Dispatch 7: Did Covid Break My Cruise Fever?

Returning home after 33 days on a cruise from Los Angeles to Tahiti and back, following a 13-day cruise from Seattle to Tokyo earlier this fall, Robert and I have reached a startling conclusion:  our 40-year-long addiction to cruising just might be over.

Sometimes, our compulsion to cruise has felt like a fever. Just as we finished planning a land or resort vacation, a new cruise brochure would arrive . . . and we were hooked. An alluring sea itinerary was booked, the land trip was tossed to the side, and off we would go. And we loved every minute of it.

But Covid inserted an unplanned four-year gap in those trips. Until last fall, we had not been on a cruise since the summer of 2019. Over that time, something has changed. Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s cruising. Or maybe Covid acted as an inoculation.

Will we be cruising forward or leaving cruising behind?

What happened? Why aren’t we loving cruising so much these days? First, the Covid break changed our perspectives. It shook our routines. After four years without lazy days at sea, we didn’t naturally slide into the comfortable grooves of the previous forty years of cruising. Instead, a few new travel grooves have been etched: land trips, theater excursions, family retreats.

Second, the cruise industry itself constantly changes. Many of the things that originally captured our hearts have fallen to the wayside. There are no more fixed dinner seatings—we developed so many friendships over the years at those eight-top tables. Formal nights which we loved are forgotten. Ships have gotten bigger. Safety concerns, or maybe faster speeds or stormier weather, seem to keep the promenade decks closed more often. And trivia contests, always serious, seem ever more cutthroat.

Then, as much as we are loathe to admit it, we too are changing. On our first cruise in 1984, we were only 31 and 29. On every cruise thereafter, it seemed we continued to be younger than the majority of guests. Now hovering around 70, aging concerns interfere with many of the cruising pleasures developed over the years. I gave up jogging during Covid, so there’re no more runs on the promenade deck as the sun sets. I also need to limit my coffee in the morning and my wine in the evening, or my heartburn demands a steep price. I think living in wine country and an expanding budget for expensive restaurants have made me more critical of the food and drink. After so many cruises, I also feel I could give most of the shipboard lectures, which tend to focus on the same topics. In short, I am more easily bored.

A fourth factor is that the world around us is changing. Nothing is more dramatic than the rise of the internet at sea. On our first cruise, we were completely cut off from the world. Ship to shore calls were $19 a minute, and no one did them. As the years went on, internet connections became possible. But it was slow and expensive, and we always rationed the minutes. Now, we—like every other person on the ship—have our phones and tablets connected 24/7 to the ship’s WiFi. It seems at times everyone is hooked into the online world. There’s no sense of escape or seclusion. The allure of getting away from it all has vanished.

Finally, I’m not ready for my personal changes ahead. I am especially not ready for the assisted living complex. But on the kind of long itineraries on the types of ships we like, we seemingly remain the youngsters . . . which is another way of saying that we are still surrounded by the ever more elderly with their myriad afflictions of aging. Hey, I am going to vote for Joe Biden, even though he’s old and walks slow. That doesn’t mean I want to get on a ship filled with people who need to walk just as slowly and carefully. I prefer looking into the mirror and still imagine the person I once was. I don’t enjoy being constantly prompted to think of where I will likely be in 10 or 15 years.

It seems clear from all these symptoms that my cruise fever is in remission. But just in case, we are testing it with a cruise booked next spring. After all, we still carry that infection of loving a great value, exploring new places, and meeting interesting people.

Stay tuned to see if we can fall back into our old grooves, or find new ones.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers.  Read all the posts about our French Polynesia cruise at FrahmannThoughts.wordpress.com

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 6 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Cult Warning Ahead!

There has been a travel-related longing inside me that I didn’t even know needed filling.

It was for quiet comfortable seating, perfect for reading and contemplation.  And not just in one style or setting. I needed open-air sofas high atop the sports deck, as well as quiet Swedish modern sofas with soft blankets and animal fleeces facing windows overlooking the sea. And lounge chairs around the pool with thick cushions and plush towels. And I wanted them always to be available, and never feel like I had to rush around to secure my spot before every seat was chock-a-block filled.

Explorer’s Lounge

The center pool

The sports deck

That’s not all. I also had an emptiness that could only be filled by stacks of books filling every corner of the ship, just daring me to pick up some obscure title and get caught up in a topic I had never thought about before.

Then there’s that primitive urge to have someone always know your name, and be, oh so willing, to pour you another complimentary glass of wine or fetch another beer.

And I have enjoyed so much being exposed to a constant diet of interesting speakers.

Oh, Viking, what have you done to us? Is there some chemical in those carafes of water left fresh in our room every evening and morning to bewitch us into becoming your acolytes?

Sometimes, I wonder. For the first week or so, it seemed the only question we were asked by fellow guests was, “Is this your first Viking cruise? Oh, don’t you just love it?” It was always asked both with enthusiasm and an expectation of total agreement.

