The JNAC Chronicles

I.

Fear.

Cruise ships.

I’m sorry, this is as light as it’s going to get today. As one who has never been on a cruise, I’m willing to be sold on the idea. What is the allure there? Why is it such big business? What, exactly, is a cruise like and why is it worth going on one? I’m stumped.

My first instinct is that a cruise would be my worst nightmare. Small and crowded, it’s a virtual petri dish of communicable diseases afloat at sea. At sea! Do you know what happens at sea? Hurricanes, walls of water that swallow ships whole, sinking. Sinking!!! I said sinking!!! If I managed to return home it could be with hoof and mouth, meningitis, staphylococcus, and most certainly an exacerbated case of claustrophobia. And what is with this developing trend of throwing others overboard? I am not comfortable with crime, isolated, lawless... trapped and imprisoned with slobivius americanus. I try not to think about where and how the human waste and buffet food are stored.

While on our honeymoon on St. Thomas we timed our visits into town so we would miss the docking of cruise ships. One day, though, our arrivals in town aligned. The crowds swarmed, scooping up souvenirs in a near frenzy. It was sickening.

We spent 14 days in the Caribbean and it cost less than a cruise would have. We had our own private house on a hill with a gate, did our own grocery shopping, laundry, vacuuming. It was total privacy. We had our own private pool in the jungle trees on a wrap-around deck that overlooked the ocean! We went outside during nighttime jungle thunderstorms! The sun rising over the ocean and shining onto our bed and into my eyes is what woke me up every morning. The feeling of that big sun rising behind my lids and warming my face is the place I mentally escaped to while my wisdom teeth were being extracted. The breeze blew through that house day and night. Paradise!

We asked the locals where the secluded beaches were and treated our compact rental car like a jacked-up jeep getting to them. We saw the locals, the street drugs, the island. We got to drive on the wrong side of the road. We snorkeled day after day. We ate bananas and coconuts from our own fruit trees that were on the property. I sunbathed topless!

So I ask- How does it compare? Why do people burn their money on cruises? Jenny loves cruises and has been on billions. Enlighten me. I feel like I am missing something big.

The view from our deck:

No joke, we had this beach on St. John all to ourselves, completely alone. Just us and one stray dog: