WHY DO YOU LOVE TO CRUISE?

If you are here, odds are you probably already love to cruise. Or at least have included cruises in your travel repertoire.

Pam and I have always loved to travel. But it took several years before we decided to give cruising a try. Why the reluctance? Maybe for some of the same reasons you waited:

• It's too confining. Once you are on the ship, your vacation is "programmed." Pretty hard to change your travel plans in mid-journey, unless you want to "jump ship."

• The forced socialization. On a cruise, you are a "captive audience." You are thrown together with thousands of strangers, and they with you. Let's hope we get along or there goes both time and money I won't get back.
• Fear of the unknown. As in, what if the weather turns ugly, or there's a mechanical failure, or you have a close encounter with a stomach virus. Yikes!

Truth be known, there are plenty of things that can derail a vacation or travel trip on land, sea or air. And if a major appeal of travel in the first place is the primal urge to have "an adventure," it's pretty hard to demand a 100% guarantee nothing will go wrong.

So we took the plunge and booked a short cruise to Mexico, just to see how we liked it. Let's see, that was about 15 cruises ago. Not only did we like it, we were hooked!

Why do we love to cruise? There are dozens of reasons. Just to name a few:

• You unpack once and have a chance to visit or re-visit a new port almost every day. How big a drag is packing and unpacking your suitcases on a land or air vacation? And for what some airlines are charging to haul your luggage, we can add on a few more 5-star dining experiences at the ship's specialty restaurants.
• Maybe you are "captive" with a bunch of strangers, but we have met some of the most interesting people ever on cruises. Like our good friends from Bath, England -- Brian and Mo. Our advice: Don't be shy. You may just make a lifelong friendship.
• On today's cruise ships you have so many choices of activities, entertainment, dining, shows, classes and sports, chances are you will never be bored. Unless you want to be. You can also choose to stake out a deck chair and relax with a good book and favorite drink.
• Then there are the ships themselves. More than ships, many are floating works of art, technological marvels that smooth out the rough waves and dazzle with their artistry. Plus there is a cruise vacation to suit everyone, from the glitzy mega-ships like Oasis of the Seas to the personalized experience of a European river cruise.

One last thought: I think cruising must be very much akin to what one might have felt in the heyday of the dirigible. But instead of floating among majestic clouds, you are standing in a seemingly endless expanse of blue, feeling as one with the the mightiest force on the planet, the sea.

Cruising is indeed a vacation like no other.

--Gerry, for Cruising Squared