Walt at Random

Fair warning: This post is about cruising, as in on the ocean. It has nothing to do with exclusivity, ethnicity, or anything else related to social issues.

High-end cruising is expensive. That’s sort of a given. By “high-end” I mean primarily luxury cruises (Crystal, Regent Seven Seas/RSSC, Seabourn, Silverseas and some tiny little lines…plus luxury-priced exploration lines)–with an oddball, Oceania Cruises, as a semi-luxury line.

Note: “Premium” is one step below “Luxury” in the cruise world–i.e., Luxury cruise lines are the equivalent of 5-star and 6-star hotels, while Premium cruise lines are the equivalent of 4-star hotels. Holland America is the most clearcut Premium line, with Celebrity and, to some people, Princess as others. Notably, most Holland America (HAL) ships are medium-size, in the 1,300-1,900 passenger range, while luxury ships always carry fewer passengers–400 to 800, sometimes up to 1,000–and most contemporary ships carry well over 2,000 passengers. Of those discussed below, the Crystal Symphony carries 900+ passengers, the Seven Seas Navigator 490, Oceania’s ships 680, and HAL ships for these cruises around 1,400. The Symphony and Navigator have much more space per passenger than the others. Noted briefly, the Seabourn Odyssey carries 440 passengers, the Silver Shadow 382.

2-for-1 fares?

Lately, there’s been a rash of 2-for-1 pricing in the Luxury field. Nearly every Regent Seven Seas (RSSC) cruise in their brochures is advertised as 2-for-1. Ditto Oceania. Ditto Crystal. Silversea seems to be advertising a lot of 55%-off fares.

But what does 2-for-1 “off brochure fares” mean when the 2-for-1 fares are part of the brochure?

Since we haven’t kept brochures from past years (for Crystal and RSSC; we’ve never cruised on Silversea or Seabourn), I can’t prove this–but to me, the “brochure fares” (RSSC’s in particular) are a lot higher than they used to be. Maybe almost twice as high–or, at least, the discounted fares seem substantially higher than before. And 2-for-1 and 55%-off fares can be called “capacity controlled,” so the line can nick you for a much higher fare if you book late or otherwise screw up. But the prices sound like great bargains, don’t they?

I think of this sort of thing as “Ma..err, certain nameless department store pricing”–setting a very high “list” price then offering a Big Percentage Discount…which may still be higher than the manufacturer’s suggested list price, although that’s not a factor where cruising is concerned.

Maybe not so much. We took two RSSC cruises in the past. We look at the new brochures, at the 2-for-1 prices, and think we may never do so again, even if our income wasn’t down.

But that’s only part of the story.

All-inclusive and partially-inclusive: At what cost?

With mainstream cruise lines, you have (or should have) a pretty good sense that the quoted fare is just the beginning. That–plus a possible “port and security charge” that appears elsewhere on the invoice or fare statement–covers your room, meals in the primary restaurant(s) or Lido/buffet restaurant, usually room service, most shipboard entertainment, books (and possibly DVDs) from the library and that’s about it.

Extras? Drinks except at mealtimes (although many ships now have 24-hour complimentary coffee & tea service); alcoholic drinks, period (although you may get a free drink at the Captain’s Reception); shore excursions; gratuities–and these really aren’t functionally optional, since that’s the only real money most of the hard-working hotel staff makes; laundry & dry cleaning; internet (if you must); casino expenses and shop expenses; and, to be sure, air fare to and from the ship.

It can add up. If you drink a lot (or have high-end tastes) or if you go through a lot of sodas, if you go on fancy shore excursions, it can add up fast. On the mass-market cruise ships, where fares are sometimes under $100/day, it’s not at all unusual for the “everything else” total to be much larger than the cruise fare.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

• Every luxury line includes all nonalcoholic drinks as part of the fare.
• Every luxury line includes meals at all restaurants as part of the fare, where most premium and mainline cruises have surcharges for the best restaurants. (Every Crystal and RSSC ship, at least, has at least four or five dining venues; ditto Oceania.)
• Until recently, RSSC included wine with dinner and a stocked minifridge (beer, wine, soda). Now, RSSC includes all alcoholic drinks on board, period, except for high-end wines (the regular RSSC wines have been pretty good). Silversea and Seabourn, I believe, both went to all-drinks-included fares some time ago.
• Currently, Crystal, RSSC, and Oceania are all including coach air fare from “gateway cities” (most major cities) as part of their fares (business-class air for some categories of cabins on some ships).
• Most luxury lines–Crystal excepted–now include gratuities in the fare.
• RSSC’s taking it a little further: Most ordinary shore excursions–the ones typically costing up to around $150–are now included in the fare, although the kind of special shore excursions that luxury lines specialize in are still extra (sometimes thousands of dollars extra). I believe Seabourn and Silversea also include some or all ordinary shore excursions.

So RSSC cruises must be better values, right? After all, everything’s included!

Not so fast.

Let’s look at very similar cruises on six different cruise lines–all of the luxury lines, Oceania, and Holland America. The cruise is Auckland to Sydney or vice-versa, typically with stops in Melbourne, Hobart, Dunedin, Christchurch, and one or two other places in New Zealand.

Australia/New Zealand cruises are typically on the expensive side, but these are all roughly the same itinerary, making them reasonably comparable.

• A 12-night cruise on the Crystal Symphony, air included and with a $2,000-per-couple shipboard spending credit to be used for drinks, shore excursions, gratuities, whatever, will cost $17,200 for two people in a veranda suite. Figure $15,200 (not including the spending credit) as a comparable veranda-suite fare. [Call it $1,266 per day for two people.]
• A 15-night cruise on RSSC’s Seven Seas Navigator, all-inclusive, will cost $27,000 for two people in the lowest-category cabin (they’re all veranda suites). [Call it $1,800 per day for two people.]

There’s a head-on comparison. Is $566/day a fair differential for gratuities, drinks and shore excursions? Well, gratuities are typically $19/night for two people, maybe $21. My guess is that you’d spend about $250/day-$300/day for shore excursions for two people–but not every day, since these cruises include some days at sea. (The RSSC cruise has seven stops excluding start and end; Crystal has five.) That leaves $250-$300/day for drinks. That’s a lot of drinking! (Excellent wine on the Symphony is $5-$6/glass: The prices just aren’t outrageous.

In practice, I’d guess $2,000/couple would just about cover shipboard expenses for a 12-night cruise: $228-$250 gratuities, say $360 for drinks ($30/day), leaving almost $1,400 for shore excursions ($280 per port). So, realistically, unless you’re a big drinker or go on two shore excursions a day, the full Crystal fare at $17,200/12 days ($1,433/day) is considerably cheaper than the full RSSC fare–and I know of almost nobody who would claim that RSSC outshines Crystal significantly, certainly not to the tune of nearly $400/day.

Consider some of the other options, looking at verandah suites for comparability:

• Seabourn: 14 night cruise, $20,300/couple–but while that includes alcohol and gratuities, it does not include airfare; figure at least $23,000 with air, or $1643/night. (May include some shore excursions.)
• Silversea: 15 night cruise, $20,700/couple–not including air, and Silversea quotes $4,000 as a coach air price. That does include alcohol and gratuities; figure $24,700 total, or $1647/night.

Is it purely coincidental that Seabourn and Silversea have nearly identical prices? Could be. Maybe not.

• Oceania: 16 night cruise, $16,000/couple for a veranda suite–includes air, but nothing else, so it’s really comparable to the $15,200 price for Crystal. At $1,000/night per couple, it’s less expensive, to be sure.
• Holland America: 14 night cruise, $8,000/couple for a veranda suite, plus around $3,000 for air. Figure $11,000 for a comparable price, or $786/night.

From experiences on Crystal, RSSC, and Holland America, and what I know of the others, I’d say that RSSC is a little overpriced–and the rest are all “fairly” priced given the ship qualities and number of passengers.

But that’s a little misleading as well. Those are all “minimum” prices–but for RSSC, it’s literally the cheapest cabin on board. With Crystal, you can get down to $13,600 (including the $2,000 shipboard credit) for a suite that doesn’t have a verandah; for Oceania, you can get down to $12,000/couple for an ocean-view cabin with no verandah; for Holland America, you can go a long ways down if you don’t need a suite or a verandah. (Silversea and Seabourn also have non-verandah suite categories, saving a little money.)

