SHIP OF FOOLS OR A CRUISE FROM HELL OR TATTOOS, BOOZE & OBESITY

SHIP OF FOOLS

OR

A CRUISE FROM HELL

OR

TATTOOS, BOOZE & OBESITY

 

Joachim never wanted to take a cruise. He was quite content with spending his annual two-week vacation from the Goucutow Shirt Company at the Hide-Away-Hideaway near Eau-de-Lac, Wisconsin.

Joachim or Jock as his friends called him, was with the same firm for over ten years in a dead-end job, pressing and folding shirts for shipment.

This year, for some reason he could not fathom, his wife, Annabella, refused to take the same vacation. She informed Joachim that she wanted to go on a cruise. She would not take no for an answer!

She presented him with a brochure from the Catch-A-Wave cruise line, hyping two weeks cruising the Mediterranean. It would cost no more than their usual cabin retreat. There would be stops in France, Spain and Italy. She just couldn’t wait. Her enthusiasm finally wore him down. He consented to go, if for no other reason to maintain some serenity in the marriage.

The von Trachtensteins booked their cruise on the allegedly finest ship in the Catch-A-Wave line, the Dragon-Of-The-Sea. The ship held over six thousand passengers with a crew of over two thousand! This was an ideal pick as the prices were cheaper than those on smaller ships.

The number of people checking in was a harbinger of events to come. The process took over an hour!

Of course, their room wasn’t ready, necessitating another hour-long wait. The lunch line at the only restaurant open, a buffet, was packed beyond reason. They even had to wait for newly-washed plates.

After showering (not much hot water) and dressing, their wait for one of many “free” restaurants was also ridiculously long. They couldn’t see the stage show – no seats! They fell asleep, exhausted by all the day’s delays.

The next day and the next and the next were virtually the same. For everything, wait, wait, wait. No room, no seats, no nothing! At least the service was adequate, but for the most part, delayed.

Fellow cruisers were mostly under fifty, over-weight, tattooed to the hilt, under-dressed and carrying a drink, usually beer. It was a never-ending parade of these odd cruise denizens. Public drunkenness was ever present and condoned.

The food, albeit well-presented and served by a harried staff, eventually lost its allure – over-salted, over-sauced and over-spiced. By the second week, the now unhappy duo had to force down the food, just to survive.

At first Joachim experienced a tickling in his throat that he attributed to the dry air on the ship. Hoarseness set in until he could barely speak. The raspy voice continued until the last day of the trip, when he can down with bronchitis. At about the same time the hoarse-voice syndrome hit Annabella. Her bronchitis appeared a few days later.

After antibiotic therapy and avoiding salty and over-spiced food, the couple vowed never again would they sail the bounding main. The Hide-Away-Hideaway looked awful good to them now. There was way less than six thousand cabins and very much less of a chance to catch the floating biota that contaminated that damn ship.