Saturday
The moment we boarded our ship, the Koningsdam, I experienced "acute class awareness syndrome," which is when you suddenly realize you're in a floating petri dish of economic stratification. Nobody on this ship was yacht rich - because if you're yacht rich, you don't cruise on someone else's boat, you cruise on your own while complaining the helicopter pad is too small.
Instead, we walked into an ecosystem of wealth levels: young families with the aura of inherited money, high achievers (doctors, lawyers, etc.), folks with at least a toehold in the owning class ("I just bought another truck for my quarry"), older folks who brought their multi-generational family with them, older folks splurging everything on their "final voyage" cruise, and older folks who are definitely not on their final anything, not the final cruise, not their final Bloody Mary, not the final time at the blackjack table, and not the last on the slot machine either ("Go get me another stack of chips, honey"). The final contingent brings the numbers, for sure. Probably a third of the guests were retired, heavy drinkers although, to be clear, they were not retired *from* heavy drinking.
My wife and I did what newbie cruise passengers do, I suppose: we scurried around like caffeinated hamsters checking out amenities. Pool? Check. Sauna, hot tub, spa heated benches that make you feel like a pampered lizard, and a steam room that gives you a voluntary tropical fever? Check, check, check, and oh, hell no but check. We discovered trivia games (where you learn that everyone else knows more about 1970s sitcoms than you) and a surprisingly nice ship library, well-stocked with hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and magazines.
Among the varied ship's contingent, I found myself noticing a particularly striking couple - a handsome African-Canadian man with his Laotian wife and family - the kind of pairing that's unusual enough to catch your eye, but I had no excuse to talk with them. So I was basically a creepy cruise ship anthropologist taking mental notes.
We did manage to have an extended conversation with a personable Hawaiian fellow who was taking his 72-year-old mother on the cruise. He admitted he was wrestling with the dilemma of adventure-seeking adult children: he wanted to go open-ocean kayaking but his perfectly reasonable mother considered staying alive to be a higher priority for her.
In the evening, we re-learned that my wife's sister kills at music trivia. We came within two points of the win. Most of our score was from her.
First Day Cruise Summary:
Nice ship? Very.
Nice in-laws? Yes, but they know the difference between Laura Branigan and Olivia Newton-John. (It's the haircut, I think.)
Nice passengers? Yes.
Nice crew? Too early to tell. We were just getting to know them.
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