Conclusions?

You pays your money, you makes your choices–but “all-inclusive” and “2-for-1″ can be somewhat misleading. RSSC, Seabourn and Silversea most decidedly aren’t appealing to the “drunk all the time” crowd; they can lay out a lot less money for a constant stream of Bud or margaritas on a mainstream ship. Eliminating by-the-drink and wine charges simplifies shipboard life in some ways; it’s not at all clear that it saves you money.

As it happens, I know exactly how much we spent for extras on a wonderful 14-night up-and-back Alaska cruise two years ago, this one on Holland America. The cruise itself was $4,913 (for a good cabin that didn’t have a verandah) for the two of us. Air was $800 for two (this was SFO-Vancouver, admittedly a lot cheaper than flying to Auckland and back from Sydney, or vice versa). Everything else–shore excursions, drinks, laundry, gratuities–totaled almost exactly $1,500. In other words, the total was roughly $7,200–or $515/day. More significantly, the “inclusives”–good but not great wine, all the shore excursions we wanted, air, gratuities, and even $90 worth of internet time–totaled $2,300 for 14 days, and only $1,500 of that was for on-board expenses.

That may be a bit misleading. It was our fifth Alaska cruise, so we skipped some pricey shore excursions–but we did quite a few, actually.  Given that, we look at all-inclusive with a slightly jaundiced view. Well, that, and our experience back when RSSC only included wine with dinner: People drank more than they realized because the glasses were constantly refilled. There’s some virtue to knowing each time you have another glass of wine or beer or whatever.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about cruising and cruise lines–partly because it’s been a while since we’ve been on a cruise (and will probably be a while longer). But we get lots of literature, we’re thinking about it, and there are some oddities worth noting.

Take, for example, world cruises–the extreme case of getting away, unless you’re one of a few wealthy eccentrics who’ve simply started living on a cruise ship fulltime.

Typical World Cruises

That may be a misleading heading, because I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a “typical” world cruise–but a fairly common scenario is that such a cruise runs about 105-110 days, starts in either Ft. Lauderdale or LA, usually in January…and isn’t quite a full world cruise (that is: It doesn’t come back to the port from which you left, although that’s sometimes feasible with an extension). Every world cruise I’ve ever seen has been sold in (fairly long) segments as well as the whole thing, and usually true world cruisers make up a small portion of the passenger list.

A few examples for 2011:

• Princess actually has two, one R/T from Sydney, one starting in Fort Lauderdale and ending in Rome. That one is 107 days. It would set a couple back $45K for an interior cabin (which I’m guessing would get a little cozy after three months), $52K for an oceanview cabin, $58K for a balcony, and $80K minimum for a minisuite. Add to that air fare, gratuities (probably $9-$10 per day per person, so figure about $1,900), drinks, shore excursions and any other purchases.
• Holland America, a step up from Princess (both are owned by Carnival) and with smaller ships (and larger cabins), has a 110-night cruise that’s a true world cruise, round-trip from Fort Lauderdale. I may be missing a fee bit, but I see couple fares of $34K interior, $40K oceanview, $68K for a veranda suite. Add to that all the other extra-cost items as with Princess.

Now compare two luxury cruise lines (Holland America is a Premium line, a level down from Luxury; Princess is sort of a Premium line.)

• Crystal Cruises–even smaller ships (900 to 1,000 passengers), even larger cabins–has a 110-night cruise, LA to London. For a couple, figure $104K minimum for a window cabin (all of their cabins are “minisuites” by mainline standards) and $112K for a veranda cabin. A lot more–but that does include air, and they add a $5,000-per-couple onboard credit that you can use for shore excursions, wine, etc. Oh, and all nonalcoholic beverages are free on Crystal, which isn’t true of premium and mainstream lines: Water can start to add up.
• Regent Seven Seas–still smaller ships (490 to 700 passengers), all suites, pretty much all verandas–has a longer world cruise: 131 nights, from San Francisco to Rome. It’s also much more expensive, starting at $140K for a couple. But–and it’s a significant But–that’s all-inclusive: Not only air but all gratuities, mainline shore excursions (anything that would typically cost up to $150/person on other lines), beer, wine, water, booze–unless you want even fancier wine than the very nice vintages they pour for free, you won’t spend a cent on anything but the casino, dry cleaning and laundry, and the shipboard shops.

The Extreme Case

Not so much ‘extreme’ in terms of price–take Regent Seven Seas or Seabourn and book a top-of-the-line suite, and you’ll see extreme, as in more than half a million bucks a couple.

No, this one’s extreme in a different way. Cruise West, which has typically had very small ships (under 100 passengers) mostly serving Alaska and other coastal waters, purchased one of the smaller Renaissance ships and renamed it the Spirit of Oceanus. It’s an oceangoing ship, and they’re going–with the damnedest world cruise I’ve ever seen.

It starts February 22, 2011 in Singapore. It ends January 24, 2012 in Hong Kong. That’s right: a 335-night world cruise. Prices start at $285K per couple, if you book by April 30 (full price would be $446K per couple). That’s for a Superior Cabin–still fairly large by cruise ship standards (a “minisuite” of sorts) but with portholes or a window. Oh, and the whole ship only carries 120 passengers and has two lounger, a game room, a library, and a hot tub. No real pool, no casino, probably lots of lectures but not lots of entertainment choices. That price does include airfare, gratuities, and at least one shore excursion possibility in each port. It doesn’t include alcohol. This is a far more luxurious ship than Cruise West’s usual “exploration class” vessels…

I dunno. Not that there’s any chance we’d ever take any of these, but somehow I think that ship might get to seem very cozy, maybe even a little claustrophobic, well before a 335-night cruise is complete. I wonder how many people will do the whole thing? I wonder whether anybody will?

Note

In case you aren’t familiar with them: All cruise fares (at least all of these) do include entertainment and meals, with the occasional exception of some specialty restaurants (all specialty restaurants on Crystal and RSS are complimentary, and Cruise West only has one restaurant). Most ships do include all nonalcoholic beverages during meals, but non-luxury ships might not include them at other times. The ships all have internet, usually at a price, and fairly extensive libraries. Dry cleaning and laundry usually isn’t included, and neither are medical expenses other than aspirin and meclazine (for seasickness)–but all the ships have doctors and infirmaries.

I thought I’d written up our (somewhat negative) experiences with Holland America Lines — HAL, “those dam ships” — back when I did a “cruising” series. Apparently not. In any case, the vacation we recently returned from was a third HAL cruise, and I think some notes are in order–especially because Holland America did a much better job this time than the first two times around.

The cruise was marketed as a 14-day Vancouver roundtrip, but was also clearly a combination of two seven-day Alaska cruises: Vancouver to Seward northbound and Seward to Vancouver southbound. We were surprised by the number of people who took the (presumably somewhat discounted) 14-day option; I didn’t count, but it must have been a couple of hundred out of the 1,400-passenger ship.

It was our fifth cruise in Alaska. We did it partly because we really needed a vacation (not having had a real vacation in two years or a cruise in three years), partly because a dear friend of ours agreed to our suggestion to see Alaska.

The last three Alaska cruises were 12-night round trips out of San Francisco on Crystal Harmony: A great itinerary for people living in the SF Bay Area who love Crystal. Well, that cruise no longer exists–NYK, Crystal’s parent company, renamed the Crystal Harmony and now uses it (as the Aoka II, I think) for luxury cruising in Japan. The two remaining Crystal ships summer in the Mediterranean. Our first Alaska cruise was southbound Whittier to Vancouver on the Regent Sea, a long time ago (15 or 20 years): The Regent Sea is at the bottom of the ocean and its parent company, Regency, long since disappeared.

I wouldn’t attempt to compare Crystal and Holland America Line (HAL) directly; that’s not really fair, since they’re in different market segments (Crystal is a luxury line, HAL is a premium line, which is a lower category than luxury) and have considerably different fares (if Crystal still did this cruise, I’d guess we’d pay about 50%-75% more than we did on HAL). On the other hand, the comparison isn’t as ludicrous as it would have been last time we were on HAL.

