A City at Sea
 Tom Wharton - Salt Lake Tribune
| | The huge Ecstasy cruise ship sits at the docks as passengers come ashore. The maritime behemoth has a passenger capacity of 2,052, a crew of 920, nine decks, 1,026 cabins and 14 elevators. (Tom Wharton/The Salt Lake Tribune) |
Short, more affordable trips are about relaxation, not destination.
Galveston, Texas - When some people cruise, their focus is the ports-of-call. They select vacations because they want to see Alaska, Venice or Grand Cayman.
Other trips, like the popular and relatively inexpensive three- and four-day cruises to Catalina and Mexico out of Los Angeles, are favored by many Utah travelers. And their focus is enjoying time on a ship.
Count the four-night trip from Galveston to Cozumel, Mexico, and back on the Carnival Ecstasy as one of the latter.
Cozumel is a decent place to spend a few hours. Though parts of the Mexican island still show signs of damage from 2005's Hurricane Wilma, the town offers some nice places to shop, a decent beaches and excellent excursions, including everything from snorkeling and parasailing to jet boating, scuba diving and tours of ruins on the nearby mainland.
But the ship only stops at its one port-of-call for eight hours. When it takes about a half-hour to leave the ship and all passengers must be back on board by 4:30 in the afternoon, only about seven hours are left to do land exploration.
The shorter cruises, which usually cost less than $500 per person, plus airfare, appeal to folks looking for a short vacation, with the possibility of eating 24 hours a day, Las Vegas-style shows, numerous night spots, gambling, sunning, shopping, swimming, spa treatments, miniature golf, movies, dancing the night away or doing nothing at all.
For many, a cruise is about getting away.
"This is a girls' party cruise with no kids and no husbands," said Teresa Moore, of St. George. "Happy Mother's Day to us. I enjoy being with friends."
While Salt Lake cruiser Monica Ridge enjoyed the food, especially the lobster, friend Shirlyn Hardy liked having her own time and being able to sleep in.
"We're having fun and doing something different," said Heather Maxwell, also of Salt Lake. "This is my first cruise, and I would come back. I like the atmosphere."
Like most modern cruise ships, the Ecstasy is huge, with a passenger capacity of 2,052, a crew of 920, nine decks, 1,026 cabins and 14 elevators.
It has two formal dining rooms where guests can order shrimp, lobster and prime rib, along with all sorts of fancy starters. Meals are served by tuxedo-clad waitstaff, three times a day.
One night features a gala midnight buffet complete with ice sculptures and another a Mexican buffet under the stars with live music and dancing. Twenty-four-hour room services is available for only the cost of a tip, and there is an on-deck buffet and 24-hour pizza bar for those who can't wait to eat between meals, or who don't want the formality of a dining room.
Top that off with bars nearly everywhere and it's easy to put on plenty of weight, unless you stick to the low-cal spa menu, exercise activities and the walking track also available on the ship.
Since many Utahns looking for a quick and inexpensive cruise take the ships out of L.A. to Mexico, this slightly different route offers a chance to meet different folks, mainly Texans, who seemed to make up the majority of the group.
And that was a plus, for our travel party. It would be hard to find a nicer, more fun-loving group. Sitting with strangers in the dining room, we quickly turned to interesting conversations about everything from dealing with hurricanes to a Rotary International convention that is coming to Salt Lake City.
The disadvantage is that airfare to Houston or Galveston is slightly higher than to Los Angeles. Wise travelers might spend a night or two in Galveston, a seaside town with a New Orleans feel to it that looked like a great place to do some shopping, clubbing and dining. In fact, it looked more interesting than Cozumel.
While I have experienced nicer ships with more friendly crews than the Ecstasy (which first sailed in 1991), a highlight for our group of nine was the excellent entertainment. We will never forget my parents, who have been married for 58 years, play The Newlywed Game with two recently married couples. It provided genuine laughs and turned my 82-year-old dad, who spent most of the cruise in his wheelchair, into an instant cruise ship celebrity.
My sister loved the late-night comedians, and I was impressed with a Chinese band that played covers of rock songs from the '60s, '70s and '80s in the Chinatown lounge on ship. My wife enjoyed the casino, winning enough on the slots to keep playing.
The beauty of a cruise such as this is spending time relaxing during the day and partying at night. There isn't a feeling of obligation to spend a lot of time seeing port cities.
The experience involves just enjoying the all-inclusive nature of a cruise, a relatively inexpensive adventure unless you like to gamble, drink alcohol, get a spa treatment or shop, all of which can quickly equal the cost of the actual cruise.
Tom Wharton can be contacted at wharton@sltrib.com. His phone number is 801-257-8909. |
Vallarta Weddings
Travel & Outdoors | May 2007 
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