Fascinatin' Passengers

Let me start out by saying my wife and I took a cruise last year and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Embarrassing eh? Let's face it cruise ship passengers are the butt of jokes, cruise ships are the world's worst form of travel, polluting the oceans, cushioning and cossetting their occupants, they are the absolute antithesis of "proper" voyaging. Well let me remind you the wife and I also sailed to Key West from California and I have an intimate personal knowledge of the joys of proper voyaging and let me say cruise ships have their good points.The image thing is unavoidable, after all as a cruise ship passenger you are one sweating American in a herd of several hundred, possibly several thousand strangers in a strange land when you step off the floating hotel. I used to work as a boat captain taking passengers out sailing and I heard some very odd questions, naive in the extreme asking what currency we used and who governed Key West. On our week long trip round the Western Caribbean we found the ship to be extremely comfortable, we loved our cabin with a balcony and room service was divine. I've got to be honest, this was my wife's first "lounging vacation" in 13 years of marriage, something she had longed for but that I can't stand to waste a vacation on- give me a rental car and an open road!. The cruise ship was a blast, by contrast. I was amazed, the comfort of one's own room, the civilty iof a swimming pool, air conditioning or open air breeezes at will and attentive service. I felt like a character in a Noel Coward play. Reality is a little less suave and a bit more herd-like:It has been fashionable for some time to curse cruise ships and their hordes of passengers in Key West, however as money runs low in the city fashions change and it has been some time since last I heard someone bitching about the herds roaming lower Duval Street. Protesting voices used to be raised in the newspaper demanding ships curtail the number of their visits to our city. Since the economic downturn turned into a rout cruise ships show up at the city's dock or the Westin's dock and disgorge their humanity into the happily outstretched arms of merchants begging for custom. And cruise ships need attractions to keep their people satisfied.Times are tough, so it is a good thing I suppose to spot people bearing packages:When I see someone with a utilitarian plastic bag from a downtown pharmacy I figure I am observing the passage of a crew member:Opponents of cruise ships argue they pollute and they encourage mindless mass tourism, supporters say they not only bring people who spend money they also expose people to the delights of Key West. Based on our experiences in Cancun, Grand Cayman and Jamaica where on each island we rented a car for a thorough exploration, Key West really does have a lot going for it. Imagine the Art and History Museum recently garnered a statewide award and it's right there at the docks:Not just in the matter of shops but in presentation also, bright lights, cheerful store fronts abundant greenery and a level of cleanliness that sometimes shocks me:Key West is a modern American city in many respects and offers lots of attractions, including sophisticated nude statuary courtesy of the ever industrious Seward Johnson and his out sized efforts:If pirates are more to the tourists taste there is the shipwreck Historeum thing and when I was down that way the place was positively groaning under the weight of paying customers:And were it not for the cruise ship who would be taking a break at Mallory Square to chomp an ice cream in the slowest month of the year?

There is no doubt that cruise ships are good for commerce in the Southernmost City. But there remains that nagging feeling that we want more from our visitors. Mass tourism doesn't come from an innate sense of curiosity. Cruise ship passengers seem to love repetition, revisiting old haunts and the like. I overhead one who must have been a former resident discussing some of Johnson's over sized statuary outside the Customs House and she remarked that it wasn't there when she was here previously. For me travel includes, requires perhaps freshness of perspective and exploration. Cruise ship passengers typically aren't like that, it seems. They come in all shapes sizes and ages, they walk with a distinctly glazed look some of them, some talk animatedly, some stroll hand in hand, just like people anywhere, and everywhere:

This one is an explorer on a mission and he needs to get his legs away from exposure to the burning southern sun:And if you thought all cruise ship passengers were old you'd be wrong:

But they do tend to let their inner selves appear in their outer clothing some of which might come as a shock to their folks back home. "Fred? In a tie dye? Really!"

But not everyone wandering in the area is necessarily a cruise ship passenger. My money would be on this guy being a local:Over the last ten years there were a lot of things that freaked Key Westers out. Development seemed endless and costs of everything spiralled and the number of cruise ships seemed to be swamping the city. Development has stalled, money no longer flows like water and cruise ship numbers seem to be down. Perhaps at some point there will be a chance that things could be a little more balanced, perhaps a little less desire to just make money, a little more attention to quality of life, because polluters or no, these big ships block the view and take up a lot of the harbor, witness the Sunset Key ferry nosing past:The cool thing about cruise ships is that they suck up their passengers into their bowels, roll up the welcome mat and they are all gone:

And then as the local employees unhook the dock lines and release the behemoth from its moorings, a person standing on the dock can hear the cruise director's voice echoing out over the city organizing ship board events and games even before the port call is properly over.It's a mixed blessing I grant you having cruise ships in town, but I am forced to acknowledge that their harbor dues help pay my wages so I keep my grumbling to myself when I see the hordes of people with their little shore excursion passes stuck to their shirts, or when I spot the big white apartment complex tied up alongside the city: I wonder how long these mobile cities will keep coming and going across the world's waterways? Riding a floating hotel is an astonishing luxury, I well remember standing at my private balcony watching the Western Caribbean float by under an almost full moon. I also remembered crossing the same waters in my 34-foot catamaran a decade earlier. I think I know which crossing had the bigger carbon footprint and I'm guessing it's the one that offered room service...