First, a quick note about the cruise itself: A great way to see southeast Alaska in a relaxed fashion. We stopped twice in Juneau and Ketchikan–with shore excursions one time, exploring on our own the other time–and cruised twice in Glacier Bay (spectacular both times, with a truly astonishing calving the second time) and College Fjord (somewhat disappointing: it seemed much more spectacular 15-20 years ago), plus one stop each in Seward, Skagway and Haines. Seward was new to us and easily explored on foot–and I will say that the last-minute $20 shuttle + SeaLife Center shore excursion was fairly priced, since tickets at the SeaLife Center were, um, $20 (the shuttle–Seward’s own little trolley-car–was free for the day for all HAL passengers, a $3 savings over their regular operation). The other ports–well, they’re all great, and we’ve been to all of them before, and enjoyed them again.

Now, as to HAL, or specifically the Zaandam (all HAL ships end in “dam,” and they use “those dam ships” on various shipboard merchandise):

• On previous cruises, we hated the way they handled shore excursions: Get in one line, get a sticker on your shirt, wait in a theater, get in another line… Now, they’ve adopted the same procedure as Crystal and Regent Seven Seas: “You’re adults. Here’s your ticket. There’s the time. Meet at the pier/bus/whatever.” No crowding, no superfluous lines, no extra 45 minutes to gather up everybody, no stickers. Bravo.
• On previous cruises, the beef had ranged from mediocre to too tough to eat. (I gave up on a prime rib end cut halfway through: the taste wasn’t worth the effort.) Much improved–the beef ranged from good to excellent.
• On previous cruises, the chicken had also been tough. Again, much improved–the chicken was generally quite good.
• On previous cruises, “plating” had been inflexible: You ordered a main dish and got the starch, vegetable and sauce that came with it–period. This time, we found considerable flexibility, at least with our waiter: You could substitute items from other choices, and one person at our table had rice with every entree, always with some sauce for one of the other entrees.
• On previous cruises, portions tended to be too large. This time, most portions were plausible–you could eat the full five-course dinner (appetizer, soup, salad, entree, dessert) and not be bloated or have to be rolled off the ship. Sometimes, still a bit large, but mostly reasonable. (After two weeks, I was up three pounds, which went away again after three or four days; my wife actually lost a pound or two. And we were both eating most courses at most meals.) After all, you could always order something extra (or, during the day, just pick up a slice of pizza or make your own taco or get another dessert or get a fresh burger any time from 11:30 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m.)–but it always feels odd to leave a meal half-eaten.
• Boarding had been mildly cumbersome last time, although not horrendous: Actually fairly typical, with Crystal and Regent Seven Seas only slightly better. This time, with the ability to fill in immigration information online and print out boarding passes, boarding was as fast and smooth as I’ve ever seen it on a cruise ship. (We haven’t been on Crystal or RSS recently…)
• Smoking was a big problem in pretty much every space except the main restaurant last time around. This time, while still a problem (my wife’s asthmatic), it was considerably better: Even outdoor dining areas for the Lido restaurant are non-smoking except for one little back-of-the-ship area that’s fully isolated, there seemed to be less smoke in most lounges and, wonder of wonders, the casino was non-smoking on some days. Since the casino always seemed busier when it was nonsmoking (and since on smoking days you’d get one jackass puffing up a storm as he explored the entire casino, assuring that we all got plenty of second-hand smoke), a number of us suggested that they cut off smoking altogether. Actually, there’s another indication of progress: They held some focus groups (we weren’t invited but heard from someone who was) and asked about complete smoking bans, to pretty much total applause–including one smoker who said she’d rather be in a smoke-free environment on vacation and just do without for a week. And the end-of-cruise survey included an extra sheet asking three questions all related to a total ban on smoking on board. There may yet be hope…
• HAL hotel staff have always been good but seemed much better this time; we had people remembering our names after one encounter, we had dining crew joking with us, the whole scene felt even better. On at least one previous cruise, ship staff (the people who maintain and run the ship, as opposed to the cabin attendants and restaurant crew) seemed a little put out by having passengers on board. This time, they either weren’t around or seemed much better. No complaints here.
• Note that we weren’t getting special top-dollar treatment. We didn’t even have a balcony cabin; we were in 2nd-deck outside cabins, not that far up from the lowest categories. (The verandah cabins and mini-suites were all sold out when we booked, a mere seven months ahead, and we wouldn’t have paid for full suites anyway.)
• With one exception, any problems we had were handled quickly and well. The exception, a window that was half blocked by condensation trapped between the two layers, really couldn’t be handled while at sea, but HAL gave us a more than satisfactory accommodation for only having half a view.
• In general, the public spaces were nicer and the food and service were better than on previous HAL cruises. They claim that they’re improving their operation; although it’s been several years’ gap for us, I’m inclined to believe them.

Not perfect, to be sure, but what is? We could have done without the cruise director’s lengthy morning and lunchtime announcements of all the activities that are listed in the daily paper, although at least there weren’t loads of announcements during the day. The chair and sofa upholstery in our cabin could use cleaning and seem a little tired; even 8 years of cruising is hard on fabric. Some shore excursions seemed scheduled at needlessly difficult times. But, you know, none of those would rise to be particularly noteworthy.

The one real negative item happened at the end of the cruise, and I think it’s a good idea that hasn’t quite been worked out properly. To wit, debarkation–in our case, with a special twist. Debarkation is a problem on most cruise ships, with the tendency to force everyone to sit around in lounges after leaving their cabins too early, listening to dozens of announcements. Supposedly, Princess is fixing this; let’s hope their solution works and catches on. By today’s standard, the Zaandam is medium-sized to small (1,400 passengers–today’s BIG ships carry 2,600 to 3,000 or more). They said they were using a new streamlined procedure without announcements and that you could just stay in your cabin until it was your time to go.

But…they also offered, and promoted heavily, a special baggage-handling opportunity: For $16 a person, if we were flying directly to the U.S. from Vancouver on the day of debarkation (which we were), we could have our boarding passes in hand and our checked bags already airline-tagged on the ship. Thus, instead of the usual routine in these cases–get off the ship, identify our bags from the mass of bags for our group, watch as handlers put them on the bus to the airport, claim them again at the airport, wheel them to the airline, have baggage tags attached, deal with Canadian and U.S. immigration, then finally go through security–we’d just get off the ship, go on a special “locked” bus into a special area of the airport, and go through security. There were idle comments about it taking up to two hours to get through the process at Vancouver; I have no idea whether those comments were true.

Well, our flight was at 1 p.m. We signed up for the program, assuming it would mean we’d be able to stick around until at least 9 or 9:30 a.m. before leaving for the airport.

Wrong. Everyone who signed up for the program and was using HAL transportation to the airport ($25, and we’d already signed up for that) had to be in the big showroom at 7:15 a.m.

7:15 a.m. Ghastly. As bad as in the bad old days. That’s five hours and 45 minutes before our flight–and we knew that it was at worst about 30 minutes from the pier to the airport.

We weren’t even the worst cases: We were in Group 3 of 5; later groups included people with flights leaving 4 p.m. or later!

So instead of being able to get up a little early, have a reasonable breakfast, freshen up and roll down at 9 or 9:30–or even 8:30–we had the usual get up too early, have a rushed Lido breakfast, rush through preparation…

So there we were, all standing around and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

The process didn’t start at all until 7:45 a.m. Our group wasn’t called until 8:15 or 8:30 a.m. And when we were called, we went off the ship…and got into a nice long line. I think we got on the bus at somewhere between 9 and 9:15. As I remember, we finally got through airport security around 10:15-10:30–three hours after we had to be in the showroom, but only two hours before boarding would begin.

The idea’s good, I think, but the execution was lousy. I surmise they called us all together so they’d make sure we got the instructions right–but that’s unacceptable. They should reasonably have known that Groups 3, 4, and 5 had no reason to be off the ship before (say) 8:30 or 9:30 or maybe 11 or 12 for group 5, and should have staged things so we weren’t sitting around interminably.

It’s interesting that cruise lines haven’t solved the debarkation problem: You can lose a lot of good will in that last process. In this case, I’ll charitably assume they just don’t have the bugs worked out yet, and a lot of it has to do with HAL’s old shore-excursion attitude. Assume that we’re adults, that we can handle written instructions, and arrange things accordingly: We’ll all be happier!

Debarkation aside, HAL did a good job. Oh, did I mention the string quartet? My wife and our friend were devoted to this group, the Azalea Strings, playing every evening in one of the lounges, with a wide repertoire and excellent ensemble. I heard enough to know they’re first-rate; I just wasn’t as much in the string-quartet mood. (It’s not all reggae and piano bar on board!)