On a Viking cruise, even if you are sitting at a table of two, it seems impossible to not be pulled into a conversation with people on one side or another of your table. One evening, Robert and I joked how we felt like the sacrificial lambs brought to the altar. On either side of us, two elderly ladies had such a gleam in their eyes to begin a conversation, and their respective husbands were just as eager to talk once the ice was broken. Soon it was a conversation for six. And they all loved Viking!

But we learned a lesson soon enough. Don’t say anything negative about this cruise line. Your fellow guests will do their utmost to convince you why you are wrong, or look at you as though you just insulted them. Or maybe worse, they will insist you go down to customer service to make your concerns known so they can be instantly fixed. And then check with you the next time they see you to make sure you did exactly tht. (We did not.)

After a while, we began joking about “group think.” Sometimes, it really did feel as though we had fallen into some strange cult of brainwashed wealthy travelers. 

For example, we keep discovering “secrets” well-known to the frequent Viking traveler. There are often tours of the bridge or galley—they’re just not announced, you have to know to ask about them. There are cooking classes that end with lunch; they were mentioned only once on the first day at sea, with no real details on time or structure.  Apparently, you have to know to sign up early. I could go on, but passengers love being part of the “in” crowd.

Perhaps, a bigger part of the sense of the Viking cult is the enormous conformity of this cruise’s passengers. Even if you wandered into an expensive seniors-only community in the Midwest or south, you would be hard pressed to find a more homogeneous group of seventy-to-ninety-year-olds marked by upper-middle-class attitudes, i.e. wealthy white conservatives. I have seen just 5 black male passengers and not a single black woman among the 800 plus passengers. There are no more than a couple of Indian-American or Asian couples. Add a few French Canadians and one German dude who always wears his polo shirts with the collar turned up, and you have largely explored the diversity of our fellow guests.

I don’t actually know what my fellow guests think outside of their attitudes about Viking. Like at a polite family Thanksgiving gathering, no one ever talks politics. That would somehow disturb the Stepford-wife quality of goodwill around us. Until this cruise, I didn’t realize how much I missed the many curious and challenging conversations about American politics we have had on Holland America cruises with Canadian, European, and Australian guests. 

One thing I won’t miss about this cruise is hearing one more passenger say how much he or she likes Viking, because “it’s just people like us.”  Somehow, that sentiment doesn’t seem to be reflecting the “no children” policy at Viking . . . but maybe we can give these guests the benefit of the doubt.

There you have it:  Beautiful ships. Fine service, food and wine. Friendly passengers. Not to mention a full promenade deck. What more could you want? Our souls may already be lost. We signed up to do a Viking South Atlantic crossing from Buenos Aires to Barcelona in the spring of 2025. 

Surely, Viking’s guests deserve another chance to make a better second impression!

Robert adds: Yes, it’s true. We actually did hear one woman say to us that the wonderful thing about sailing Viking was that “all the passengers are like us.” I have to say that sent a shiver down my spine just a bit. There was also a “where are you from” question to which I replied “California.” The response was “Oh that’s too bad.” And another overheard conversation, “Where are ya’ll from.” “San Diego.” “Oh, I’m sorry.”

On another note: I think this is going to be our first cruise in a very long time where I’ve gained weight during the trip.  That’s unfortunate.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. 

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 5 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Green Hill, Blue Skies, Crystal Waters

Imagine a group of islands that stretches from Stockholm to Barcelona, from the beaches of Normandy to Bucharest. Now imagine you compress all the land together and it’s no bigger than half the island of Corsica or just northern San Luis Obispo County. Populate it with no more than 300,000 people or so. Now you have an idea of the scale of French Polynesia.

French Polynesia superimposed over Europe

And we’ve been sailing through more than a bit of it. After traveling 6 days nonstop from Oahu, we arrived at Bora Bora, and on to Raiatea, Tahiti and Moorea, with a few days sailing ahead through the atolls of Tuamoto before our final stop in the Marquesas.

Consider the ingenuity and perseverance of mankind that resulted in these islands being discovered and settled more than a thousand years ago. So now, these islands and their native people share not only the same language roots but much of the same culture and mythology.

But I am most struck by their shared beauty. Yes, scenery varies. Some islands are majestic weathered volcanic peaks. Others are sandy atolls atop the remnants of volcanos long since sunk and eroded beneath the sea.  On an island like Tahiti, the beaches are black from volcanic sand, while on others like Moorea they are glistening white with ground-up coral.

But all of these islands share some constants. One is a lush landscape which seems intensely green. Another is the intensity of the sky and the sun. It’s past rainy season, and all of our island visits have been blessed by sunny days. But with temperatures well into the eighties, few clouds, and only the lightest of breezes, I just want to relax on a lounge chair with an icy drink. Even that leaves me drenched in sweat

And they are blessed with amazing water. Many of the islands are surrounded by barrier reefs. Once anchored within them, we see waters of the lagoon that are not only strikingly calm, but also incredible shades of blue. In the distance, you can see the dangerous breaking white line of the ocean bashing against the coral reefs. But in the lagoon, it is only calm. 

