The Cruising Casberg's

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If I can get a nap by the 2^ndafternoon of a holiday, I’m laughing. It’s almost unheard of in my 4 years traveling as a family. By the time you finish every project at work suddenly due within the realm of you going on leave and hurriedly pack most of your house into 3 small cases, clean the house and get to the airport, you’re exhausted. It’s often 5.30am, you’ve had 2 hours sleep and you’re standing in a long line of some crappy low cost airline that’s all smiles and no delivery.







Or you’re in the family wagon before sunrise so you can crawl out of Sydney before the other escapees clog the roads. By 10am you’re at the driver reviver in Newcastle sipping a well meant but scoldingly hot, tasteless cup of tea and a stale Arnott’s shortbread before contemplating the next 7 hours of driving averaging 35km an hour.







So if you’re napping by day 2, it’s a great start. For the last 4 years my family and I had gone camping in our camper trailer which is rusting away in the front yard. Not even in the yard, it’s tied to a pole on the street, like we’re too embarrassed by it and can’t be bothered to find room for it on the front yard. I’m mercilessly reminded of it every day I leave for work, knowing it hasn’t been unpacked in over a year. I can’t bear to look at it, the best 5k we ever spent. The last jaunt was Easter 2014 where we headed south with most of the eastern seaboard to Bendalong. Beaut spot but if I closed my eyes, I could have been camping in Surry Hills.







Still we had it better than my mate Stroudy who was the advance party and set up in the middle of an empty campground (because why camp next to the beach) despite being there 12 hours before everyone else. Bogan pride of west wherever the fuck, formed an Indian like semi-circle around his tent and powered up their stereo and subwoofer. Stroudy, his partner and 2 kids, one of whom had a fever, lasted 2 nights. They headed to his mums who lived nearby in a house full of holes and snakes.







Not since then had we unpacked the dreaded camper.







But I was done with camping for now and wanted the taste of freedom. I had a week booked in the busiest period of my working year and I needed to get straight down to the business of relaxing. So we booked a cruise.







Me, who has earned his backpacking stripes and proudly done some pretty stupid things was going on a boat with 2 ½ thousand other people for a week at sea. It could either be the best or worst thing I have organised as the family vacation. Because I work in travel, I’m constantly surrounded by images and stories of amazing places while I’m stuck in air con, working on my office tan. So for 1 week, I wanted it all. I wanted to relax, spend as much time with my daughter and wife as I could and let go of all the shitty, crappy deadlines at work.







Getting on was easy. It’s almost like they want you to get on board and start drinking ok? You walk in and the first thing that happens is they give my daughter a strap that she wears in case she gets lost and the boats sinking. Ok. My girls look at me and ask ‘is the boat is going to sink?’



‘Not this trip’ I say, secretly wondering if it may be as the previous trip this very boat sailed through a category 3 cyclone in Queensland. I thought it best I didn’t mention this.







Next, this small man in a dark suit appears from behind a banner and says ‘mate I can do for you, 3 pack drink voucher, USD27 a day.’ You haven’t taken 12 feet on the boat and this guy is there with the best booze deal for me. Talk about service. Then there’s a guy signing me up for restaurants that I have no idea what or where they are but I’m saying yes to $14 a head because that’s definitely cheaper than $20 a head which is what the guy is trying to explain to me. I am clearly not understanding but nodding furiously so I don’t look like a dick.







‘Pfff of course I’ll take the deal, who doesn’t know to take the meal deal’ I bluster. And then he’s zapping my Sea Pass card around my neck which I didn’t realise I was wearing.







Then you get your photo taken in front of a cheesy picture of a boat in the Pacific (not even the boat we’re on) and with a look of bewildered pleasure you’re spat out the other side, escorted to the lifts and told to have a great cruise. I look around to make sure there’s 30 toes and fingers and that’s when it hits me; we’re cruising baby!







We find our room. I’m always paranoid about the place I book because I want my girls to have it all, even though they would put up with anything. We open the door and there it is. A nice room with a queen size bed, a single bed for Maeya and a balcony overlooking the Opera House. It’s so great I could cry.







Immediately I feel better and even though I’m still tied to Sydney, it feels a million miles away. Maeya spots the 24 hour nonstop all you can eat ice-cream bar as the better than you would expect reggae band drops a phat beat. I look over at my wife and we both say ‘beats the shit out of camping’.







We sail out the heads as Bec’s parents stand on the cliffs of South Head madly waving a yellow umbrella and all my worries are left in our wake.







We’re like kids in a candy shop and we spend the next 2 hours exploring the ship with everyone else. It’s friggin huge and reminds me of Jupiter’s on water. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you wander into some forgotten bar where there’s an old bloke playing piano to 3 ladies sipping the cocktail of the day. It’s absolutely hilarious.