[Will we take HAL again? Probably--but we didn't sign up for a British Isles 2009 cruise that looked good for an interesting reason HAL can't help with: The air fare would have been almost as much as the cruise.]

Part the first:

I just finished writing a Perspective for the June Cites & Insights (which will emerge well before June 1, but certainly after May 11–I’d guess May 18-20, but that’s only a guess), “On Wikis and Transparency.” It’s mostly about MediaWiki and transparency, but that’s OK, since MediaWiki is pretty clearly the dominant wiki software for library-related wikis. The Perspective’s about 4,000 words long before editing; I plan to do a shorter version (maybe 2,000-2,500 words) to mount on PALINET Leadership Network as a companion piece to the Wikis and libraries article I completed there yesterday.

But first, I’ll give alert, knowledgeable, weekend-blog-reading folks a chance to tell me: Is this obvious stuff? Does everybody already know that MediaWiki wikis tend to be much more transparent than their owners might realize? (Which is, by and large, a good thing–once the owners realize it.) When I say “everybody,” I explicitly mean library leaders who need to know a little about wikis but are probably never going to install one or become intimately familiar with it…

Thus endeth part the first. And hey, if I do write something “obvious,” it won’t be the first time.

Update Monday, May 5: Having heard no cries of “everybody knows that,” I’ve completed the C&I essay and added a briefer version to PLN here.

Here’s the setup: My wife and I are going on a real vacation, for the first time in a couple of years. It’s a cruise, and it makes sense to fly to the departure port a day early and stay overnight. To make it even more fun, we’re going with a dear friend of ours–who’s also flying in a day early.

As we investigated places to stay overnight, we found that this is one of those cities where we could either spend a lot of money, or stay in an iffy part of town or in an iffy establishment, or maybe both. But if we stayed nearer the airport, we could stay in a Hilton at a reasonable price.

Which then caused me to think. Given my odd travel, I belong to several hotel affinity programs–as with air frequent-traveler programs, it costs nothing to join, and some hotel programs at least get you a free newspaper or something–but I tell all of them to give me American miles instead of hotel points, since I rarely have the choice of hotel. But Hilton HHonors has “double dipping”–they give you both miles and points. So I’ve accumulated some quantity of points over the years (given the choice, I’ll tend to stay at a Hilton-family property, especially Embassy Suites). Hmm. Let me check…

Yep. I had enough points for one free night at this category of hotel. In fact, I had more than enough points for two free nights. Now, back in the good old days, at least as I remember it (but this may be airline rather than hotel), this was a multistep process: First you’d send in a mailed request for a certain kind of award certificate, then they’d send the certificate, then you’d book the award with certificate in hand. Now, of course, you go to the Hhonors website, log in, find the hotel and verify availability, and the certificate is created at the point of use: You get two emailed confirmations, one your actual reservation, one your award certificate. Fast, easy, well-designed. Cool.

And here’s the pitch: The best use I could think of for the rest of the points was to pick up another free room for our friend–if the friend wanted it. Which, it turns out, they did. How would I go about reserving a room in somebody else’s name and paying for it with points from my Hhonors account?

So I called the Hhonors 800 number. One clear menu choice. Another clear menu choice. Then a crisp message: You can book awards online, but if you’d like to speak with a representative, just wait. I waited…for about ten seconds, maybe less.

Five minutes or less (I’m thinking three, but could be wrong): That’s what it took to ask whether this could be done (it could), provide my information, validate who I am, give the hotel info, give the other person’s name, deal with a slight variance (yes, a room with two doubles would be fine, if no one-king room was available), and get an award certificate number…following which, an automated voice from the hotel gave me the reservation confirmation code. Within one minute after hanging up the phone, both confirmation certificates were in my email, ready to forward to the friend.

Maybe there’s nothing unusual here, but I’ve surely heard enough horror stories about telephone assistance with even straightforward issues, much less slightly complicated ones like this. OK, I’ve always had great luck with American Aadvantage people–but then, American’s people are one reason I prefer American Airlines (just as Hilton people are one reason I prefer Hiltons). For some reason, this exercise struck me as remarkably smooth and pleasant: No waiting, phone trees used to save me time rather than to avoid actual contact, really slick combined use of the human touch and computer backup–I mean, those emails were there when the call was done.

Just a nice little story for a Saturday. It certainly made my Friday.

Today’s paper has a story about the Independence–”the last [ocean] liner built in the United States to sail under the American flag”–being towed out of its San Francisco berth to an unknown future, most likely as scrap.

The Independence–now it’s called the Oceanic, since they seem to rename ships bound for scrapyards–was 57 years old. It spent its final two decades doing one-week Hawaii cruises for American Hawaii, until late 2001 when, partly because of 9/11, the parent company went bankrupt. NCL purchased the ship (probably as part of the strange deal that allowed NCL to reflag some foreign-built ships as American-built so they could do Hawaii cruises without going to foreign ports), but didn’t find it worthwhile to refit it and bring it up to contemporary cruise standards.

We were never on the Independence–but our very first cruise, a long time ago, was on her sister ship, the Constitution. They both did seven-day Hawaii cruises, visiting five ports on four islands and spending half a day cruising slowly past the magnificent cliffs and waterfalls of Molokai.

The ship was old even then. We couldn’t really afford a cruise, but we saved up and found a bargain price. Our cabin was directly below the bridge, which meant our portholes were covered at night with big wooden shutters (so light from our cabin wouldn’t mess up people on the bridge). That also meant that, when there was a good-sized tropical storm, we caught the brunt of it and found that, at least back then, neither of us seemed to suffer from seasickness at sea. (Half the crew got sick that night; it was a real storm, and these ships didn’t have modern stabilizers.)

The cruise was a magnificent way to see Hawaii in its varied splendors. When we went back for a land vacation, we stayed on Molokai–hardly the usual tourist spot. A few years later, we managed to pay for an Alaska cruise–and we’ve been seeing the world by cruise ship ever since (with a two-year interruption that will end late this spring). The Constitution wasn’t the worst ship we’ve been on, and certainly not the best; I’m not sure it was even the oldest.

But it was nearly unique: A relic of a time when American shipyards actually built liner-size ships and American crews ran them. You still get that on a number of riverboats and very small ships, but American Hawaii’s attempt to build two new, larger ships in American shipyards foundered.

The Constitution? It was deemed to expensive to bring it up to Safety of Life at Sea standards when that was done for the Independence. It was sold for scrap and sank somewhere at sea on its way to the scrapyards.

And now the Independence has left America, probably for the last time. Things change.

The Berkeley effect? At one point, in one ranking system, UC Berkeley was rated as the best university in (the world? the U.S.?). Not because all of its departments were best at what they do (they’re not). Indeed, it might have been ranked best even if none of the departments was rated #1 (which several are, depending on who’s doing the rating). The key: Berkeley has (had) so many departments in so many disciplines that are ranked within the top five or top ten: It’s a case of overall excellence and extreme breadth.

Which relates to cruising, Crystal and Conde Nast Traveler because Crystal once again scored highest of any cruise line in last year’s survey, as it has for years. I was reminded of that when we got a flyer from Silversea that, on the cover, claimed Conde Nast Traveler had rated it tops among cruise lines (false) and, inside, included the correct claim: Silversea ranks highest among small-ship cruise lines. (Silversea’s ships carry 296 or 382 passengers; Crystal’s ships carry 940 or 1080 passengers. While 1080 passengers counts as “small” as compared to the megaships that most mainstream cruise lines use, the typical dividing line is 500 passengers.)

In the January 2006 “Gold List” feature, each hotel, resort, and cruise line that qualifies is ranked by survey responses in several categories–six of them for cruise lines. Crystal certainly didn’t rank #1 across the board, but I think they might have come out on top even if they failed to be first in any of the categories (which isn’t the case):

• Cabins: Crystal’s weak point compared to other luxury lines. Five of the eleven Gold List lines score higher, some of them substantially higher.
• Food: While Crystal is excellent in this category, scoring better than most ultra-expensive hotels, two small-ship luxury lines (Seabourn and SeaDream) score even higher.
• Service: Crystal scores 97.1 out of 100–but SeaDream scores 98.2! (SeaDream’s ships house 110 passengers. We have yet to meet anyone who cruises SeaDream; we may be too ordinary to ever meet such folks.)
• Itineraries: Crystal is tops here at 94.7, but barely ahead of Silversea and Grand Circle.
• Design: Crystal’s also #1, significantly ahead of the runner-up.
• Activities: Again, Crystal’s #1 and well ahead of the runner-up

The overall result is that, despite relatively weak Room scores (88.0, when the top score is 96.6), Crystal comes out with an overall 94.1–while the four other luxury cruise lines are clustered closely together (Silversea 92.4, Seabourn 91.9, Radisson Seven Seas 91.3, SeaDream 90.2). (The sixth-rated line is back at 87.0.) Could Crystal have emerged on top if it was second in every category? Quite possibly.

