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Behind us, my stepson and his girlfriend, both in their early twenties, observe the surroundings with what seems like tolerance and a splash of disdain. I feel like a subpar stepfather, but it’s no use—I’ve again been sucked into the void of life on a cruise ship, our third one as a couple. There is much to see and do onboard, much of it pointless, which is of course the point.
The guy emceeing the belly-flop event is the cruise director—we’ll call him Mark. His wife, who assists with boat activities—we’ll call her Mindy—is on hand as well, bopping around with glee, doing what she can to energize an already energetic scene.
When I first heard of this contest, I envisioned a large, deep pool and a diving board that would strain necks and force those watching to shield their eyes from the sun as the floppers sailed downward from the heavens above. But the pool is small, and the contestants leap from a platform that is only two or three feet tall. I probably should have figured a high dive on a moving ship wouldn’t be a good idea. Above us on middle and upper decks, fellow cruise goers in bathing suits line the railings to watch the proceedings. Through my buzzy haze on this hot day in early August, it fully resonates with me that the belly-flop contest is no joke.
Mark is hilarious as emcee. I watched him in action a few nights earlier, singing and dancing and trying to rile up the crowd at the Adventure of the Seas welcome event. I had pegged Mark as a bit of a well-meaning buffoon, but I sensed he likes his job and genuinely wants a good time to be had by all. At the belly-flop contest, Mark seems more in his element as the judge of “the best athletes in the world” who are shooting for belly-flopping immortality. The way he introduces the floppers as serious athletes is funny, like something you’d see in pro wrestling. Around ten floppers are jumping for a supposed chance at Royal Caribbean history, with the crowd holding up their fingers to rate each performance one through ten. As the jumps get going, Mark scans the hands all around him, his head bonking up and down, and recites the numerals no different than a seasoned, fast-talking auctioneer: “ten-to-the-nine-to-the-nine-to-the-ten-to-the-ten-to-the-eight-to-the-nine-to-the-ten.”
Predictably, a hefty guy who is recognized from the start as the longtime champion flopper wins the event. As Jill and I walk away from the pool at the conclusion, the song “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath blares from the speakers. I feel joyous.
My wife’s deceased father once called me “the most regal one of us all” within his family. By regal, I think he meant an upscale, classy guy. How refined would this God-fearing man think I was on day two of our Royal Caribbean cruise, as the Adventure of the Seas cuts through the ocean toward the Cayman Islands, his daughter sitting on the shallow ledge of a pool with water lapping her splayed-out legs, me right behind her on a higher ledge, my legs pressed against her tanned shoulders, both of us holding sugary, alcohol-laden drinks?
The irony of that “regal” label highlights the strange dichotomy of cruise travel: we are simultaneously pampered guests in a floating resort and participants in a surreal, communal absurdity.
It wasn’t all that long ago when I was walking our dog and ran into a neighbor who said she wouldn’t go on a cruise for anything in the world. This was during the height of COVID-19, when stories of trapped people on cruise ships made these monster machines of the ocean seem like death traps. This low state of the cruise industry may have led to today’s mentality at Royal Caribbean in which germ-free cleanliness is an obsession. Signs on the doors of bathrooms recommend using a paper towel to open them—a good practice. One afternoon, Jill and I saw a man in the Windjammer eatery playing an acoustic guitar and singing the lyrics “Wash Your Hands Now” while strumming the chords to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
But the coronavirus days are long over, and so are people’s trepidation of cruise ships. According to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), close to 38 million people will be on a cruise in 2025, with Millennials and my generation, Generation X, leading the charge.
We couldn’t have been on this latest cruise for even an hour before my wife’s iPhone slipped from the pocket of her swimsuit cover-up and into the pool. I snatched the device out of the water, but it was a fruitless endeavor. For the rest of the trip, a green Apple icon blinked continuously on the phone’s screen. At one point, Jill borrowed a nice lady’s phone to google instructions on how to hack her way out of the green blinking apple. The coordinated pressing of the phone’s three side buttons didn’t do anything and, long story short, Jill purchased a new iPhone just hours after we arrived home.
But even if Jill’s phone had been working, she couldn’t have used it since we weren’t paying for Wi-Fi. Cruise ships are a curious mix of high-tech glitz and old-fashioned ways. The boat’s Promenade section resembles a real-life outdoor setting complete with expensive shops, a Starbucks, free pizza, and late-night parties. On the flip side, living on a boat for a week can take you back in time. Smoking is still allowed in the casino, a space where, make no mistake about it, cruise lines love people to be. Smelling cigarette smoke while walking through the casino made me feel like I was back in the bars of my youth. The scene felt outdated and unhealthy.
Then there’s the whole keeping-in-touch thing. Without the ability to text, and with phone calls costing a hefty amount, making plans with your people is not as easy to do on a ship as it is in real life. Cruisers must plan ahead or use the phones in their cabin to coordinate.
Along with a stop in Grand Cayman, the ship also anchored in the town of Falmouth in Jamaica. Jill and I took a guided bike tour where we were whisked around by a rider who showed us a sliver of the city. We saw numerous people at this port city selling their wares on the street, desperate for American money. Mind you, this was worlds away from the string of souvenir shops visitors see in Jamaica right off the ship.
For me, the bike tour was the eye-opening, spoiled-American moment of the vacation. That stark glimpse of reality—the gritty, unvarnished struggle just beyond the pier—made the artificial, curated comfort of the ship feel both more luxurious and, perhaps, more fragile. It became clear that to find the true value of this voyage, I had to stop looking at the manufactured entertainment and start seeking the quiet spaces between the noise.
There are other dichotomies on cruises. Along with nonstop entertainment, these floating cities offer opportunities for deep solitude. It’s the nooks and crannies of the ship that are the real treasures. One night, late, I walked the circumference of one of the decks with the moon shining on the water. The view was stunning, but I felt miniscule and frightened by all the black water churning far below and rushed back to our cabin.
Jill and I staked out a small portion of the ship outside where we could exit through the glass doors and just be alone for a bit. A few times on the trip we hung out late at night with my stepson and his girlfriend, one evening settling into large circular chairs on the deck with the moon shining and the wind whipping some flags nearby. We dined with them often and treasured the moments.
One day, Jill and I ventured to the deck of the ship’s bow and went to the very front. Feeling like Jack and Rose from the movie Titanic, we let the wind belt our faces and watched the seabirds float in the air, a few of them landing and resting on the platforms of a pole-like structure over our heads. The view was boundless and onward, rejuvenating and humbling.
Waterslides, a workout room, bars, basketball and pickleball courts, and karaoke and trivia contests are all fun, cool things to experience on a cruise ship. But it’s the sunsets, sunrises, and stolen moments with those you love that put a cruise over the top.
On the last night, I spotted Mindy—the cruise director’s wife—near an elevator, bantering with a child riding a mechanical horse. “I used to have one of those,” she said. “It was a different color.” It was a fleeting, human moment in a world built on artifice.
Shortly after, Jill and I stood at the railing as the lights of Cuba drifted by in the darkness. Seeing that distant, unreachable shoreline from the deck of our floating city was a reminder of how small we really are—and how fortunate we are to be out here, drifting between the noise and the sea. I didn’t need a formal excursion to find the point of the trip; the adventure was simply realizing that, for a few days, we were free to find our own way home.
These and other creative nonfiction essays and articles can be found in Far From Mars – Volume 2: Brief Encounters and Lasting Echoes.