"You have to pay for quiet"

Embarked on MV Crown Princess on a 27-day cruise from Los Angeles to Montevideo, I had been driven away from poolside by the thumping music.  So I found a deck chair in a quiet region, stretched out happily, and opened my book.  Presently, a cruise line goombah appeared and demanded $40 to use the chair for the day. 

         “You’re kidding.”

         “This is a quiet area.”

         “I know.  That’s why I sat here.”

         “You have to pay for quiet.”

That last statement should be featured on every Princess Line brochure.

This ship is a floating gouge machine.  It is also a jam-packed cattle car, whose passengers are relentlessly herded and prodded into servility.

I had been eager to make this voyage around Cape Horn ever since I read “Two Years Before the Mast” when a boy.  As a former seagoing Naval officer, and having read every one of the 25 or so Hornblower and Aubrey and Maturin novels, I was churning with excitement. What a shattering disappointment.

The debacle began with embarkation in L.A., a grueling two-hour exercise in donkey coitus that killed all festive spirit.  You are interrogated, searched, photographed, and admonished as you pass through no fewer than five checkpoints.  This suggests nothing else so much as the booking-in process at Terminal Island Federal Prison.

You are issued an ID card linked to your personal data and photo, and told it is “required” that you carry it with you “at all times.”  This suggests nothing else so much as the ID cards that German Jews were “required” to carry with them “at all times.”

You are advised that your luggage is subject to search for “contraband.”  Guns?  Bombs?  Drugs?  No.  Jack Daniel’s and Cotes du Rhone.  The company forbids passengers to possess alcohol, even in their own cabins.  This is further enforced by “alcohol checkpoints” when you embark.

For our good health, right?  Of course not.  We understand immediately that this is to shelter the monopoly on alcohol.  This is soon manifested in the excessive prices for drinks and wine.  I estimate 400-500% markup.

A 50-minute massage is $134, including the mandatory tip.  Internet access is $200 to $400, depending on which plan you choose. The service is glacial.

As the ship enters the tropical ports, a steward circulates around the decks distributing half-liter bottles of water “to beat the heat ashore.”  “Thanks very much.”  “That will be two dollars.”

The standard (i.e., “free”) restaurants offer food of variable quality ranging from four-star to hog slop.  Oddly, they serve a superb Beef Wellington but the hamburger has the flavor and consistency of week-old oatmeal.

Breakfast is especially dismal: bins of tired bacon marinating in grease, eggs congealing under heat lamps, soggy pancakes, truck-stop coffee.  If you don’t fancy dishwater coffee, you can get the “special” variety for $2.95 per cup.

The meals are contended for in bump-and-shove buffet lines or delivered in noisy crowded restaurants by harried waiters.  The service staff are willing and friendly, but are so frenzied in contending with the mass of humanity that they lack care.

For example, rushing around the restaurant the waiter will pour water in your wine. Yes, this happened.  He apologized and carried away the diluted wine, saying he would “bring another.”  It turned out that he meant “another water,” not “another wine.”  The replacement wine had to be paid for.  Waiters are forbidden to dispense “free” wine.

 Similarly, in the rush to keep the herd moving, waiters will snatch away your half-finished plate when you get up to refill your coffee.  The buffet restaurant is in such frantic chaos that it is impossible to know who “your” waiter is.  So I asked the nearest one to please not take the untouched meal away while I went for iced tea.  I returned after a minute and a half.  Gone.

At dinner one evening, I was captivated by the narrative of an 84-year-old Korean lady to my left who had lived through the Japanese occupation. A waiter positioned behind my right shoulder interposed, in the middle of her sentence, “May I take your order?” Deeming that I was not quick enough to break off this communion and turn to his business, he poked me in the shoulder repeatedly and barked “sir, sir, sir.”  This particular form of rudeness is a regular thing.

Not all the wait staff are so rude.  A minority are more thoughtful.  But this proceeds from their innate politeness rather than correct training.

 If you want the good food and soft ambience, you must attend one of the “specialty” restaurants at $29 extra per meal.  Ka-ching once again.

Be prepared for LOTS of lines, swarming and teeming, for meals, for shows, for excursions.  Be also prepared for the “dash for the seat/bar stool/deck chair” competition. You will be ordered to vacate if another passenger believes he has a better claim.  You could stand your ground and battle for your rights, but you didn’t buy an expensive cruise for that.  So you shrug and amble off, irritated less at the other passenger than at Princess Cruises for packing you in this way.

SHORE EXCURSIONS.  I could write a separate essay of similar length, but will just say this: NEVER book a Princess shore excursion unless you desire further experience with mass-herded donkey coitus at exorbitant cost. Instead, make independent arrangements in advance, more customized and at a third the price.  Alternatively, it is almost always possible to make arrangements on the spot.

The harm of all this is not only out-of-pocket.  You might just set aside a few thousand extra, say the hell with it, and relax. But it wouldn’t work. You are repeatedly irritated as you are dinged, gouged, squeezed, and fleeced; you are endlessly on edge as you worry that you might have crossed some line or entered some space or consumed some comestible that will trigger an extra charge or a “not allowed” reproach; you are always conscious that this cruise line will exploit your captivity to the maximum. 

In time, I developed a grim admiration for the efficiency with which the passengers are processed.  The word “processed” is carefully chosen.  That’s what you will be.

The Rule of Five Percent holds that every experience entails at least five percent that is fun and enriching.  I made it my mission to find the five percent, and managed to do so:  the sea air, the ocean vistas, the communion with other passengers, some stunning views at the bottom of the world.  So I attained part of what I came for. But by the end of the cruise I was half screaming inside to get off of this hog-wallow vessel.

If you are going to take a Princess Cruise, bend way over.  You’re going to take it hard and deep.

