The standard question ....

I know that, in my first post on this blog, I wrote about why I like to cruise. Since that is the "standard" question I'm asked when I call myself a "cruiser," I thought I'd revisit it, especially in the economic pinch everyone is feeling from the current state of gas prices and their effect on the prices on everything else.

I read in the book about the start of the modern cruise industry, Devils on the Deep Blue Sea, that many economists label the cruise industry as being fairly recession-proof. Not that gas prices can't hurt cruise companies (as is evident by today's stock prices), but most people see cruising as a vacation value, and when times get tight, those vacation dollars need to get stretched ... making cruising an attractive option.

Many people who dismiss cruising do so because they hate the idea of "being stuck on a ship" or of "seeing the same ports over and over." I can understand these viewpoints, though the stuck on a ship argument doesn't hold too much water with today's floating leviathans. The port objection is a fair one, but then again, when it comes to pinching pennies, sometimes the world is not your oyster. For example, I really do want to visit Europe again. Without even worrying about how badly the dollar is currently being pounded by the Euro, it would probably cost me at LEAST $1,500 for roundtrip tickets to a popular European destination from Indianapolis. For that same cost (and with other people sharing my room so I'm not stuck with single-occupancy rates), I'm taking a 10-day cruise and have round-trip flights from Indianapolis directly to Miami. Oh ... and I get to see the Panama Canal. Looking back at Europe, that $1,500 gets me to, let's say Paris, but I still need to worry about lodging and food costs, at the very least. I know I can skimp on the food costs (but in Paris, who wants to all the time?) and can probably find some sort of hotel discount, but I can't imagine a 10-day trip in Europe, sharing costs with a roommate, costing less than $2,500 a person.

I guess I'll be sticking with cruises out of the US ... at least until I get that "real" job. ;)