We dine in the main, casual dining restaurant which is a buffet. A buffet, it’s something I’ve overlooked in the past but it’s quickly becoming an essential part of the current holiday requirements. We gorge and I start my journey to freedom with chocolate mousse cake, strawberry cheesecake and 4 cookies. I’ve never felt so ill and so good.







The next day it’s on. Well 9am on. We’ve slept and the bears need feeding. And thus begins the pattern that I now see as cruising; eat, activity, eat, sleep, eat and repeat. As long as you don’t fight it, you’ll be fine. Breakfast couldn’t be bigger or better and then Maeya has an ice cream because she’s allowed one whenever she wants. My wife and I are trying that reverse parenting thing where you say ‘sure, have as much as you like honey’.



And she says ‘awesome’.



And then she make’s herself sick. Not Maeya. She’s just a sensible 2 a day. Not enough for it to be a problem but she makes sure she gets 2 every day. We mosey over to the pool and grab a deck chair. There’s loud music, games, tournaments, cheesy cruise directors and hundreds of white pasty people from Sydney and I love it. We swim like insects in a tiny cup full of water, but we all find our space before I venture into the 4 hot tubes which are seriously hot. Not just, yep I’m kinda relaxed. Like, ok, these hot tubs feel like they are burning my balls off hot.







And we follow the pattern. Eat, activity, eat, sleep and eat.







And then it happens. I get a nap on day 2. I don’t even know it’s coming or put the leave form into my wife in triplicate that’s synced with our ICloud folders, it just happens. One minute I’m lying on the couch and the next thing it’s an hour later.







Days pass and we’re so lost in the routine, I can’t believe we actually get to venture onto land but there it is, the picture perfect Isle of Pines complete with dolphins in front of our balcony. I get an 8.45am booking on one of the tenders and all of a sudden the family is thrown into panic; we only have 50 minutes to eat at the buffet which is 79 steps from our room. I counted. Amazingly, we make it.







We land and decide to walk past the other tourists and head for what seems like the “hidden spot”. After 25m Maeya complains that her legs hurt and I tell her to zip it, she’s never going to be one of those spoilt kids that travel posh. I say. As we stride onto an island with 20 locals trying to sell us everything from shoes to lobster that will take 2 and ½ thousand passengers for all of 7 hours.







After 10 minutes walking we find it, a lost and hidden tropical lagoon out of the movies. Crystal water, amazing reef and a white sand beach that laps lazily at the overhanging branches.







And then the other 2 ½ thousand people have the same idea and they met us there. But it’s sheer bliss. Maeya learns to snorkel and the next thing I know, we’re way out on the reef, her clinging to my back as the “whale” and me moving her along like we’re in outer space. Both looking down at this stunning reef with a truck load of tropical fish and dead but none the less pretty coral. Maeya, who 6 months ago would not get in a swimming pool despite 3 years of lessons and thousands of dollars (another great family investment) was now floating on a reef squealing with delight. It was one of my greatest dad moments. Those moments when you know you’re actually doing what you’re meant to be doing as a father. She made me swim around the reef for an hour before we lumbered back and collapsed on the beach.







My favourite person on the cruise is Stu, the Cruise Director. This poor bloke has to spend all day like he’s in a Vegas cocktail lounge as he hosts anything that might be slightly fun. Which is a lot. He even has to do a television show, twice a day where you get advice like ‘and ladies you can make your head look smaller just by wearing brighter colours’. That’s seriously what he said.







I’m sure Stu has no problems in the matters of women. In fact it seems most men who are in the entertainment team can have their pick of a wide range of 40+ women wearing bright sarongs and make up straight off the set of Strictly Ballroom. Last night there was a very handsome African American piano player who had only just played the last note before he was attacked by the Toucan. I call her the Toucan because she wore a bright yellow sarong that was strangling her red raw upper torso, green shell shaped earrings the size of middy glass and her hair tussled so high it had to have a pole in the middle of it to keep it up. As soon as the last key was played she pounced and the poor man was stuck between the wall and the Toucan. He bobbed, weaved, made nice but there was no escaping. He wasn’t getting anywhere and we left before it got ugly.







The next day we wake to Mystery Island and what it lacked in name’s mystique, it made up for in beauty.







No one actually lives on the island and Vanuatu’s locals come out for the day so they can ply their wares which was everything from massage to lobster or a photo with a massive shell crab. The photo was all we needed (according to Maeya – a bit of lobster sounded nice to me) and we spent hours being chased by a very slow crab with pincers that could break your arm.