It’s hard for me to look down and judge how deep the water might be. You can clearly see the sandy floor of the lagoon, and rocks with colorful growth. Small fish dart about . . . sometimes not so small, as rays and reef sharks gather near our guide.

Looking at the sky, the green cliffs, the gorgeous colors of the cool water, I understand why people are willing to spend $1500 a night or more for one of those over-the-water bungalows of the many five-star hotels dotting these islands. 

What could be more removed from the world’s care and more in tune with the pleasures of the day than basking in French Polynesia?

Robert adds: The people here live in paradise, but with a cost. Without tourism, there is very little economic activity, and we’ve been told by every guide on every island how dismal things were during Covid lockdown. I can’t imagine. Nor can I imagine what school kids have to go through here. There is a small high school on Moorea; too small to accommodate all the teens here. So the others have to commute to Tahiti, visible across the water. At 5am there is a 45-minute ferry ride from Moorea’s largest town to Papeete. But some kids live an hour away from that ferry pickup point, so they have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a bus. Arriving in Papeete, they have another bus ride to the school. (The same goes for adults whose jobs are on Tahiti.) And then, reverse the process at the end of the day. Five days a week.

Funny story about all the loose chickens on these islands. When asked if people caught the chickens to eat, one guide said they are very tough and not good, but there was one recipe. You get a large pot of water over a roaring fire, toss in the chicken along with a large rock. When the rock is fork tender, then the chicken is good. Haha.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site:

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 3 from the Voyage to Tahiti: It’s All About Food

Robert and I love to eat. Our tastes are eclectic. We love a McDonalds Sausage Egg Biscuit on a driving trip almost as much as we enjoy a multi-course tasting meal paired with fine wines at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

So, you didn’t think we could travel on a new cruise line for us and not have something to say about the food!

First and foremost, Viking has a specialty restaurant called The Chef’s Table.  The concept is simple. Every three days, its menu changes. On any given day, the menu is identical for guests—five-courses paired with four wines. Each dish revolves around a theme like California Cuisine or Indian spices.

As you might anticipate, the concept doesn’t seem that popular with this cruise’s septuagenarian and older Midwest country club set: “Don’t tell me what to eat. The courses are too small. I only drink what I like. Looks too foreign to me.”

We love it.

For example, on the “La Route des Indes” menu featuring a variety of spices, we started with a carrot and cardamom cream, followed by a Szechuan peppercorn spicy tuna tataki, with a palate cleanser featuring a ginger and tarragon granita. Then we moved on to beef tenderloin flavored with paprika, cumin, coriander and cinnamon. It all ended with an apple tart showcasing cinnamon and a Calvados sauce.

We were hooked. We booked the restaurant for each of the remaining seven different menus that lie ahead. So far, each menu sampled has been great both in terms of food and wines. (Lucky for us, Viking doesn’t charge for its specialty restaurants.)

I have also grown quite fond of the open-faced smørebørd sandwiches in its Norwegian café called Mamsen. There’s a success cake there (with layers of buttercream, cake and coconut) that I would gladly eat every day.

As for the main sit-down restaurant and the self-serve café, the jury remains out. In the main restaurant, called simply The Restaurant, service has been hit and miss. We once sat for 30 minutes before they even served the water and bread. Another time our entire table of 6 got up and left after nearly two hours of slow service so we wouldn’t miss the evening show, even though dessert had yet to be served.  And in the World Café, it’s more the United States than the rest of the globe. For a ship so proud of its Viking heritage, there aren’t enough of the cheeses and cut meats I associate with Scandinavian breakfast buffets. And you have to search to find an Asian congee. But they do serve a pretty good croissant.

For the sit-down dinners in The Restaurant, the food is usually high quality and well-plated. Unlike other cruise lines, Viking still serves a real lobster tail. They also do a very good job with risottos and pastas, as well as braised meats and certain cuts that were probably initially cooked by sous vide before being browned. But I have learned to avoid their chops and steaks. They always seem overcooked. Desserts, however, are very pretty and tasty.

Robert chooses a dessert to match his famous purple jacket

Because wine is included, and because the line features different wines each day, I am usually quite forgiving by the end of any meal. A little alcohol goes a long way to overcome faults. A lot of wine goes even further.

Robert adds: Speaking of food reminds me of salt. The foods here are all pretty well seasoned, rarely needing additional salt. However, this ship has THE saltiest Promenade Deck we’ve ever run across. We just got in from our daily 3-mile trek (gotta burn off the wine calories from the day before, right?). Rounding one corner, the entire stretch ahead of us was pretty with white crystals embedded with sole prints from our previous laps. We are left wondering why. Maybe it’s because the walking deck is on level two, that much closer to the water than other ships we’ve been on. Maybe because it’s been pretty windy, causing minute salt sprays to rise. (Our veranda on deck 3 is similarly salty. And come to think of it, even the outside windows on deck 7 are partially salt-obscured. Hmm.) Margaritas anyone?

, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site:

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 3 from the Voyage to Tahiti: It’s About Time

I don’t know about you, but I have a definite time limit for any museum.  It’s only two hours.  Maybe if a lunch or tea break were added in, I could do another hour of walking and looking. More than that, I develop a back ache and a headache.

Admittedly, most museums warrant more time than two hours. Still, it’s all I got for any single visit. Which brings me to visiting the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Undoubtedly it is the premiere spot for all things Hawaiian and Polynesian. And, to the credit of the excursions team at Viking, the ship’s tour allotted more than three hours to enjoy it. I just couldn’t do it.

The Bishop Museum’s historic exterior

First, a note about why I selected this ship’s tour. We’ve been to Honolulu several times. We’ve visited Pearl Harbor and the Royal Palace. We’ve hiked to the rim of Diamond Head, and we’ve tanned on the sands of Waikiki.  We’ve even driven the circumference of the island.

But I’ve never made it to the Bishop Museum. Because Robert wasn’t interested in visiting, I nixed my original plan for us to Uber over, spend my two hours, and Uber back. Instead, I booked the ship’s tour.

Which is what led me at the two-hour mark to find the coffee shop, buy a hot drink, sit, and read the LA Times on my phone until the ship’s bus came to pick us up.

But I loved my first two hours. One of the cool things about this Viking cruise has been the excellent series of enrichment lectures. On the five days of sailing here, we listened to multiple lectures about the geology of the islands, the migration of Polynesian people, the European discovery, and the native flora and fauna on land and in the sea.

Because of that, walking the displays of the Bishops museum was like cramming for a final on everything we had just been taught. Look!  There’s the skeleton of a sperm whale, the feathered capes of the early kings, descriptions of the plots of the perfidious Americans who over threw the royalty, and so much more.

It was a great reinforcement and enhancement of all we had heard.

But for me the highlight was something totally unexpected . . . a discussion of the Hawaiian calendar. They organized themselves around a 30-day lunar calendar, and there were distinct names for days based on the phases of the moon—from “hilo” for the threadlike new moon to “hoku” for the full moon.  Each named day came with expectations about what should be planted, celebrated, or fished, the state of the tides, and the timing of the moon in the night sky.

I don’t know why but I found the idea of being so attuned to the moon quite intriguing. In my day-to-day life, I barely notice what stage it is in. I would never be able to predict for the day ahead if the moon would still be visible in the morning sky.

It was a full moon last night, and the ship’s resident astronomer said the captain would be turning off all the ship’s upper lights at 10 pm. This was so we could get a full view of the night sky from the topmost decks. 

Even though we often enjoy seeing the Milky Way from our Cambria home, we eagerly made our way to the top of the ship around 10:15. But not eagerly enough. So many people showed up that by the time we arrived, the ship’s staff had closed off the doors. For safety reasons, they were preventing any more people entering the top deck.

I guess I need to start paying more attention to the inner calendars of the elderly crowd aboard this ship. As in Cambria, everyone shows up early and there may be nothing left for the late-to-arrive to enjoy.

Robert adds: We had inadvertently packed only half-full bottles of aspirin and Tums, so I headed out to walk to the nearby drug store that I distinctly remembered from our last visit to Honolulu. “Maps” on my phone didn’t show anything even remotely like I recalled, and sure enough, as I walked down a tree-lined pedestrian only street, there was no store in sight. But I headed out anyway for a 1.5-mile walk to a CVS. Memories were quickly erased and replaced with vacant store fronts, trash, and homeless men.

Otherwise, on board, we keep meeting people who are longtime Viking cruisers, but their stories are confusing to us. Of course, they love the ship, the food, and the crew. But a large majority of them seem quite confounded by the motion of the ship. More than confounded – annoyed. It’s almost like none of these longtime Viking cruisers have ever been on an ocean crossing before. Caribbean, Panama Canal, that kind of thing probably, but never across an actual moving ocean. There’s no end of complaints about losing their balance, etc etc etc. Dennis and I have wondered to ourselves, “Why on earth would they have booked a 33-day ocean trip if they didn’t like sea days?” The answer came a few days later. During one of the lectures, the speaker asked the theater full of people “who here has NOT been to French Polynesia before?” Surprisingly (to us at least), probably 75% of the audience raised their hands. Aha, I guess it was the itinerary that inspired all of these landlubbers to get out into the middle of the Pacific.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site:

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 2 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Landing in Hawai’i

From Los Angeles, it takes more than five days by cruise ship to reach the Hawaiian Islands. It then requires just as long to go on to French Polynesia. These islands are more distant than any other spot from everywhere else on the globe.

