Why I Stay Away From Cruises

My friends keep telling me how much fun their last cruise was, leisurely travel, fabulous weather, excellent food, luxurious service, exotic ports, interesting sights, fun activities and side trips, new friends. I will not be caught dead on a cruise. I base that assessment on experience.

I took a seven-day cruise once, back in 1959. We left on the 23rd of August, the height of the summer (and hurricane) season. This was before the time of widespread jet travel and ocean liners were the common and preferred mode of travel between Europe and North America. Leisure cruises were not the norm that they are today. I took this cruise on the MS “Berlin,” built in 1925 at Newcastle-on-Tyne, as the Gripsholm for the Swedish American Line, refitted and refurbished in 1954 and sold to North German Lloyd for the North Atlantic run between Bremerhaven and New York, with stops at LeHavre and Southampton. By today’s standards, she was a modest 18,000-ton passenger liner, 590 feet long, 74 feet wide, with a 29 foot draw and a cruising speed of 16 knots. She was able to accommodate 976 passengers, 80 in 1st class, 302 in 2nd and 594 in 3rd class.

My cabin was # 207, bed K, in 3rd class, just above the waterline, among the unwashed. I shared this space with a retired German baker from Chicago, who was returning from his annual pilgrimage to the beer halls of Bavaria, and a red-headed black man from Raleigh, North Carolina, who spoke perfect German with a strong Berlin accent. This was a bit disconcerting to me. I didn’t expect a black man to speak my language as well or better than I did. He had earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Free University in Berlin and was on his way home after two years in Germany. He was apprehensive about going home and tried to explain to me what segregation meant. This was a concept to which I simply could not relate. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Let’s look at the positive aspects of cruising, about which my friends wax so lyrical, one at a time. Let’s take leisurely travel and fabulous weather first. My crossing lasted seven days and was very rough once we left Southampton. The captain chose the northern route to avoid the hurricane zone. It didn’t seem to make a bit of difference. The weather was atrocious. The second day out, we ran into a north Atlantic storm with waves that dwarfed the ship’s superstructure and sent huge walls of water crashing over the bow. Obviously, the deck was off limits. This storm lasted for three days.

As for fun activities, they were restricted to trying to stay upright and not to crash down the stairs, as the ship heaved and bucked. Sleeping was impossible, because you had to concentrate on not falling out of bed each time the ship rolled. Entertainment consisted of the John Wayne oater “Rio Bravo.” I saw it six times. The shipboard orchestra tried valiantly, but to no avail. They kept crashing out of their chairs. Dancing was impossible. Some tried, but it turned out to be more of a wrestling match than a dance. The final day of the trip, the ship spent heaved to in thick fog off New York.

I would rate my experience with excellent food and luxurious service as mediocre at best down on the C Deck. I’m sure it probably was better up among the washed and groomed on the top decks. Most of the passengers were seasick the whole time. I and my cabin mates were among the few who were unaffected by this malady. The weather confined everyone but the crew indoors. The old baker and I spent most of our time eating the meals served in the nearly empty 3rd class dining room and at the bar drinking Cognac, which the old man firmly believed prevented seasickness. He seemed to be right.

On several occasions, we snuck up to the 2nd class dining room and helped ourselves to the uneaten meals there. Seasickness was an equal opportunity malaise. The old baker introduced me to lobster and caviar and prime rib. We were in hog heaven. We also tried to get access to the 1st class deck, but it was barred to the unwashed from the lower decks. The ever-watchful stewards on the top deck, who had no sense of humor or equality whatsoever, foiled us. They’d obviously rather throw the uneaten food over the side before allowing the peasants to taste it. Our only satisfaction was that the swells on the top deck were as seasick as most everyone else.

On the morning of the seventh day, the fog finally lifted and the “Berlin” sailed into New York harbor, past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and docked at its pier in Hoboken, New Jersey, not exactly an exotic port. I swore to myself that I would never step on another cruise ship again, if I could at all help it.