We’ve only been on one other luxury line (Radisson Seven Seas, second among large-ship lines), but from everything I’ve heard, these ratings are right on the money. This year’s poll may be different: the Crystal Harmony is no longer part of Crystal, and while it’s our favorite ship, there’s no question that its rooms aren’t as good as on the other two Crystal ships (and not in the same league as Radisson Seven Seas’ all-suite ships). So room ratings might go up–but the Harmony was also the quintessentially-perfect ship design. (My sense is that the itineraries are also less adventurous with only two ships.)

Seeing those detailed ratings also explains why some reviewers who do walkthroughs have wondered why Crystal scores so high. It’s not the cabins; it’s everything else–and “everything else” really only sinks in during the course of a cruise. For that matter, the design isn’t flashy (quite the opposite) or grand; it’s just effective.

I wish this cruise post was a way of hinting that we’re on our way. It isn’t: indeed, for the first time in more than five years, we have no cruise booked. It really was triggered by the misleading Silversea brochure.

At some point in the ongoing set of “biblioblogosphere” discussions, I believe someone suggested that I should go ahead and list my “favorite blogs” and why they are my favorites–just as a number of people have now commented on lesser-known blogs they particularly like.

I haven’t done that, partly for the same reason I’m uncomfortable with a number of surveys: Something that became pointed when, a few years ago, the person who arranged a speech and who learned that I read science fiction asked me to name my five favorite science fiction authors.

I couldn’t. For some reason, my mind doesn’t seem to work that way.

I can’t give you a list of my five favorite science fiction authors, or my five favorite books, or my five favorite cuisines, or my five favorite movies, or my five favorite cruise destinations, or my five favorite songs or albums or musicians…or, for that matter, even my five favorite magazines. And certainly not my five favorite weblogs.

Or, for that matter, my single favorite in any of those categories.

[Yes, I can name my favorite cruise lines, but only within the relatively narrow confines of those I've been on, and within the small realm of cruise lines in general. Crystal, Radisson Seven Seas, Windstar, *maybe* Delta Queen. But since there's only one other surviving cruise line that we've been on--as well as a bunch of bankrupt or otherwise-departed lines, that's not a very meaningful list.]

I’m not claiming broad experience or a love of diversity or any of that nonsense. I just don’t seem to choose favorites in a lot of areas, at least not that I’m aware of. It may be a failing; it may just be a personality quirk. (I may not be normal, but nobody is, as Willie Nelson sez.)

Oddly enough, this allows me to check off a note that’s been in my “blog or C&I ideas” notebook for a long time–maybe a long time because it’s a personal post rather than an “about” post. It’s a piece of an unlikely-to-be-written memoir…

We got a slick mailer yesterday from Celebrity Cruises. What I say below isn’t an attack on Celebrity Cruises; while their ships carry many more people than we’re used to, we continue to consider trying them out on a San Francisco/Mexico roundtrip (because it’s so convenient)–and they have a good reputation within their general category.

The mailer itself is a little more questionable.

The first inside page has this line in a pseudo-handwriting typeface: “Best Premium Cruise Line”–Conde Nast Travele Readers’ Choice Awards 2004. That’s an interesting combination of fact and interpretation:

Celebrity ranked third among large-ship cruise lines, substantially behind the top two:
1. Crystal 94.6
2. Radisson Seven Seas 94.0
3. Celebrity 85.8
and that 85.8 would rank it seventh in a ranking that ignores ship size (Radisson, uniquely, has both small and large ships, but not for long)

How can they make the claim? Because of that word “Premium”: Crystal and Radisson Seven Seas, two of our very favorite cruise lines, are classifed as “Luxury” lines. “Premium” is a huge step down; Princess and Holland America are other “Premium” lines.

Technically, they’re misquoting Conde Nast Traveler; realistically, to most new cruisers, they’re at best misleading, since most people probably assume “Premium” is top of the line. It’s not.

I’ll buy “Aspiring to offer the finest shipboard dining in the world”…after all, aspirations are good things.

Yes, Celebrity gets high rankings for food within its category, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest that Celebrity’s food is better than Crystal or Radisson Seven Seas or Seabourn or Silversea (or, for that matter, Windstar). Oceania is actually claiming to serve the best food at sea; we haven’t tried them, so we can’t absolutely deny the claim… (There’s a claim that a Cruise Week magazine survey ranked Celebrity #1 for best cuisine; in fact, Cruise Week is a two-page weekly industry newsletter–at $125 a year, we don’t subscribe!–and that means the “survey” is of travel agents. Most travel agents sell mostly mainstream cruises; of the mainstream cruise lines, I don’t doubt Celebrity’s food is best.)

Then the brochure flat-out lies:
“With one staff member to every two guests, Celebrity has the highest staff-to-guest ratio on the sea.”

That’s just wrong, without the unstated qualifier “among cruise lines that we choose to compare ourselves to.” Crystal runs roughly one staff member to every 1.6 guests. Radisson Silver Seas is about the same. So is Windstar. Silversea and Seabourn are even lower, I believe.

The last statement, unqualified as it is, is simply false advertising. Not that Crystal, RSSC, Windstar, Silversea, or Seabourn is likely to sue: They don’t compete directly with Celebrity. (Well, Windstar and Seabourn both compete indirectly, since both are part of Carnival, which also runs the “premium” lines Holland America and Princess.)

As for me: Well, we’re still considering Celebrity, but misleading and false advertising rarely makes me want to run out and buy a product.

Daniel Cornwall has posted an interesting set of pictures of cruise ships in Juneau.

He captured the “biggies”–ships from Holland America (such as the Oosterdam) with the blue bottom, Princess, Carnival (all three of those actually being Carnival), and Celebrity (the ships with the big X on the stack, for Chandros, the original owners). Those are all megaships we’re unlikely to be on (though we’re considering Celebrity).

He also caught the Empress of the North (the sternwheeler), which we saw at a couple of ports a few weeks ago (has it only been a few weeks?), a charming little ship almost lost among the monsters, and one of the very small ships that lines such as Glacier Bay run.

He didn’t, as far as I can see, catch a snap of our favorite ship, the Crystal Harmony, which is in the midst of its final Alaska season under the Crystal name; we were on that ship on its first SF-Alaska round trip of this season. He did get what must be the Seven Seas Mariner (the all-white, all-balcony ship), also quite a wonderful ship from the line (Radisson Seven Seas) that’s the closest competitor to Crystal.

The nighttime snaps are stunning.

Generally, Juneau’s a beautiful place–in summer and (from my one experience) in winter. Although it does have a slightly different feel when almost all of the waterfront is shut down!

“Libraries” as a category? Well, Daniel works in a library…

I jotted down a full page (OK, a 3×5″ page, but still) of notes as I finished reading this book, Double Down, by two lesser-known but still published Barthelme brothers. I picked it up in the ship’s library on our Alaska cruise; I usually read one or two books from the ship’s library along with the ones I take along.

It’s an odd book. These two professors managed to squander a quite substantial inheritance and any other spare money they had because of “addictive” gambling–and astonishingly stupid gambling at that.

How stupid? Driving down to the Mississippi barge casinos in the evening; playing straight through from midnight to 8 a.m. or sometimes for 24 hours straight, never stopping or taking breaks to walk around, making insane bets, violating every rule they knew (and they did know some of the basic advice).

My short summary was “addictive, well-educated idiots”–who admit that they write (or at least used to write) to hide their feelings, which makes them interesting candidates to teach writing to others.

So far, so good–until they say (when they somehow realize that those casinos are actually businesses, and that they only survive because the odds favor the house), “They take your money, and you go home”–in a manner that seems to regard this as a dire indictment of casinos.

It’s true. For most people, most of the time, casinos do “take your money and you go home,” after having some cheap or expensive entertainment.