Robert and I have been to the islands several times in the past. By now, we have visited most of its famous top tourist destinations. Since we are on a Viking cruise, which includes a complimentary tour in every port, we decided to take advantage of those excursions. What new things might we discover?

Our guides have been quick to tell us how the big dramatic contours of the place are naturally born from the volcanic processes that erupt from a Pacific hot spot connected to the mantle below. Technically, Mauna Loa on Hawai’i is the largest mountain on the planet rising from deep in the ocean and still reaching high enough to be snow-topped. 

With such volcanic geology, we get the tall peaks, dramatic cliffs, beautiful waterfalls and lovely beaches we all associate with the place. Our tours brought us to several such lovely spots, including Rainbow Falls on Hawai’I and the Iao Needle on Maui.

But what about the greenery, the birds and the people? When and how did they arrive on these specks in the ocean?

Not a lot of life made it naturally to this spot. Only two land mammals are truly native to Hawai’i—the Hawaiian monk seal and a bat. Nothing else mammalian managed to cross the thousands of miles. Surprisingly, many plants you might consider naturals are also foreign. The coconut palm only arrived with the first Polynesians a little over one thousand years ago.  

Other than sea birds, the types of birds finding their way here were also limited. No hummingbirds could survive such distances. The flycatchers that made their way expanded to fill a myriad of ecological niches.

Then came mankind. The first settlers brought pigs, chicken and rats, along with key plants. Now pigs and chickens overrun the place. (We did have a cute visit to feed some of the “native” boar.) But the newcomers weren’t kind to the original plants, and the islands have many endangered native species.

Wild pigs, with a mix of Polynesian and European genes, are everywhere.

Next came the Europeans with Captain Cook and the introduction of still more animals, plants, and customs. Not long after, King Kamehameha the Great united the islands to create the only kingdom that would one day be forced into the United States following a businessmen’s led coup. 

Images of Kamehameha are also everywhere.

A global variety of other plants, birds, and pests arrived over the years. Things like pineapples and sugar cane, eucalyptus trees, mongooses, and cardinals. Today, the lush landscape that we associate with the islands is almost entirely non-native. 

All the while the hot spot beneath the island chain keeps feeding volcanos with molten lava as the Pacific Plate moves below. The islands continue to grow and change.  

We’re just happy to have a chance to enjoy its current moment in the sun.

Robert adds: “The Fun of Being a Tour Guide” – Yesterday, on Maui, I was reminded of our visit to Casablanca years ago where a tour guide pointed to the location where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman filmed some scenes in the classic movie. No matter that the film was from 1941 and the building we were in was built in 1971.

Skip forward to when I worked at the Disney Studio and occasionally gave walk-around tours. I would joke with friends that I could say literally almost anything – with enough authority – and get away with it. Not that I ever did. 

Skip forward to yesterday and our bus ride around Maui. “See that house way up on the hill? Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, that was Marilyn Monroe’s vacation home here on the island.” Lots of oohs and aahs from the tour group. Back on the ship, I was compelled to ask Google. Well……. Turns out that no, that’s not true. Here’s the story. In 1949, Wright designed a luxury home to be built near Fort Worth, Texas, but the project never went anywhere. The same house design was altered in 1952 for a home to be built in Acapulco. Not built. Then in 1957, Marilyn contacted Wright about building a home for her and Arthur Miller in Roxbury, Connecticut. Wright expanded the previous plans, but the couple’s marriage fell apart, Wright died shortly after, and the unfinished plans were put in the archives in Taliesin West. Skip ahead to 1984 when a businessman contacted the archives hoping to use unbuilt Wright designs for a project. An architect combined all three earlier designs (!) and eventually, in 1993, the project was completed – the King Kamehameha Golf Course Clubhouse. A much more interesting story.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site:

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 1 from the Voyage to Tahiti: Perceptions of Luxury and Age

We’ve discovered the quick and easy way to feel younger. Book yourself on a month -long cruise with more than 20 sea days on a top-tier cruise line. It’s amazing how even at age 70, you suddenly seem so much younger than all those around you. Or, as the comedian on board joked in last night’s show, “Welcome to Viking, where it’s so nice to see so many prosperous retired people . . . and their parents.”

Yes, Robert and I are on another adventure—this time sailing from Los Angeles through the Hawaiian Islands onwards to multiple spots in French Polynesia before heading back to Los Angeles with a stop in San Diego.

So far, this journey has not only made me think about how perceptions of age are colored by your surroundings, but also that the same is true of luxury.

Viking Ocean seems a master of those details that make you feel pampered. Seeing a carafe of hot coffee on your breakfast table no matter where you sit in the restaurant immediately won me over. And even though bar drinks aren’t free on this line, they never bother you with a bill. The server simply asks your room number and discreetly punches it into his or her ever-present small digital pad.  (A surreptitious look over the shoulder also suggest that the interface brings up the guest’s photo and name providing a double bonus. Not only does that make it hard for someone to charge something to the wrong room, but the server can now address you by name!)

