Cruising By the Complaints

I'm a cruiser.  In the past 16 years, I have taken 12 cruises and have a thirteenth booked for next year.  I like cruising.  I like it as a way of vacationing, and I like it as a controlled way to see the world.  (Yes, I realize that an 8-hour port stop is hardly "seeing the world" at the ports, but that is a discussion for another time.)

Most of my cruises have been with Holland America Line, mainly because my first travel agent knew both my family and me well enough to know that we would not really enjoy our time on any of the other cruise lines.  Also, Holland America travels to the places I want to go.  That first cruise was a Canada/New England itinerary and at the time, only one other line was doing that route, and it was priced out of my budget.  As it turns out, the travel agent was not wrong.  I did enjoy that first cruise, and the eleven that have followed it.  I like Holland America for its relatively small, quiet ships.  I know this will not come as a surprise to anyone, but I am really not a loud person and prefer to read quietly alone, even on vacation, than to be in large, active, loud social groups.  In short, Holland America is the perfect line for me.

Holland America is a US-based company, based in Seattle, Washington, though its ships are foreign-flagged vessels, most of them Dutch-flagged.  The officers and crew of the vessel are mainly Dutch, Indonesian, and Filipino.  And while the general atmosphere of the ships is American-ish, it is decidedly not America, despite the company name.  Additionally, like most cruise lines, Holland America sources its food and beverage supplies from wherever the ships are in port, which means it is feasible to source products from the US, or in fact with US-based companies or brands.  These are important facts to remember.  Even US-based cruise company's ships are not the US.  They are, essentially, other countries.

Enough background.  On to the real reason for this wall of text.

I read and post on a cruise message board.  Today's rant is a reaction to those people who cruise, allegedly because they want to see and experience the world, but then complain that the cruise ships and/or port stops are not their hometowns.  Today there was a discussion where the original poster complained that she (I'm assuming based on the user name) can't get real cream for her coffee, instead only what is known as half & half in the US or coffee cream in other parts of the world.  She proclaims that she is "extremely picky" about her coffee and the pseudo-cream "just won't do!"

Another poster complained quite loudly to anyone who will listen (or read) that the wine list on the ship does not include her favorite chardonnay.  Her favorite local diner has the readily available wine, why can't the ship?!  She did note that she spoke to ship services and enquired about getting the wine for her upcoming cruise and was told that was an option, though she would have to buy the entire case of 12 bottles, whether she intended to drink all the bottles on her 7-day cruise or not.  (As an aside, I felt that was entirely reasonable compromise on the part of the cruise line.  It was after all, a special request for her and how is the cruise line to know if anyone else wants that particular vintage?  She did not share my opinion and abruptly cancelled her cruise over the lack of her favorite wine.)

Still another poster complained that the shampoo provided was not the brand she uses and objected to having to bring a supply of her preferred brand.  And yet another complains that the butter on the ship is not of the quality he finds at home, and often the yogurt is not the kind he can get at "any supermarket in the US."

These types of posts leave me wondering about people.  They claim they want to see and experience the world, but then object (and quite often complain) because the world is not their home town.  I am honestly confused as to what they expected to find in the world and why, if they are as picky as they are portraying themselves, they want to leave their secure habitats in the first place.  Surely they can watch documentaries and see the same things from the comfort of their homes with the right selection of cream, wine, shampoo, and yogurt.

Look, I'm from New Orleans.  It is far and away more individual than anywhere else I have ever been.  And while I would love for everywhere else I go to have exactly what I can get in New Orleans, that would mean that everywhere else IS New Orleans.  But I know that to see and experience the world first hand and in person, I have to leave New Orleans, and unfortunately that means doing without some of my favorite things.  On the whole, I think I'm a better person for this understanding.

I'm not sure the complainers really want to "experience the world."  I'm pretty sure they just want to have the world come to them, or at the very least, the world to be exactly what their limited experience has led them to believe it should be.  To everyone who is that picky and that opinionated, I can only offer this advice:  STAY HOME!  SEND THE MONEY INSTEAD!  Everyone will be better off, and happier, in the long run.