So do movie theaters, restaurants, bowling alleys, spas, theme parks, hotels… (when we go to Reno, we know that we’ll spend less overall on a good hotel, good food, and entertainment in the form of slot poker than we would for just a good hotel and good food in many other vacation areas–and we assume we’ll spend all the gaming money we’ve allotted, even though we never actually spend that much. Admittedly, we don’t seem to have addictive personalities).

Oops. I slipped in “gaming” instead of “gambling.” I do think there’s a difference. When I go into a casino, I’m playing games for a price. I never expect to win (although, for a two-year stretch, I almost never lost–a long-running fluke that almost certainly won’t be repeated). I expect to spend some portion of the money I’ve allotted, enjoy myself, and quit when I run out of money, get tired, or stop enjoying it. That’s gaming, not gambling. Casinos involve both.

I would have let that slide, but shortly thereafter the brothers talk about casinos “fleecing you.”

OK, I haven’t been to the Mississippi casinos. Maybe they do have people at the door who remove money from your wallet as you enter. Maybe they cheat at the table, not providing the odds that you think you’re getting (which, for blackjack, would take some doing). But I doubt it.

The Barthelmes fleeced themselves. They also lied to themselves about it. They excuse the whole sad affair by saying that it’s the playing, not the money–and that it wasn’t “real money” because it was an inheritance (not including all of their own money, of course), and it’s pretty clear they didn’t care for their father, who provided that “fake money.”

OK, for us, it really is the playing, not the money. Which is why we play quarter slot poker. Whereas the Barthelmes would apparently warm up for blackjack by touching the quarter slots, then moving on to $1, $5, whatever…and would escalate blackjack bets to thousands of dollars per hand. (Reading about just how badly these two behaved is engaging, if appalling.)

At which point, it’s the money–and, I began to suspect, the thrill of losing.

Gambling addiction is real enough for some people, although apparently a lower percentage than many other forms of potentially-addictive behavior (drinking, smoking, heroin, golf…) But to accuse casinos of “fleecing you” when you deliberately abuse every sensible guideline for enjoyable as opposed to ruinous gambling…well, sorry, but I don’t buy it. Most bars really don’t set out to turn drinkers into drunks; most good restaurants don’t set out to turn diners into obsessive, obese foodies; and I don’t believe most casinos set out to ruin or fleece gamblers. It’s not good business, for one thing–and casinos are businesses.

A few more notes on our cruise…

The passengers:

Typical Crystal, by and large: Affluent, well-educated, interesting, with relatively few yahoos and just enough smokers to annoy the breathers (not in dining rooms or the showroom, certainly, but elsewhere).

The ship wasn’t full–the first in the Alaska series usually isn’t–and had some 700-odd people (out of 940 capacity, with 535 crew). The way the captain summarized it at his welcome party: people from 14 other countries, including 12 from Canada, 21 from the UK, 8(?) from Japan–I think it added up to around 100 overall. Then: “240 from the United States, and 350 from California.”

While Californians have been well-represented on every cruise we’ve taken (typically anywhere from 20 to 30%, which makes sense since most of these cruises are marketed only in the U.S. and Canada, California makes up around 18% of the U.S. population, and people in coastal states typically cruise and travel abroad more than people in the interior, this is the first time it’s been half the ship. But sailing out of SF, it really was convenient; I’d guess 100 of the 350 might have been from the Bay Area, maybe more. Beyond that, there were 36 from Texas, 33 Florida, 21 Arizona, 21 Hawaii (one group of food & wine aficionados traveling together), 15 New Jersey, 14 Illinois, 13 Colorado, 10 Nevada, 8 Massachusetts, 7 each Michigan and New York, 6 each Indiana and Tennessee, and 55 from the 38 other states & DC. That breakdown is also unusual–more typically (and maybe not true of Alaska cruises), Florida, New York, and Texas would be 2nd-4th in that order.

The greatest elements:

Alaska first and foremost: The grandeur, the beauty, the wildlife, the people.

Tracy Arm (already noted) was new to us and spectacular. The Misty Fjords were new to us and somewhat less spectacular; maybe the weather was too good for proper enjoyment. Glacier Bay was definitely not new to us but always worthwhile.

Allen Marine tours–a tip for people who love aquatic wildlife and plan Alaska trips. Allen Marine builds its own waterjet catamarans in its Sitka shipyard and runs its own tours, always with a naturalist aboard, always (in our experience) comfortable, well-equipped (with binoculars and route maps, good marine heads and galleys with free beverages and snacks), designed for great viewing, and run to get the most out of the two to four hour tour. You won’t see Allen Marine listed in a shore-excursion book. Look for “Whale Watching & Wildlife Quest” or “Mendenhall Glacier & Wildlife Quest” in Juneau, “Ketchikan Explorer by Land & Sea” or “Misty Fjords & Wildlife Quest” in Ketchikan, “Sea Otter & Wildlife Quest” or a couple of others (with “wildlife quest” in the name, generally) in Sitka. (A bunch of Allen Marine boats are in use as passenger ferries in New York, and the Tlingit-owned ferry we took from Skagway to Haines was actually an Allen Marine boat…)

The food, to be sure–and the wine, including the new “C” vintages (prepared exclusively for Crystal). The “C” Chardonnay was a good moderately-priced California Chardonnay–but the C Reserve, a central coast wine, was superb and a bargain as a shipboard restaurant wine ($8.50/glass, $34/bottle).

Some of the production shows: One with the music of Irving Berlin, one Rodgers & Hammerstein, one “Rock Around the Clock.” A cast of eight remarkably talented singers and dancers augmented by two leads (in all, five men, five women); the male lead had enormous vocal range and depth, and they were all first-rate.

Enough for now. We’ll get pictures back in a couple of days; those might inspire more comments. (Great as the vacation was, work’s been hectic enough to drive much of it out of my mind–and may explain why “regular blogging,” whatever that might mean, won’t return for a while yet.)

In the meantime, by now you should know the bottom line: While it may be true that we’re loving Southeast Alaska to death, it’s also true that Southeast Alaska is the essential cruise for anyone who cares about spectacular scenery and wildlife. There’s really no other good way to see the area. Whether on a small expedition-type ship (which my brother’s doing next month, along with one of his daughters and granddaughters), the Empress of the North (a 235-passenger sternwheeler, the only ocean-going sternwheeler), a medium-size luxury ship (the Crystal Harmony or a Seven Seas competitor), or even–maybe–one of the megaships, it’s worth doing at least once.

Why would someone automatically suppose that a comment about infrequent/erratic posting and moderating for 10-12 days means a vacation? It could mean a speaking trip, planned surgery, illness, family commitments, computer problems, any number of things.

More to the point, why would someone make such a weblog entry with no referent, no significance, no reason whatsoever? I’m not quite paranoid enough to believe that this particular blogger (I’m not about to provide a link, as the last thing I want is to provide this jerk with added readership) was pointing out that our house might be open to robbery during that period (which, fortunately, was not the case), but otherwise…well, why on earth would you blog that someone who you don’t know and who has never said so is going on an “extended vacation”?

Grumble.

As it happens…well, the series of cruise entries may be a tipoff. All of those entries were composed on or before May 30, postdated, but in a typical one-pass “zeroth draft” mode. We were on our final Crystal Harmony cruise to Alaska, a 12-night round trip out of San Francisco. Final only because the Crystal Harmony disappears in December, taken over by Crystal Cruises’ parent, NYK Shipping, for luxury Japanese cruising under a different name. It’s the third time we’ve done this cruise, the second time we’ve taken the first in the summer series, despite the possibility of inferior weather at the beginning of the season.

I’m not going to write about the whole trip for the moment (too tired–and after today at work, really too tired). I will note that poor weather turned out to be a problem only in one minor sense: When the skies are as clear and sunny as they were in every single port–blue skies in Ketchikan!–you see a lot less wildlife on the wildlife-watching excursions we took. Eagles and others tend to stay in the shade, coming out more on overcast days. So we only saw maybe two or three dozen eagles, maybe 15-20 humpbacks, maybe 20-30 orcas (“killer whales”), possibly two dozen sea otters, a dozen or so sea lions, and three mooses. The mooses were new to us. Otherwise, it’s fair to say that, spectacular as bald eagles always are in flight (and even as “golf balls in trees,” the standard spotting suggestion), this year was nothing compared to the hundreds we encountered two years ago.