The whole atmosphere of this ship makes you feel as though you dropped in for a weekend visit at some wealthy’s friend’s getaway. That’s helped along by calling the main lounge the “Living Room” or the use of replicas in the Nordic eatery called Mamsens’ of old-fashioned Swedish china that belonged to the founder Torstein Hagen’s  mother. It’s also reinforced by very tasteful and consistent Scandinavian design focused on clean lines, light woods, and fabrics.

Stacks of books are used everywhere as a décor item, but apparently also as an invitation to dive in and read. Comfortable lounge furniture indoors and on deck are bestrewn with lively pillows and throw blankets, just demanding you to curl up and get comfortable. It’s almost as though the ship’s designer wanted to bring to life such European concepts as Danish hygge (a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life) or the Dutch gezellig (social coziness).

Certainly, all this is helped along with a plentiful flowing of wine. When we boarded the ship, we were handed a glass of sparking wine. When we won the first day’s trivia game, we were awarded a mimosa.  When we went to the ship’s sponsored gathering for LGBTQ passengers on day two, the staff handed out—you guessed it—glasses of sparkling wine.

Curiously, as noted above, while there is a charge for drinks in the bar, wine and beer at lunch and dinner is complimentary. And the pours are generous and frequent. It is almost like being a guest at our local dinner parties. You’re never left wanting.

But the biggest bonus of all that makes this ship feel like a pampered getaway is the simple abundance of space . . . lots of public space. We never feel crowded.  We never worry about finding a seat. 

And the space is quiet. Viking is a line that has no casinos, no art auctions, no sports bars, no loud music party clubs. But there’s music everywhere.  A piano performer in one lounge.  A classic duo in another. A guitarist elsewhere.  And vocal performances and shows in the theater. Just settle in and relax.

Viking is also a line with no children on board, which to some may be a luxury and to others a deprivation. I will admit that on other long cruises heavily tilted to the over-65 crowd, there were always the occasional grandparents who brought along grandchildren for a special trip. And whether those tykes were 5 or 25, they did add a bit of youthful color and energy that can be welcome.

Which brings me back to where I began on the perceptions of age. With no Gen Z or younger person anywhere in sight among the passengers, I can’t help but feel that I look “mahvelous.”

Robert adds: Dennis is quite right about a nice sense of space on this ship, especially space for just sitting and reading. The Star is a smaller ship than we have been on – fewer than 850 passengers on this sailing – and so there are not any hordes of people descending on the buffet lines or other things like that. But, we have also noticed that the smaller ship comes with a few trade-offs. One that confronts us every day is the size of the landings in front of the elevator doors. Very small compared with what we’ve experienced on Holland America. These Viking landings are nicely sized for the ship, but definitely not big enough for an entire show lounge of people to congregate while waiting for the elevator. This results in two things: (1) corridors get backed up preventing people from moving through, and (2) the landings backed up if you are trying to just get to the stairwell opposite the elevator doors. Throw in half a dozen or more people with canes, a few rolling walkers, and other folks with unsteady legs on a rolling ship, it makes for quite a challenge to “excuse me, pardon me, excuse me” one’s way through to the stairs for a quick exit.

As Dennis mentioned, we did win at our very first go at Trivia. Well, technically we tied for first place, but we did so by getting 100% of the questions right. Day two, we also tied for first place (even though we missed two questions). Dare we try for more? 

And yes, we do have the inevitable upstream-salmon-walkers on the Promenade deck here too. I’m trying to not let it get to me.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. Dispatches from other cruises can be found on my blog site, Frahmann Thoughts.

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 5 from the North Pacific Crossing: Reflections on Our Trip

Well, another trip is over. We’re sitting at Narita Airport in the lounge for Zip Air.  (Yes, you heard that right. Great fares for lie-flat seats between Tokyo and LAX on this discount airline owned by JAL.)

Relaxing at the Narita Travel Lounge before our Zip Air non-stop flight to LAX

And we’re reflecting back on our first post-Covid cruise.  

As always, we met some great people. On this itinerary, there was a lively gathering each night of fellow LGTBQ travelers, including a fellow we first met taking a southern Pacific crossing from Sydney to San Diego back in 2018.  As usual, passengers were largely American and Canadians. On this route, there were also many Asian travelers, whereas on previous HAL cruises, even those in the Far East, we usually encountered far more folk from Europe than Asia.

Maybe it’s cultural or language barriers or just the chilly weather of the north Pacific, but there seemed less interaction among these guests than on previous cruises. Another thing we noticed is a distinct wariness about talking about anything political.

It was almost as though Canadians didn’t want to embarrass us by bringing up the GOP and MAGA madness.  And among fellow Americans, we all tread carefully quickly changing the subject whenever a topic veered too closely to topics in alternative universes—like vaccines, the 2020 election, and immigration. 

