Planning a Cruise

For several years I was port agent for the Windstar ships, a job I took on with extreme reluctance but grew to enjoy. The lovely sailing ships oozed casual elegance, and their spacious cabins were booked by wealthy passengers with a taste for adventure. The graceful Windstar vessels were unlike regular cruise ships, definitely a sight to behold whenever they sailed into Admiralty Bay, and I sometimes took advantage of an empty cabin and traveled with them. As an employee of Holland America Lines I could join the ships as long as I paid for any port fees and alcoholic beverages, a company perk that was hard to resist!

One of the pursers told me about Holland America’s Alaskan cruises; the Windstar vessels didn’t sail to Alaska but several of the company’s larger cruise ships DID, and he offered to get some brochures from the head office in Seattle.  According to my friend, the company’s Alaskan cruises were amazing, and, as long as cabin space existed, the cruise would be free for a company employee. I had often dreamed of visiting Alaska, and became impatient to see the brochures outlining what I figured might be the trip of a lifetime.

The glossy brochures arrived from Seattle, and I excitedly showed them to my husband Nik. We hadn’t been married for very long and Nik, always happy to make ME happy, expressed interest in the beautiful pictures of Alaska. It never once occurred to me that my sea-faring husband, a captain of tugboats, a captain with a capital “C”, might not want to sail through Alaska’s Inside Passage with Holland America Lines, or visit places such as Ketchican, Juneau, Skagway and Seward on a cruise ship. Captain Nik loved to travel and I therefore assumed he was just as excited as I about taking an Alaskan cruise.

Not long after looking through the cruise brochures Nik and I were invited on board the Windspirit for supper. After pre-dinner drinks on deck we were seated at the captain’s table in the beautifully appointed dining room. The table was centrally located, and from our vantage spot we could observe the ship’s passengers being served exquisitely prepared courses by immaculately clad waiters. The diners were not dressed formally in black tie, “casually elegant” being the theme for the Windspirit’s Caribbean cruise, but they were certainly more formally attired than the regular tourists dining ashore on Bequia!

The Spirit’s plush carpeting muted any footsteps, and the tinkle of crystal glasses and china plates could be heard amidst the hushed conversation and laughter of the passengers. It was all very pretty, very sophisticated and very VERY refined. It was, indeed, “casually elegant”, and exactly what the approximately 200 passengers had paid for and expected.

Nik and I thanked the captain at the end of the evening and boarded the tender to go ashore. My sea-faring husband, my tugboat captain with a capital “C” took my hands in his, and, with something akin to horror in his eyes, said,

“Gurl, I promise I will take you to Alaska some-day, but not like THAT.”

The dining experience had given Nik the “willies”; the Windspirit only carried 200 passengers – the cruise ships in Alaska would have at least 2,000, and that’s if we were lucky! The very thought of spending an entire week cooped up with so many strangers overwhelmed Nik, and cruising through Alaska in such a manner was something he was not willing to do.

My captain DID take me to Alaska, and in a way that money simply cannot buy. In other words, not like “THAT”…..