Alas, this was not to be. I have to tell you about my second experience cruising the North Atlantic. This took place in early December 1962. I admit that December is probably not the best month for a balmy crossing, but I had little choice. This cruise was on the U.S. Military Sea Transport Ship “General Simon B. (for Bolivar) Buckner,” on its regular run again between Bremerhaven and New York, without stops in between. She had been commissioned in January 1945, built by Bethlehem-Alameda Shipyards of Alameda, California, with a 9,676 ton displacement, and had a civilian crew. I was on my way back from service in Europe to a stop-over at historic Fort Hamilton, New York, en route to beautiful downtown Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, as the natives now call it. And it was even less fun the second time around.

It started out pretty good. When I arrived at the ship’s berth at Columbus Quay in Bremerhaven for embarkation, I was late and nearly missed out on this adventure, due to the fact that my exit immunization record was deemed to be unsatisfactory. I had faked the records to avoid getting the required injections. The medics insisted on giving me all six obligatory shots, before they would let me board and escape their jurisdiction. As a result, I missed all duty assignments on board, because this was a working cruise. All the enlisted personnel had to pull guard and mess duty and the NCOs’ had to supervise those duties.

My lateness and the resulting lack of assigned duties proved to be a major bonus, because the minute we reached the open Atlantic, again on the northern route, we were battered by a fierce winter storm and all doors and hatches were battened down tight. I withdrew to my bunk and consulted my old standby – Cognac. I had planned ahead and carried ten days’ supply in my foot locker. Once again, it worked like magic. It didn’t take long before most in our compartment were seasick. The floor of the troop deck in our quarters, which held 120 men on triple-decker bunks, was soon awash in vomit which slopped back and forth with the motion of the waves and the place stunk to high heaven. There was no ventilation.

It became very difficult to maintain the Army’s standards of cleanliness and organization. The ship was a WWII Liberty ship and the comfort level was basic to begin with. She had seen better days. The ship shuddered, moaned and creaked as it was tossed around by wind and waves. You had the feeling she was going to break up at any time and head for Davy Jones’ locker.

To give you an example of the ship’s amenities, let me give you a tour of the head in our quarters. It was a square open room, divided into sinks along one wall, showers along another and the other two held the toilets. There were no partitions or doors. There was no fresh water, only salt water. The toilets flushed straight into the ocean, which was fine in calm weather, but with a storm raging outside, the waves shot straight up through the pipes and onto the floor. The upside was that you saved on toilet paper, if you could take the water pressure. You had to be able to multi-task. You had to avoid cutting your throat while shaving in a wildly pitching ship, while simultaneously making sure you avoided the shit and vomit ricocheting back and forth between your feet in the sea water, all this while clinging desperately to the sink to avoid falling headlong into the mess on the slick floor. Needless to say, discipline soon flagged on our deck.

The poor slobs, who thought they had caught a break from the funk below by being posted on deck for guard duty, found themselves on duty cold and wet, huddling in the exhaust fumes from the galley to keep warm and were puking their guts out. I have no idea what they were guarding against, since no one dared or was allowed to step out on deck and no one was trying to board this rust bucket.

The mess itself was a challenge too. All food was served in large compartmentalized metal trays. You ate at tables fitted with a two inch high metal rim, designed to catch the food before it splashed on the floor. The storm made it difficult to find your mouth with your fork and everything on your tray tended to end up together in one big pile. There always was someone at your table who lost control of his tray and let it crash into everyone else’s, causing even more chaos. Soon everyone turned green and started hurling. There was the odd fist fight. Those unfortunate ones who got picked for KP had to clean up the mess in addition to scouring pots and pans, trays and utensils in the galley. The air in there got pretty thick and hot and funky. I stayed away from the mess hall and instead I lived on Cognac, white bread and Camel cigarettes for the duration of the storm and survived unscathed.

This cruise lasted ten days and ended on the 20th of December in a blinding snowstorm. I again swore never again. This time I’ve been able to stick to my convictions. I haven’t set foot on a cruise ship since. And I don’t plan to, no matter how rosy the descriptions. I have been to the dark side.