The water was the colour of turquoise and warmer than my morning’s cup of tea. It was absolutely divine and we quite happily spent a good part of a day flopping between the water and the palm fringed shore. There were some Christian musicians who were performing under a tree with the most exquisite pacific harmonies. It would have been perfect except they played the same song for 4 hours. It was lovely, perfectly harmonised and full of beauty but for 4 hours that’s all they sang. I mean you would think that if this was pretty much your only line of work and you didn’t have much else to do, you would at least learn a few more songs to broaden your repertoire a little? But they seemed happy.







Then the heavens opened and it rained setting in wild panic. OMG rain, what are we going to do? Everyone (like thousands of people) rushed the line for the little boats that take you back to the big boat, creating a mass exodus that stretched up the beach full of whining and wet westerners. The locals kept on singing under a tree and the crab didn’t seem the slighted bit fazed. 20 mins later it was 5c hotter and bright sunshine.







The next day’s highlight (or that’s what the brochure said it would be) was Noumea. Here’s a piece of free advice, don’t go to Noumea. And don’t go there with a 4 year old who’s only going because she doesn’t want to go to kids club (that was the other option) and “isn’t in the mood for walking”.







We get the shuttle to the towns “centre” which normally means a central point in the city but in this respect was just a random road near some water. We got 40m from the coach before Maeya says to me ‘daddy, I don’t want to walk, can you carry me’.



Inwardly I’m groaning, my daughter is the princess luxury traveller I was hoping to avoid. ‘Maeya I’m not picking you up and you can walk’.



Cries and whining follow before the guilt trip ‘but my legs are so tired that I might just have to stay here, you go on’.







So I walk off and 60m away she’s still lying on the footpath playing with a stick and bottle top, thoroughly worry free. And thus the battle of wills begins. I know, she knows, that I will cave. I have to. I can’t leave a 4 year old alone on the streets of Noumea despite the temptation and she knows it. So she pretends to be engrossed in the stick / bottle top game thing while I double back and give her a kick up the ass.







Even then she sulks 40m behind me muttering ‘daddy doesn’t even love me’. We continue like this for an hour before we find the local post office and try to post our postcards. I realise I have no local money and ask if I can pay in Australian dollars which the lovely lady says through gritted teeth that they only take French something or other. It’s at that moment with my Sea Pass strapped round my neck and me in my electric blue walking shoes with a whining 4 year old that I realise I’m THAT tourist.







But it’s a relief to get back. It’s only been 3 hours but the panic of being away from the buffet was starting to set in.







We quickly shower and run for the pool where the comfort of cocktails (it was clearly past midday), endless ice cream and images of the tropical destinations we could have visited that day are projected on the massive LED screen. Sure we talked about doing a lot of things that afternoon, I must walk around the boat, a bit of rock climbing would be nice, I could see that movie. Truth is I just sat there and watched the passing parade for hours before falling asleep and drooling all over the deck chair. It just keeps happening.







The service is a mix of old world charm and globalisation. Most of the staff are from Asia and genuinely seem pleased to look after you. There’s 800 of them and I have no concept where they all sleep. It must be the rooms under the waterline. Where you have a window of well, the water. They work 7 months straight and get 2 months off. They don’t get days off, just hours. Yes, there is a dark underside to the affordability of the cruise industry. I talked to countless men who were supporting families back in their homeland. One great waiter, Priestley, said his twin daughters had just turned 3 and he wouldn’t see them till they were 3 ½. But ‘a job is a job and this is a good job in my country’ he explains.



And thus the quandary of the role of lower paid workers to support us rich fatties begins and leaves me pushing my food around my plate. Would it be better these tourism industries didn’t exist and we didn’t pay these great people below poverty line wages or are we in fact, by partaking in this cruise, helping these people who may not otherwise have a job? Priestley assured me we were but for a long moment that is yet to leave, I was reminded by the remarkable good fortune I have to be born in Australia and afforded such a lifestyle.







The Captain, Captain Rob, tells us that we have 1690 miles back to Sydney and he wants us to enjoy every mile of it. He’s this charming American, one of the good ones, who talks with words like velvet moose at precisely 12pm every day as he fills you in on the various bits and pieces. It’s like listening to the Discovery Channel on Xanax. You can’t help but feel totally at ease and with a hardened resolve to do less, eat more and enjoy it all. So I stay in the spa for another hour watching a movie, Maeya swims in the kiddie’s pool and Bec sits on a deck chair sipping a cocktail. Does a holiday really get any better than this? And if it does, where is it?







The following days at sea are unremarkably pleasant. We lounge, eat, splash and savour every last moment. It turns into one long buffet interlaced with bouts of swimming and sleeping.







Cruising may not be for everyone. You have to have the will to not take things too seriously and seriously enjoy yourself. It’s about you and the people you are with that makes cruising what it is. I walked off the gang plank with 3kg’s of apple crumble strapped to my belly, a beautifully relaxed and deeply happy wife and a daughter who wouldn’t let go of my hand.







All I wanted to do, was turn around and do it all again.

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