Short version: Wonderful cruise. Rain only in Glacier Bay. Tracy Arm, new to us, was spectacular–and our captain, unlike another “big ship” captain, wasn’t about to let some floating ice (lots of floating ice) keep the ship out of the 22-mile fjord. Glorious weather in Skagway (and Haines, where we spent most of that day), Sitka, Juneau–and, to repeat, blue skies in Ketchikan. People who know Alaska will know how odd that is. (The Misty Fjords weren’t misty when we were there…)

Intermittent posting as I catch up with everything–and, of course, there’s ALA in another 11 days. Where I’ll be sans technology as usual.

I’ll try to keep this one short–after all, these ships are small. The three originals (the Wind Song, Wind Star, and Wind Spirit) hold 148 passengers in 74 cabins–73 of them identical (plus one “owner’s suite). The Wind Song was put out of commission by a fire.

WindStar picked up the Club Med II (a much larger, coarser version of the WindStar idea built after WindStar’s ships), renamed it the Wind Surf, and converted one deck’s worth of 188sqft. cabins into 376sq.ft. suites by removing interior walls. (As a result, they’re the only small suites I’ve ever heard of with two full bathrooms!) That ship still carries 308 passengers, more than twice as many as the “real” WindStar ships; it has more public spaces, but it’s not as classic.

How classic? WindStar ships are “wind cruisers.” They have regular engines–but they also have masts. When the wind reaches 10 knots, the captain pushes a button and little motors unfurl glorious sails from the (turning) masts. The ships run faster under sail than under engines, and when conditions are right the only running engine is the one required for electricity and the like, resulting in glorious quiet. There’s no sailing crew, but these are sailing ships.

We haven’t been on the Wind Surf, so can’t comment. The others are first-rate at what they do. The cabins are extremely well designed and comfortable, but there are no verandahs (and you get big portholes, not windows). There aren’t a lot of public spaces, there’s no neon or glitz, and they don’t schedule boatloads of Events to keep you busy.

What they do is sail into interesting ports with a small group of interesting people, serve restaurant-quality food in a restaurant-like setting (open seating, and although there’s a limited menu all food is cooked to order), offer some low-key local entertainment when appropriate in the single lounge/meeting space/bar, and maintain a great casual gathering spot on the open top deck, with a modest pool, a pool bar, and interesting snacks or special cooking demonstrations some afternoons. There’s actually a second restaurant where breakfast and (usually) lunch is served, a combination of buffet and menu items. WindStar gets local fish and produce whenever that’s possible, and if you go out fishing they’re only too happy to cook the results.

Oh, your room has a TV and either DVD player or VCR; the reception desk checks out movies. There’s a tiny so-called casino (two tables and four or five slot machines). There’s music and dancing at times. And, whenever the ship’s anchored in calm waters, there’s a water-sports platform opening directly from the stern, with all water sports except scuba free (snorkeling–they have equipment; ocean kayaks; windsurf boards; and more).

Not a cruise line for those who need to be Entertained. Not a cruise line for those who love formal dress: The dress code at dinner is always “resort casual,” which means nice shirts or equivalent but certainly not ties or formalwear. Also not for those who get seasick easily: small ships running under sail are going to sway a lot more than big cruiseliners with stabilizers. (On one cruise, there were evenings when we joked that anyone walking upright through the dining room had had way too much to drink!

Great destinations; well-planned shore excursions; interesting people; and you set your own pace. We love it. Others might not. It’s not cheap, and, yes, it is technically part of Holland America, which in turn means it’s owned by Carnival. Although we weren’t crazy about Holland America and are unlikely to cruise on Carnival, WindStar suits us fine.

Why is Crystal Cruises our favorite cruise line–and why are we willing to pay the high prices? (For the price of a modest cabin on Crystal, you can probably get a suite on Carnival or NCL or Royal Caribbean.)

One reason is that Crystal, like several other luxury cruise lines, is destination-oriented. They don’t go back and forth, back and forth on endless 7-night Caribbean cruises. Indeed, other than their 12-night Alaska round-trips from San Francisco (which end this year after a wonderful decade) and some European 12-night cruise series, they don’t have particularly repetitive cruises. For that matter, even with Alaska, each cruise is a little different–enough so that the cruise atlas includes a map for each cruise.

We’re generally destination-oriented cruisers. We’re not shoppers; the most popular Caribbean destinations don’t interest us much (we’ve seen some of them, and there are some we’d like to visit eventually, but…); while we enjoy cruising, we’re mostly “cruising to see the world.” That’s where lines like Crystal, Radisson Seven Seas, WindStar, and some others that we haven’t yet tried come in.

For example, this year, Crystal’s trio of ships (which becomes a duo at the end of the year, sadly) has visited or will visit 168 ports in 79 countries. Every year, Crystal visits new destinations–for example, this year the line makes its maiden calls at Porto Venere (Italy), Seno Eyre Fjord (Chile), Alesund (Norway), Belfast, Oban (Scotland), Monemvasia and Samos (both Greece), Nesebur (Bulgaria), Progreso, Loreto, Santa Rosalita, and La Paz (all Mexico), Turks & Caicos, and Roatan Island. That’s in one year, for three ships.

Crystal also finds or designs first-rate and varied shore excursions, and makes sure the guides and equipment are the best available. Typically, they won’t fill a tour bus more than 2/3 full, and we’ve been on an Alaska wildlife-watching catamaran designed for 150 people with 35 Crystal passengers: Crystal chartered the catamaran, and certainly wasn’t going to cancel the excursion for low turnout.

They also do everything right on board. The cabins are well-designed (although the Crystal Harmony’s bathrooms are small), with loads of nice touches. The public spaces are varied and superb: Even with a full load of 940 passengers, we frequently feel like we’re the only ones on board because there are so many different places people congregate. The ships have true promenade decks: 12′ wide teak decking all the way around the ship (unusual for recently-built ships), and with no deck chairs to block walkers. (There are plenty of deck chairs, but up on the Lido deck where the pools are, and back in various aft open spaces on several decks.)

The food–ah, the food. Crystal is regularly rated as having the best food (and the best service) in the cruise industry, even beating out much more expensive lines. They produce varied menus, they invite you to mix-and-match vegetables, starches, and entrees in your main plate (some lines can’t handle those changes), and they let you know that they’ll prepare almost anything you want (within reason) on 24-hours notice. They also have specialty restaurants considered first-rate, a pool grill that serves great burgers (regular, turkey, veggie) and the like all afternoon, free ship-made ice cream, yogurt, and cookies all afternoon (also by one of the pools), a Lido buffet restaurant for breakfast and lunch (and casual poolside dining some evenings), and an extensive room service menu…

About the service: Crystal’s people aren’t obsequious, in your face, or anything like that. They just do a great job. It’s clear that Crystal treats its crews well (the dedicated crew pool and lounging area has the best views on the ship; crews are two to a cabin; the line goes out of its way to encourage married and other couples…) and it shows: You feel as though you’re part of a very large and happy family. The crew:passenger ratio is also very high, as you’d expect on a luxury line: about 1.6:1 (passengers to crew) if the ship’s full.

Crystal pretty consistently rates highest of large-ship cruise lines, but “large ship” is tricky. Yes, these are big ships–but they’re extremely spacious. The smallest ship, the soon-to-depart Crystal Harmony, is 49,000 GRT (gross register tons, a measure of space, not weight: a GRT is “100 cubic feet of enclosed revenue-earning space” according to the Unofficial Guide to Cruises, holding a maximum of 940 passengers. By comparison, Royal Caribbean’s Nordic Empress is almost the same size (48,563 GRT)–but it holds 1602 passengers. (The newest and largest Crystal ship, the Crystal Serenity, holds 1,080 passengers–but it’s also 68,000 GRT, so there’s a lot more space per passenger than on the Crystal Harmony or Crystal Symphony.)

We don’t ever feel crowded or herded on Crystal. We also don’t ever feel that they’re trying to nickel-and-dime us or shill for more money. Crystal treats passengers as adults: Other than one captain’s announcement at 9 a.m. each morning, there are no loudspeaker announcements under normal circumstances. There’s an extensive ship’s newspaper with a full schedule, there are lots of clocks on board, and they assume that adults can be where they need to be when they need to be there. (Similarly, for shore excursions, where one slightly-larger and much-cheaper line we tried had what we believe to be a standard ritual: Go one place, get little colored tags put on your shirts, go wait somewhere else, then line up again to go to your excursions–Crystal, whenever they’re docking, says “Meet your group on the pier by this time,” and that’s it.

