and watch the sunset over the sea, sipping a glass of 'Celebrity Vintage"  champagne.  It was only when the Captain started to mention the icebergs that I started to feel slightly nervous, and then the band started to play......