Embarked on MV Crown Princess on a 27-day cruise from Los Angeles to Montevideo, I had been driven away from poolside by the thumping music.  So I found a deck chair in a quiet region, stretched out happily, and opened my book.  Presently, a cruise line goombah appeared and demanded $40 to use the chair for the day. 

         “You’re kidding.”

         “This is a quiet area.”

         “I know.  That’s why I sat here.”

         “You have to pay for quiet.”

That last statement should be featured on every Princess Line brochure.

This ship is a floating gouge machine.  It is also a jam-packed cattle car, whose passengers are relentlessly herded and prodded into servility.

I had been eager to make this voyage around Cape Horn ever since I read “Two Years Before the Mast” when a boy.  As a former seagoing Naval officer, and having read every one of the 25 or so Hornblower and Aubrey and Maturin novels, I was churning with excitement. What a shattering disappointment.

The debacle began with embarkation in L.A., a grueling two-hour exercise in donkey coitus that killed all festive spirit.  You are interrogated, searched, photographed, and admonished as you pass through no fewer than five checkpoints.  This suggests nothing else so much as the booking-in process at Terminal Island Federal Prison.

You are issued an ID card linked to your personal data and photo, and told it is “required” that you carry it with you “at all times.”  This suggests nothing else so much as the ID cards that German Jews were “required” to carry with them “at all times.”

You are advised that your luggage is subject to search for “contraband.”  Guns?  Bombs?  Drugs?  No.  Jack Daniel’s and Cotes du Rhone.  The company forbids passengers to possess alcohol, even in their own cabins.  This is further enforced by “alcohol checkpoints” when you embark.

For our good health, right?  Of course not.  We understand immediately that this is to shelter the monopoly on alcohol.  This is soon manifested in the excessive prices for drinks and wine.  I estimate 400-500% markup.

A 50-minute massage is $134, including the mandatory tip.  Internet access is $200 to $400, depending on which plan you choose. The service is glacial.

As the ship enters the tropical ports, a steward circulates around the decks distributing half-liter bottles of water “to beat the heat ashore.”  “Thanks very much.”  “That will be two dollars.”

The standard (i.e., “free”) restaurants offer food of variable quality ranging from four-star to hog slop.  Oddly, they serve a superb Beef Wellington but the hamburger has the flavor and consistency of week-old oatmeal.

Breakfast is especially dismal: bins of tired bacon marinating in grease, eggs congealing under heat lamps, soggy pancakes, truck-stop coffee.  If you don’t fancy dishwater coffee, you can get the “special” variety for $2.95 per cup.

The meals are contended for in bump-and-shove buffet lines or delivered in noisy crowded restaurants by harried waiters.  The service staff are willing and friendly, but are so frenzied in contending with the mass of humanity that they lack care.

For example, rushing around the restaurant the waiter will pour water in your wine. Yes, this happened.  He apologized and carried away the diluted wine, saying he would “bring another.”  It turned out that he meant “another water,” not “another wine.”  The replacement wine had to be paid for.  Waiters are forbidden to dispense “free” wine.

 Similarly, in the rush to keep the herd moving, waiters will snatch away your half-finished plate when you get up to refill your coffee.  The buffet restaurant is in such frantic chaos that it is impossible to know who “your” waiter is.  So I asked the nearest one to please not take the untouched meal away while I went for iced tea.  I returned after a minute and a half.  Gone.

At dinner one evening, I was captivated by the narrative of an 84-year-old Korean lady to my left who had lived through the Japanese occupation. A waiter positioned behind my right shoulder interposed, in the middle of her sentence, “May I take your order?” Deeming that I was not quick enough to break off this communion and turn to his business, he poked me in the shoulder repeatedly and barked “sir, sir, sir.”  This particular form of rudeness is a regular thing.

Not all the wait staff are so rude.  A minority are more thoughtful.  But this proceeds from their innate politeness rather than correct training.

 If you want the good food and soft ambience, you must attend one of the “specialty” restaurants at $29 extra per meal.  Ka-ching once again.

Be prepared for LOTS of lines, swarming and teeming, for meals, for shows, for excursions.  Be also prepared for the “dash for the seat/bar stool/deck chair” competition. You will be ordered to vacate if another passenger believes he has a better claim.  You could stand your ground and battle for your rights, but you didn’t buy an expensive cruise for that.  So you shrug and amble off, irritated less at the other passenger than at Princess Cruises for packing you in this way.

SHORE EXCURSIONS.  I could write a separate essay of similar length, but will just say this: NEVER book a Princess shore excursion unless you desire further experience with mass-herded donkey coitus at exorbitant cost. Instead, make independent arrangements in advance, more customized and at a third the price.  Alternatively, it is almost always possible to make arrangements on the spot.

The harm of all this is not only out-of-pocket.  You might just set aside a few thousand extra, say the hell with it, and relax. But it wouldn’t work. You are repeatedly irritated as you are dinged, gouged, squeezed, and fleeced; you are endlessly on edge as you worry that you might have crossed some line or entered some space or consumed some comestible that will trigger an extra charge or a “not allowed” reproach; you are always conscious that this cruise line will exploit your captivity to the maximum. 

In time, I developed a grim admiration for the efficiency with which the passengers are processed.  The word “processed” is carefully chosen.  That’s what you will be.

The Rule of Five Percent holds that every experience entails at least five percent that is fun and enriching.  I made it my mission to find the five percent, and managed to do so:  the sea air, the ocean vistas, the communion with other passengers, some stunning views at the bottom of the world.  So I attained part of what I came for. But by the end of the cruise I was half screaming inside to get off of this hog-wallow vessel.

If you are going to take a Princess Cruise, bend way over.  You’re going to take it hard and deep.