That’s not to say the undercurrents of political tension and cultural tension weren’t there. There was one old fellow who never appeared on deck without his anti-Biden hat. I had to chuckle at another passenger who felt compelled to proclaim that he would not have the dessert featuring Ben and Jerry’s because of the company’s politics. (In fair play, let me proclaim that I will not shop at Hobby Lobby.) Then there was the very drunk passenger who verbally abused one of our fellow passengers in what seemed a definite homophobic attack. 

On the plus side, I do have to say that at least on this ship, everyone seemed very sympathetic and supportive of any entertainer who hailed from the Ukraine. Maybe that still bonds us.

This trip marks nearly 40 years of cruising, beginning in the spring of 1984 with a Caribbean cruise on a Holland America ship called the Rotterdam. Along the way, we’ve seen many things come and go as traveling habits change. We don’t miss the skeet shoots off the back deck or the hobby horse derbies, but we do feel a twinge of sadness at the disappearance of the march of the flaming baked Alaskas, tableside service of cherries jubilee (flaming again), and the midnight buffets. But staterooms have become nicer in general, the public spaces grander, and the entertainment better.

Still, as a way of purging my sadness of things lost, I do need to create my own “In Memoriam” of all the things lost from the past decade due to what I surely believe to be penny pinching and cost cutting.  Play the sad dirge and imagine the cavalcade of photos . . .

• Having both an appetizer and a soup or salad course
• Finding chocolates on the pillow left at turndown service
• Turndown service itself (which they will do if it’s requested, and we did)
• Fresh flowers on the dining room table
• Fresh fruit in the room, refreshed daily
• Wine stewards in the dining room
• Nuts in the bars (again something you now generally need to request)
• Appetizers served at receptions, events and happy hours
• The daily 4-page New York Times Digest delivered to your room each day
• Dinner service planned for an hour and 15 minutes instead of 45 minutes
• Live music in the Ocean Bar during that otherwise quiet period of 5 to 8
• Classical music
• After-dinner mints handed out as you leave the dining room
• Salt and pepper shakers on the tables around the pool
• Stewards pouring coffee and orange juice outdoors on the Lido deck during breakfast time
• Cooking classes from America’s Test Kitchen
• Two different guest lecturers
• An on-board port consultant who had regular hours to answer any questions about the upcoming port and actually knew the ports he or she described during port talks
• Daily recent movies shown in screening rooms
• Trinkets and prizes (and earlier, those Dam dollars) awarded for trivia and other competition
• A Holland America magazine and guide in every stateroom

But do note that, as much as I enjoy them, I didn’t list the slow disappearance of formal nights. I recognize these occasions are something the majority of passengers themselves (not the accountants) are ready to discard. Some things simply disappear because of changing tastes. We even left our tuxedos at home this trip.

End my sad crawl through cruise traditions lost. And I’ll admit that a couple of those losses simply reflect a general move to making all information available on line and using the cruise ship app. (Although it is disconcerting to see couples on board during dinner just paging through their phones instead of enjoying the cruise experience.)

So let me give some advice to myself: buckle up and acknowledge that life moves on.  Sail on!

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. 

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 4 from the North Pacific Crossing: Landfall in Kushiro

It’s official. Robert has now made it to Japan and he can add another country to his list of countries visited. For me, this stop is my first visit to Japan since business trips in the 1980s when I worked for Xerox.

Our port call was the city of Kushiro on Japan’s northern most island of Hokkaido. Although it is near several major Japanese national parks, the town is more known as an industrial port with its fewer than 200,000 inhabitants. Still, it provided us with an opportunity for a bit of Japanese history and culture.

The area is famous for its red crested Japanese cranes. From the local museum

For most of Japan’s history, Hokkaido was sort of a no man’s land, inhabited only by the indigenous Ainu people and controlled by the Shogun military rulers of Japan. But after the Meiji Restoration in 1869 when the emperor regained control and ousted the long-ruling military generals, Japan not only opened up to the West but also decided to develop the island of Hokkaido in part to keep the Russians out. They encouraged development and promoted Japanese from other parts of the country to homestead land.

That history makes Kushiro and Hokkaido an odd place to first experience Japanese culture. It’s like exploring United States history by first stopping in Phoenix. In Kushiro, everything has been built up in the last century or so. Moreover, American experts were very influential in defining much of its initial development—which probably makes it seem as much American as Japanese.

Our tour guide asked our group if any of us had ever heard of Dr. William Clark. We all looked at each other with befuddlement. “I can’t believe it,” she said, “he’s so famous here.” It turns out that this American helped define education models on the island in 1876 and founded its best university, now known as Hokkaido University. His most famous phrase is apparently on public buildings all over the island, “Boys, be ambitious.” Put that fact in your memory banks for some future obscure trivia game!

Our tour, however, was very traditional. We visited the local city museum and saw an incredible display of Ainu fabrics and artifacts, which I have a feeling was more interesting and informative than a competing tour to an Ainu village might have been. 