As for nickel-and-diming, three years ago Crystal dropped all charges for nonalcoholic beverages; when you’re going ashore, there are usually big trays of bottled water so you’ll remember to take one or more with you–at no charge. The Bistro, a wonderful on-board space with a wine bar, teas and specialty coffees (with or without liquor), and light food most of the day, doesn’t charge for specialty coffees unless you add booze. Yes, you do pay for booze–but Crystal’s wine list is first-rate (and they now have their own vintages, “C” wines, produced for them by an experienced California winery) and fairly priced.

Let’s see: What else to mention. Yes, they have evening shows–magnificent ones. They have first-rate lecturers. The libraries are large and well-stocked. There are lots of things to do, and no pressure to do any of them. Each ship has a Caesar’s Palace at Sea–the casino staff all come from the Caesar’s/Harrah’s group of casinos. (But the free drinks come from the hotel staff, so if you ask for a glass of Chardonnay, you’ll get restaurant-quality Chardonnay, not warm white “chablis”) The rooms all have sitting areas, and most have verandas.

They treat repeat passengers well. In addition to the special Crystal Society gathering on each cruise, you get a special repeat-passenger discount on most cruises, shipboard credits that grow as you cruise more, and on each five-cruise milestone some special discount (e.g., our next milestone will be a guaranteed two-category upgrade). And they have loyal passengers–because they do a great job.

Not well-suited for boozehounds and partiers; Crystal draws a somewhat older and generally well-educated crowd, and tends to be reasonably sedate at night. They do have children’s areas and put counselors on board whenever there are a given number of kids, but they’re certainly not Disney Cruises. They have extensive computer labs (and free training).

Mostly, they treat you well; they feed you very well (quality, not quantity, although you certainly will never go hungry!); they go interesting places and offer lots of interesting things to see; they educate you on board if that’s what you want (and leave you alone if that’s what you want); and they seem to have every detail down pat.

Downsides (for some people): Crystal is expensive (but one of the two most reasonably-priced luxury lines). They do have traditional two-seating/assigned-table dinners (and we’ve always enjoyed our dinner companions). They do expect you to dress formally on formal evenings.

Oh, and if you hate all big business, they’re owned by NYK, Japan’s largest (and maybe the world’s largest) freight shipping company. But if you hate big business, there are very few cruise lines you can try–particularly when 12 lines are owned by Carnival.

We’ve gone through the Panama Canal on Crystal. We’ve seen New Zealand and Australia; Venice and surrounding areas; the coast of Scotland and the fjords of Norway; and Alaska, more than once. We hope to see even more of the world on Crystal (as always, “as time, money and health permit”).

Let’s talk about riverboat cruising–more specifically, Delta Queen Steamboat Company, cruising on America’s heartland rivers. (There are quite a few other river cruises–as many as four boats and ships cruise the Columbia River, and dozens of ships and barges cruise European waterways, not to mention the Yangtze. But we’ve never taken any of those, so…)

Delta Queen operates three riverboats. They’re boats, not ships: They’re not built for the open ocean. Very shallow draft (no more than 9 feet, because that’s as deep as the Army Corps of Engineers keeps the upper Mississippi). Dimensions small enough to fit into river locks and under bridges. The largest, the American Queen, is 418 feet long, 89.4 feet wide, and rises 97 feet above the riverline–but the stacks and pilothouse can be lowered to clear bridges. (If I remember properly, the stacks pivot–just like the old riverboats.)

These are authentic steam-driven sternwheelers. When the American Queen was built (we were on one of the inaugural voyages, in mid-1995, and have the working replica boat’s bell to prove it–and, for that matter, our names are engraved on or in the boat’s bell, probably in teeny-tiny type), the most daunting task for the builders was finding a steam engine the right size to drive the boat. After all, nobody builds those any more. (With the help of the Army Corps, they located a sunken dredge and salvaged the engine–actually two of them, from the Kennedy.) And that big red paddlewheel is not only for show. On the Delta Queen, it’s the only propulsion, and on the Mississippi Queen and American Queen, it’s the primary propulsion system. The sternwheelers were never the fastest steamboats, just the most graceful; the Queens typically run at about six to eight mph (not knots, since they’re on rivers).

The Delta Queen itself (herself?) is truly authentic, which is both good and bad. DQ was built in 1926 and originally ran in the Sacramento delta, between Sacramento and San Francisco, along with sister ship Delta King. (My mother-in-law used the Delta Queen as transportation, back in the day…) After WWII, the Delta King became what it is now–a floating hotel and restaurant in Old Sacramento. The Delta Queen was towed all the way to Louisiana, refurbished, and started a new career as a river cruise boat. (Not without hassles: The superstructure is wood, which means it can’t fully meet Safety of Life at Sea, SOLAS, regulations. It required an act of Congress to keep it running, and you sign a waiver before you board this National Historic Landmark.) It’s also small–87 cabins on four decks (no elevators), with cabins ranging from 44 to 68 square feet, except for a few high-end 136-156 sq. ft. cabins. (No typos: A typical midrange DQ cabin is just big enough for two very narrow beds, a milk carton-size table, a three-drawer dresser, the 16″ hanging rod that substitutes for a closet unless you book the highest suite category, one chair and a sink; that 44sqft. doesn’t include the bathroom.) You really don’t spend any more time in your cabin than you need to–but all the decks are promenade decks, with rocking chairs all around. You meet everyone on board the first day, and it’s just small-town Americana from then on.

Yes, the cabins are tiny; no, we don’t recommend the DQ unless you understand that and can live with it. Public spaces include an open entry area/lounge/library, the Texas Lounge for piano bar, singalongs, drinks, and watching the sun set, and the Orleans Dining Room–which serves as the restaurant and showroom (after the second seating, they rearrange tables). Two seatings for dinner, not because there aren’t enough tables but because the galley’s so tiny that it can’t prepare that many meals at once.

As with all three Queens, it’s a little hokey, a lot traditional heartland Americana, and a great way to explore the Mississippi, Atchafalaya, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, and Arkansas rivers. Each Queen has a “Riverlorian” to keep you in touch with the rivers and what they’re all about. Interesting stops. Good food, with a range of choices (more on the larger Queens) including a fair amount of “river food.” Moderately dressy for dinner. Most people on the DQ, in our experience, are in their 70s and 80s and just love the boat.

Differences with the other two:

• The Mississippi Queen, built in 1976, holds 416 passengers in considerably more comfort, with cabins ranging from 123 square feet up, including a fair number with private verandas. In addition to the dining room, there’s the two-level Paddlewheel Lounge (which overlooks…well, you guessed it) and Grand Saloon (showroom); there’s also an open-air Calliope Bar. (Did I mention that each Queen has an authentic steam-driven calliope? When they go through locks and under bridges, you frequently get calliope concerts.) There are elevators. There’s even a little bathing pool.
• The American Queen, built in 1995, holds 436 passengers. Typical cabins range from 141 to 190 square feet; some have verandas. The J.M. White Dining Room is a recreation of one of the most splendid steamboat dining saloons; the Grand Saloon is a true showroom, with two levels and all the facilities; and there are a couple of good bars–plus the Front Porch of America, an inauthentic but wonderful view lounge with fresh-baked cookies showing up all day. Elevators, to be sure.

Our reminiscences are from the old DQSC, part of the same holding company that ran American Hawaii–and got too ambitious with a building program. The three boats are now operated under the same company name by new ownership; my understanding is that everything’s pretty much the same.

Our favorite cruise was St. Louis to St. Paul (or vice-versa), seven days on the always-changing Upper Mississippi. But we also loved a civil war cruise, mostly on the Tennessee and Ohio, with a team of historians along.

Downsides: These cruises are expensive–inherently so, since they’re small boats and American registry (which means the crew has to be paid living wages). Most passengers are, shall we say, older than we are. It is indeed a little hokey at times. And, on the DQ, those cabins are small.

Upsides: You get into the American heartland. River cruising is incredibly relaxing. We learned a lot about the rivers and the land around them (and the people, of course). And if you get seasick on a river cruise, it’s really all in your mind.