The Hindu Business Line : It's sailing time, folks

A cruise holiday is the in thing, more so if you have those extra bucks to splurge on the deluxe offers of luxury liners. It might neither be An affair to remember or Titanic, but it promises to be fun.

A is for Alaska; B is for Bali; C is for Caribbean, Indians have finally discovered the wide blue sea!

"It's the first question that everyone asks," says the purser of one of the largest ocean-going cruise ships as we make ourselves comfortable in the topmost tier of the blue, white and silver, luxury liner. "Are we going to hit an iceberg like the Titanic?"

We all laughed. Sitting in that glass fronted cabin, with its panelled walls, deep pile carpeted floors and padded leather chairs we felt so secure, it seemed almost absurd to entertain such an idea. Yet, just underneath, we could still feel the faint heaving of the Ocean, that even the best modern technology in ship engineering could not hide. We too asked the Titanic question.

"The film Titanic has probably done more shipboard travel than any other form of advertising," said our Man of the Seas. "For one thing it focused attention on a way of travelling and a way of life that most people had totally forgotten." They got many requests he said for the peak Titanic moment, the one in which the two lovers stand with their arms stretched in front of the Ship and pledge their love to the winds, the sky, the sunset. As for icebergs, not only were the new cruise liners built to withstand most oceanic emergencies, such as bad weather and rough seas, the advances in communication technology had all but completely ruled out such an eventuality. Besides which the idea of a mega-disaster, so graphically re-created with a background of steamy romance as filmed in celebrated back-seat coupling of the beautiful Winslet and dimpled Di Caprio, only added to the sense of adventure that people felt as they stepped onboard a cruise liner, he said.

It has to be said that today a proper full-blown shipboard romance like the one that Deborah Kerr shares with Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember is probably as unlikely to happen as a collision with an iceberg. For that you needed the long 21 day sojourns on a P& 0 liner in the company of fully paid snobs savouring the last superb benefits of a class system distilled by the Empire, even as the sun was setting on it. Passengers were encouraged to dress for dinner, be grateful for the privilege of being called to sit at the Captain's table, to plan feverishly for the Fancy Dress Ball that always happened at a half-way point in the journey and to experience some of the incomparable thrills of a shipboard romance with its salt rimmed kisses under moonlit skies that were bound to end somewhat abruptly.

The Italian staff on the Lloyd Triestino liners for instance, were always the most handsome and could be counted upon to break into a Mario Lanza type rendering of Santa Lucia, the hit song of the time. They also served the best Spaghetti Bolognese. While the Messageries Maritimes steamers that were mostly for carrying goods from East to West and back, always had the most interesting mix of passengers, strange hybrid creatures who were fleeing from what had once been Indochina, the pride of the French. Even the fledgling Indian carriers belonging to the Scindia Steampship Company, patriotically named, S.S. Jal Jawahar and S.S. Jal Azad had a wonderful staff of Goans, who looked after their guests with commendable zeal. I can still remember how we would call out, "Apallino! The ship is rolling!" and Apallino who was the Chief Steward on one of these ships would appear with a soothing round of drinks, cold refreshments before we passed through the Suez Canal, and hot ones after we had reached the Mediterranean. The passengers got to know each other, like a family, since there was no other choice on a ship, all manner of intrigues were hatched and small conventions of dress, food and behaviours adhered to with a fanatic zeal to propriety. On a Greek cruise, they play "Never on a Sunday" until you are ready to drown yourself in the Aegean, the food is also spectacularly bland.

Compared to those ships, the present day cruise liners are models of a more free and easy American style, best buddy behaviour. They are truly egalitarian in spirit. If you can pay, you are as free to enjoy yourself as the next person. The staff is made up of a rainbow collection of people, most of them young, from different parts of the world. They are trained in the American style of hospitality, to offer service in the most pleasant and enthusiastic manner, as if they too were actually enjoying their work. (Most cruises advice their guests on how to tip the room attendants, or dining room staff, since this is expected.)