We visited the local fish market. Kushiro is also a major fishing port, and this market is famous for its katte don, an as-you-like-it bowl, where you can get a scoop of rice in a bowl and then go around to various fishmongers to add small pieces of various sliced fresh seafood. The end result: a custom sushi bowl. Perhaps, it was a Freudian slip on my side, but I forgot all my yen on the ship, and because the market was Japanese cash only we didn’t participate. Instead, we wandered around nearby streets, and visited the train station to examine a photo exhibit of Kushiro’s famous sunset. (Supposedly, it rivals that of Bali. But on our day in town, it did not.)

We also toured the Kushiro Crane Reserve, which has been instrumental in nurturing back the Japanese red-crowned crane from only 10 in Japan a few decades ago to nearly 2,000 today. The crane of course is a major symbol of Japanese culture. We were even more pleased to have spotted three cranes in the marshes as we drove away after the visit. Our other bus mates were too busy looking at their phones to have noticed. We felt a little smug. (Another piece of trivia:  The crane is red-crowned because it lacks any feathers on the top of its head, and the skin with its blood vessels near the surface shines forth.)

Finally, we visited the Kushiro Shitsugen National Park which protects the largest marshlands in Japan. In addition to its being a habitat for the crane, it is home to over 600 unique plant species. We took a mile or so long hike on a boardwalk through its landscape.

Finally, a note about Kushiro itself. As mentioned earlier, it has a grid pattern with wide streets similar to any industrial midwestern American city. Because this is a pretty cold climate, the houses seem very well constructed and most are recently built. They are mostly single-family houses that would almost fit into any American suburb. Only the exterior finishes, which often appear plastic or ceramic, seem unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, the town also feels American in another way. Many industries have closed down and been abandoned. The stores in the business center are frequently empty and boarded up. And there is virtually no life on the streets, except for our cruise visitors. It was a little eerie. A little bit too much like being in the Rust Belt.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. 

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann

Dispatch 3 from the North Pacific Crossing: Jumping Off From Juneau

Alaska:  Evergreens marching down steep hills. Icy inlets. Bald eagles soaring high. Whales and sea mammals. Native languages. Totem poles. Majestic scenery. Hardy people.

What do you think of when people reference a cruise to Alaska? Perhaps some of those same words and, maybe, a few more.

We, of course, are not on an Alaskan cruise. With only two ports along the way, this journey is probably not even a true cruise, but rather a crossing to get a ship from one point to another.

Still, we did stop in Juneau for a day, and it was a chance to reflect on what a great place Alaska can be to visit. Many of our expectations were met if only for a few moments.

On the sail north from Seattle, we were often within sight of the shoreline or sailing passages with islands on either side. And that continued for the first half day or so after we left Juneau. That gave us our taste of icy waters, majestic mountains and interesting inlets.

When we docked in Juneau, we stood on our verandah looking down at the harbor. Just below us, we had a great view of a bald eagle snacking on a carcass as it rested on one of the pylons that was soon to have ship’s ropes tied around it.  We also spied a few heads of harbor seals swimming about and taking a look at our ship.

Once on land, we headed toward the tram line so we could get a different kind of eagle view from high up the mountain. The threat of stormy weather held off and we snuck in a quick half mile loop hike while high above the channel.

Then, we walked the streets of Juneau. Many of the shops were holding end of season sales as we were one of the last cruise ships for this season. But the bars were doing a land office business.

Since normally we seek out travel that includes a lot of warm weather, our last cruise to Alaska was over 20 years ago—and we booked that trip largely to sail the historic Holland America Rotterdam built in the 1950s as it made its final run for the line. That Rotterdam was the first cruise ship we ever traveled, and it will always have a soft spot in our hearts.

In the decades since, the cruising industry has exploded. That was evident as soon as we disembarked our current ship, the Westerdam, to walk the main streets of Juneau.  It was as jumbled with jewelry, watch stores and souvenir shops as any Caribbean port. It was also evident by the size of the other ships in port. When I get home, I will have to dig out old scrapbooks to see if I have any pictures of this place back in the Nineties.

Even though we are not on an Alaska cruise, the ship itself just ended a summer season of just such weeklong cruises.  And its entertainment crew delivered all of Holland America’s well-produced exploration lectures about Alaska.  So, in the first few days of this trip, I got a quick grounding in native languages, locals arts, the Iditarod, the challenges of Alaskan living and the majesty of the whales.

And, of course, we celebrated the eating of salmon in the dining room. We didn’t inquire as to whether our fish were local and native, or farm raised. Just like we didn’t ask about the authenticity of the totem poles lining the harbor of Juneau. 

Sometimes you just let yourself indulge in the echoes of reality, and imagine what once was or perhaps someday can be again.

Please check out all my novels in either paperback or Kindle format, including The Long Table Dinner, The Finnish Girl, The Devil’s Analyst, and Tales from the Loon Town Café.  All titles are available to read for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. 

www.amazon.com/author/dennisfrahmann