By Donald H. Harrison
AT SEA, Aboard Star Princess – As our family did quite often during the week we were aboard the 3,100-passenger, 950- foot-long M.V. Star Princess, we gathered one afternoon at a round table on Deck 14, which is where the swimming pools and the indoor buffet are located.
On this particular day, instead of informing each other what we planned to do, we reminisced about the times we had spent together aboard the ship and discussed what activities we most enjoyed. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the splashy stage productions, nor the big-ticket art auctions, nor the formal night when everyone got to meet Captain Mariano Manfuso and his officers. Instead, members of our family cited less extravagant moments when we were able to interact with each other as well as with new acquaintances whom we met on the ship.
In all there were eight of us: My wife Nancy and I; our son David and daughter Sandi; Sandi’s two sons, Shor, 18, and Sky, 12; and David’s two children, Brian, 10, and Sara, 8.
“My favorite thing on the ship was spending time with the family,” announced Sara.
Her brother, Brian, who joined us a little later, likewise volunteered that “on the ship, I liked being with the family; off the ship, I liked the same thing.”
By “off the ship,” Brian meant our port calls in the Alaskan ports of Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway, and the Canadian port of Victoria, British Columbia.
Enjoying family is wonderful, I told them, but that could have been done at any of our homes. What about being on the ship itself? Was there anything that stood out?
Sara concentrated for a while, then offered, “swimming with Willow,” referring to a girl her age whom she met in the onboard Kids Club. They swam together twice, she noted.
Brian said exploring the ship with Sara and their cousin Sky was a highlight, along with playing mini-golf on one of the outdoor decks.
Sky, who left a small dog, “Buddy” in the care of family friend John Finley, said he enjoyed getting an opportunity to pet four Huskie puppies that were brought aboard the ship in Alaska. He liked the fact that they were so calm and willing to be petted by anyone. He said he also enjoyed a magic show, in which the magician put his handcuffed hands into a bag, and then, with the handcuffs gone, pulled from the bag a live dog named MJ.
“So, anything with a dog you liked?” I asked.
“It would have been better if he had pulled out a live llama!” Sky said.
Shor said he enjoyed meeting other college-aged students on the ship. One, like Shor, was from San Diego, and the others hailed from the states of Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. Rather than attend many organized activities, the students walked around the ship and chatted about college, politics, their lives, and interesting books that they had read. Shor mentioned he had just completed listening on audio tape to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Working my way up through the age brackets, I next asked my son David what shipboard activities he enjoyed. “Playing team trivia with mom, although we lost,” he replied. On different days, they found up to four teammates to compete answering questions posed by the ship’s staff. David thought a moment more and commented that he also particularly enjoyed a night they served medallions of beef in the dining room.
Sandi said she had a lot of fun teaching Shor how to play “Craps” in the casino. “I only learned how to play it the week before when I was at a conference in Las Vegas,” she said. “They say that your first roll in Craps, you generally do pretty well, and Shor had a 20-minute turn. He kept rolling and rolling, and rolling, and didn’t crap out, which means he didn’t roll a 7. The table was really loving him.”
Nancy said she laughed during the shipboard version of “The Liar’s Club,” in which one member of the Star Princess staff posed words to three colleagues, which they were supposed to define. While some of the “liars” had “cute and funny” answers, the South African-born cruise director Gary Golding made each answer a “whole megillah” – a long story that he sometimes augmented with costumes. “It seemed like he did a five or ten-minute shtick on each question!” Nancy said.
It remained for me to decide which shipboard activity I most enjoyed. We had signed up Sky, Brian, and Sara for a lesson from one of the ship’s pastry chefs on how to put icing on a two-layer cake and to decorate it with sprinkles. As the three of them worked diligently at their task, David and I happily snapped photographs.
It was, as Sara and Brian, had said previously, “a family moment.”
I also enjoyed attending Friday night Shabbat services on the ship. It turned out that there was a group of 35 Israeli travelers aboard, who conducted a Sephardic style service all in Hebrew. Thereafter, whenever we saw each other on the ship, we traded hearty “shaloms.”
Sandi summed up our feelings: “The whole beauty of a family cruise is that you get your alone time and your family time. Sometimes you can all be together, and sometimes you can do your own thing and nobody has to stress about where you are, as they might when traveling on land.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com