Friday 18 May 2018

Dessert Island


DESSERT ISLAND

Does there exist a boy who ever read Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe and who has not fantasized about being marooned on a desert island? The lure of finding treasures and /or escaping from school has always held a strong fascination in juvenile minds. Of course, as the boys grow up their fantasies get a little more colorful; they find that the desert islands of their younger age are not totally deserted but are populated by numerous scantily clad beauties. I am sure you get the picture.  

Alas, in this age of satellite surveillance which has mapped every square inch of the globe, such desert islands don’t seem to exist any longer. Any such candidate islands, which may have existed in earlier times, have all been taken over by oil-drilling companies or some super power or the other as its naval base. But as they say, when one door closes some other opens. A whole new breed of desert islands have sprung up in recent times to cater to the needs of people who have long felt the need to live their fantasies. 
   
These islands are in fact are capable of floating and can travel from place to place on rivers or lakes or even on high seas for that matter.  They have space enough for hundreds and even thousands of people and moreover have all the provisions that a traveler marooned on them can hope for; fresh fruit, bread, cheese, meat, fish and wine and liquor to keep them all in good spirits. People may call them cruise ships but I feel the term “dessert islands” would be more apt.  

As air travel became more economic since 60’s and 70’s, the fortunes of ocean liners which carried passengers mainly on the trans-Atlantic route faced a steep downturn. Luckily the consumers discovered the pleasures of luxury cruising soon thereafter and the cruise - ship business picked up smartly. The cruise ships which are specifically designed for the purpose of providing the passengers with a novel experience have continually added new features and attractions to ensure that passengers get the best value for their money. This has resulted in the cruising industry now getting transformed into one of the fastest growth segments of the tourism industry.  

All these are but dry facts which need an actual experience to put it in the proper perspective and that’s what we discovered for ourselves. When we were throwing about various ideas for a class reunion of our IIT Bombay ‘76 batch in US (for a change from our normal practice) we had a few interesting choices; a national park like Yosemite or some city like Washington DC with its museums etc but the lure of a cruise proved to be too much for most of the participants (yours truly being among the more vociferous). Sure there were a number of guys for whom a cruise was no novelty but they sportingly agreed to join the rest of gang on the cruise.  

Our IITB contingent - including  alums, spouses and other family members  - probably made us the largest single group of revelers on “MS Vision of the Seas” of Royal Caribbean International as it weighed anchor at Galveston, Texas. From the moment we stepped on the ship it was as if we were on a different planet. It was the same feeling that you get say in Las Vegas where the only objective is to have as much fun as possible in the short time available there.

If you are interested in the stats, the ship had 11 decks of which decks 1 and 2 was for the ship’s personnel and the remaining housed the passengers’ cabins, restaurants and common areas for recreation. From deck 4 to deck 9 there was an open space named “Centrum” which was a sort of well with balconies from where the proceedings in the Centrum could be viewed by a large number of passengers. This also offered a grand view to passengers going up and down in capsule lifts. This was where a band of musicians would play in the evening (remember the Titanic?) and some other functions would take place every day like singing, march - past of staff carrying flags of their respective countries.  
All these cruise ships are very well manned to ensure that the guests are really well looked after. The Vision had about 2200 passengers and more than 800 crew members to take care of them. Among the passengers, the US obviously contributed the maximum numbers and there were passengers from some 30 odd nationalities. And guess what! With our group strength Indians were the second largest contingent among passengers. There were a few other Indians on board as well so I guess there were around 70 Indians there on board for that voyage. As a good fraction of our own contingent based in US were technically classified as US citizens and not Indians, we were counted as 42 but still were the second largest.

Although the Philippinos took the top slot among the crew - the Indian contingent of 200+ was in second spot. There were guys from Mumbai, Vasai, Goa, Delhi. They were happy to see so many of us and were more than willing to make our brief stay with them more enjoyable for us. So from second night onwards, at our dinner tables we were served with Indian specialties; one day it was   samosas, second day potato bhajias, other days we were served butter chicken, chicken biryani and prawn curry with shahi tukda on the last night.

Of course, food was not an issue at all. Right from the moment we stepped on the ship, the buffet at Windjammer CafĂ© on the 9th deck was open for us almost round-the-clock with a large variety of food ; both vegetarians and  non-vegetarians had enough choices to suit their with palate. 
 
Evening dinners were a formal affair with assigned timings and seating at tables which served 3 course dinners - mostly continental style preparations. This, as mentioned earlier was supplemented by some Indian dish or the other from second dinner onwards.  

To keep the spirits high on the high seas, the cruise operators maintain a well-stocked bar. The passengers are allowed to carry one bottle of wine (not hard liquor) per person for their own consumption. Of course one bottle of wine per person is too little for a 5 day cruise and therefore passengers try their best to smuggle some more stuff on board to strike a balance between the level of spirituality planned for and the amount of damage it would cause to their wallets. The shipping company does a strict checkup while one boards the ship to try and stop passengers from being successful in their efforts to hoodwink the authorities. Not all “smugglers” succeed but some sure do. We can now say that with 100% confidence.

All the other attractions which one would expect on a cruise ship were all there - a casino to enable passengers to part with their money, shopping arcade to pick up some souvenirs, a 1000 seater theatre for entertainment shows. We had stand-up comedian shows on a couple of nights and a music program on the other.

Then there are shore excursions on the days the ship docks at different ports of call. Our ship had two stops scheduled - Progreso and Cozumel both on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. At Progreso, most of us took a tour of Chichen Itza which is a World Heritage Site of Mayan Civilization dating back to the sixth to the tenth century AD. While at Cozumel we took a submarine ride to see the barrier reef which is the second largest reef in the world after The Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Australia.

Both the excursions were organized by the cruise operator and were fairly well-organized in terms of infrastructure on the ground, both at the port and at the site visited, transport facilities and guides etc. This is where Mexico scores well. In order to encourage tourism they have waived visa requirements for visitors. One only needs to have a valid US visa and there is no other documentation required except a pass from the cruise ship you have entered Mexico on, Sea Pass as they call it.

The road from Progreso to Chichen Itza, a distance of some 150 plus km, has been specifically built for connecting these two places. Cozumel, I understand, gets half a dozen cruise ships every day in high tourist season, each with a few thousand passengers. The entire island of Cozumel and Yucatan in general, a fairly barren and otherwise an unproductive place, is teeming with pleasure spots including Cancun which is reported to be one of the best pleasure spots of the world.

It’s no wonder that Caribbean / Mexico sector attracts one third of the cruising passengers which by the way were expected to cross 25 million worldwide in 2017.  The cruise industry world-wide is responsible for US $ 117 billion of economic impact directly generating a million jobs paying US $ 38 billion. With the cruise ships starting to call on Indian ports for past few years, India is just entering in the cruising industry and one wishes that we pay heed to the potential that it presents and try not to let bureaucracy and our ‘normal’ chalta hai attitude lose this opportunity.     

While organizing any such get-togethers of high-spirited, fiercely individualistic characters, the main challenges that organizers face are
1.       How to keep the herd together?
2.       How to feed the herd?
3.       How to keep the herd entertained?

As it turns out a cruise is the best way to achieve all that with minimum sweat. You have the herd safely corralled on the ship -  nearest land is about 3 km away, directly towards nadir; no fuming about some guys not getting ready in time to board the bus, no fretting about someone getting left behind in the hotel.

Then there is the all-important food angle. One which tends to decide upon success rating of any function. There is plenty to forage round the clock with nary a thought about what is the break - up between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, whether one should have paneer or not, how many want to /  don’t mind having / absolutely don’t want to have mushrooms? There is something for everyone’s taste. Even the drinks issue is sorted out - no worries about trying to decide how many whiskies and how many vodkas to stock. Will the whisky consumption double if we have single malt rather than the regular blended stuff? What if someone absolutely can’t do without Absolut? What shall we have rum with? Coke or coconut water? And what about chakhna? All these fundamental and most critical questions are taken care of by the cruise operator; maybe at exorbitant rates but so what?

 And lastly the entertainment - with so many things going on this is essentially a non-issue.  The herd necessarily breaks up into sub-herds which just get involved in what each of them enjoy doing best or just chilling it out. Presto, that takes care of the entertainment. Whatever you as an organizer provide is just icing on the cake. Luckily we had a number of talented singers in the group and an overwhelming majority of hindi film music lovers, so a music and antakshari program to bantaa hi thaa; this was duly complied with.

So my suggestion to you if you are considering a group vacation, be it with your school / college alums or with your family or with  like-minded guys, then give a strong consideration to finding a suitable cruise to sail away. A survey of cruise passengers had indicated that a whopping 92% of passengers would certainly consider taking another cruise in near future. I am sure after our cruise the percentage would have improved further.  

For the records ‘MS Vision of the Seas’, the vessel which we sailed on is a fairly small vessel as far as the cruise ships go. Its capacity of some 2,200 passengers and almost 900 crew members is quite small when compared to her great- grand - mom ‘MS Symphony of the Seas’ which was launched by Royal Caribbean a couple of months ago. Symphony has 18 decks, maximum passenger capacity of 6,680 and a crew strength of 2,200. It has a full-size basketball court, ice-skating rink and even a tropical park with 20,000 trees. Now that is not a floating island but a whole city with a Central Park thrown in for good measure. Compare that to the Titanic which was the largest ship built when she sailed from Southampton in April 1912. Titanic, had 9 decks with a capacity of 3,547 passengers and crew together, which is less than half the capacity of Symphony. In terms of gross tonnage (gt) which indicates the total space on the ship – Titanic was just 46,000 gt while Symphony at 228,000 gt almost 5 times as large. Even our ship Vision is 78,000 gt more than one and a half times as large as Titanic.

But on one count Titanic was better than our ship. You remember the shot from James Cameron’s Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are leaning across the forecastle of the ship as if they were flying over water? Unfortunately the modern cruise ships have barricaded that portion and it is not accessible to the passengers like you and me. I am wondering if I could sue the cruise operator for spoiling my dream cruise.

     LazyBee 
     18th May 2018