For Indian travellers, part of the charm is to meet a large contingent of Asian waiters and cooks, who at the slightest hint of starvation, despite the gastronomic marvels that are served in lavish banquet style lunches, and full black tie evening dress sit down dinners, will come to their rescue and serve them their ma-ki-dhall rice, subzi and paneer kebabs and pakoras, or even a rasam-sambhar. It's for this reason that most travellers on large cruise holidays tend to stick together in small ethnic groups. To some extent, this defeats the purpose of travelling as a way of expanding one's horizon.

"Listen, if I wanted to experience the world, I could sit at home and look at the National Geographic Channel," explained one such traveller. " I want to relax and not worry about anything when I am on a cruise, " she said, turning over for her seaweed body massage. After a five-course dinner, the only way to prepare for the next fabulous round of meals is to sweat it off in the sauna or massage parlour, just as the Romans did. Cruises are meant to pamper the inner you, particularly if you happen to be a Roman Empress, Hollywood style.

"Hi, I'm your personal attendant," announced a very charming, young woman, giving me her name even as I looked around in amazement at the splendour of my deluxe suite in one of these floating palaces. "You can call me whenever you need me," she said. She was as good as her word and leapt into attention to change any one of the two dozen or so graded towels that had been arranged in the twin mirror, twin washbasin bathroom, with its gorgeous bath tub and shower, bidet and water closet, even before I had touched them. She also helped me to locate and put on my life-jacket when we were required to go up to decks to take part in the routine life boat drill. At night, there would be small packets of chocolate waiting on the neatly turned down bed. Apart from a bar, sitting room television and carefully curtained queen size bedroom, I also had my own private deck space, where I could sunbathe, if I so desired.

Obviously, this represents the upper end of the cruise package. There are so many variations in the type of accommodation on offer, and it's well worth looking at these very carefully before making up your mind. If you are the type who likes to make use of all the entertainment facilities, such as the casino, the shopping arcades, the beauty parlour, the library, the indoor golf or swimming pools, the late night movies and variety entertainment, not to mention the lavish food that is served almost round the clock in different locations on the ship, then you are not going to spend much time in your cabin. You could economise and choose one of the smaller ones, without a look-out porthole. If, however, you have chosen to go on a cruise to spend time with a friend or a partner, it might well be worth spending that little extra for a luxury cabin, or suite.

"The reason why people like to take one of our cruises is because we offer excellent package tours that make it possible for them to see more countries in Europe, or any part of the world that they go to than if they were to fly down to any one destination," explains M.C. Usha, Assistant Sales Manager of Tirun Travel Marketing that sells the Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises. "Particularly if you book in advance you can get a very good offer." As an example she says that the l6 day tour from Singapore to Sydney is so popular, people actually take advantage of it for a holiday to Bali. Their Mediterranean tour stops at some of the most famous resorts and historical destinations on this famous coast.

For the moment however, the flavour of the season has to be their trip to Alaska. Here again Indian travellers are just beginning to understand the charm of taking a cruise when they visit their families in the US and are tempted to go as a group on one of the celebrated tours of the Caribbean or to Alaska. `You should see the pearls I bought in Alaska" exclaims one proud mother, displaying a set of what looked like very well cultured Japanese pearls, as if these were a specialty of Alaska. No matter where they go, Indians are actually turned on by the shopping.

"If you do your homework properly you can not only have a great holiday, it can also be amazingly cheap," exclaims Kamlesh Patel, the well-known rally driver. "For instance, when we stopped at Corsica, we hired a car and drove all over the Island for one full day before getting back on the ship. It cost us $ 100, if we had taken their option of going by bus, it would have cost each one of us $ 100; that's $ 400, so you have to know how to make the best use of the facilities. The best thing is that you travel by night and the next day, you are in a new country or a new place. It's the best way to travel, particularly if you have the right company."

True to the trend he too had one word carved on his heart. It said `Alaska!' Like all good Indians on the cruise trail, he admitted quite happily, "Definitely, that's where I want to go next."

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Holiday, when the going is still good

Caught in the travel web

A budget holiday

Goa, here I come

Taste the best

It's sailing time, folks

Get behind the wheel

Autumn is for travel

God's own country at a discount