DEL.ICIO.USAJC.COM CRUISE GUIDE
Reposition yourself for a tranquil, Trans-Atlantic journeyFor the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/10/08
On a sleepy Sunday morning, I awoke in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
With each swell of the rolling sea, a hinge creaked as my bathroom door swung back and forth, back and forth, until irritation at the sound overcame the comfort of lying safely in a warm, downy bed on a cruise ship 1,000 miles from the nearest speck of land.
 David G. Molyneaux / Special |
| Movies Under the Stars play daily on the pool deck of the Emerald Princness. |
 David G. Molyneaux / Special |
| Tents and beds are ready for outdoor spa treatments at the adult-only Sanctuary on the Emerald Princess. |
 David G. Molyneaux / Special |
| Decks for lying in the sunshine on the aft end of the Emerald Princess. |
Bathroom door latched, I headed outside for a chair on my private balcony, where the grays of the sky, without a hint of sun, matched those of the churning ocean. The balcony above shielded me from a light rain.
The gloom of such inclement weather, with capricious seas, might dissuade even the most ardent cruisers from considering a trans-Atlantic voyage — usually offered in spring and fall, when cruise lines reposition their ships between winters in the Caribbean and summers in Europe.
But the crossings, more than a dozen each season, often run at nearly full capacity because thousands of sea lovers are willing to chance the weather for the rewards of the laid-back journey, with long days afloat and few, if any, port stops.
Besides, the price is usually less than $100 a day per person (for two) in an inside cabin — I have seen prices as low as $70 a day — and often less than $150 a day for an outside cabin with balcony.
My repositioning cruise in October was on the 3,100-passenger Emerald Princess, a new ship that spent the summer of 2007 in the Mediterranean and was headed across the Atlantic for a Caribbean winter. The 17-day cruise began in Venice, Italy, and ended in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The first 10 days were in the Mediterranean and around Spain to Lisbon, Portugal. Of the last seven days, six were at sea, a journey of about 3,600 miles from Lisbon, with a stop in the Azores.
On that lazy Sunday morning in the middle of the Atlantic, I sat on my balcony with a book and a blanket, well satisfied with the grayness and moisture in the tangy sea air. Soon, the cabin steward would bring my morning melons, muffins, milk and a pot of coffee. The day ahead offered several hundred pages of reading, several hours of writing in my journal, some exercise on the deck, perhaps a movie, a nap, a fine dinner, evening entertainment and another 500 miles closer to Florida. What was not to like?
Passengers older, quieter
We were a ship of coffee-drinkers, novel-readers, gamblers, card-players, deck-walkers and nappers. Some passengers joined organized activities — bingo and lectures and the like — but most relaxed in the joys of nothing doing, no schedules, no excursions, no land in sight.
Passengers without private balconies found nooks and crannies on the outside decks. A regular contingent of older folks, bundled in blankets, camped out on chairs facing the sea on the covered Promenade that circled the ship on Deck 7.
"It's a different crowd," said Martin Ford, passenger services director on the Emerald Princess. "Salt air is what brings them to the ship on a repositioning cruise. An older crowd, mostly retired. People who prefer days at sea to exploring ports. On regular Europe cruises, we do 10 cities in 11 days. And it's hot, so when passengers get back on board, it's all over for the day. Not much time to enjoy the ship. On this cruise, we also have more variety of menus, and we whack on more entertainment."
Of the 3,000 passengers, said Ford, nearly everyone had sailed before. On Princess, as on most cruise lines, repeat guests are rewarded with perks, such as free laundry and free Internet use.
One night I attended a party of about two dozen passengers who had sailed a minimum of 365 days on the Princess fleet of ships. These folks talked about ships, voyages and continents of their pasts. We swapped stories.
One couple had sailed nearly 900 days, more than two years of their lives. I was the only one who had sailed on the Pacific Princess in the early 1980s during a filming of a segment of the old television show "The Love Boat."
Unpredictable weather
A tip from Ford about trans-Atlantic cruises: "Be prepared for all sorts of weather and sea conditions."
We had fine weather and relatively gentle seas. The Mediterranean in mid-October was predictably warm from Venice to port stops at Naples and Civitavecchia (for Rome), Italy; Cannes, France; Barcelona and Cadiz, Spain; and Lisbon.
The weather held across the cooler Atlantic. We faced a few gloomy mornings, but most days provided sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. If you stayed out of the wind, you would be warm.
Our only rough night was the first one out of Lisbon, on our 800-mile crossing to the islands of the Azores. All night, in near gale force winds, huge foamy swells of ocean whooshed off the bow, raining spray as high as the top decks.
About midnight, I stood for a few moments on my balcony until, shivering and drenched, I headed to bed, only to be awakened half a dozen times during the night by creaking walls or a vibration as the ship hit a serious force of water.
The rest of our journey was peaceful. After a sunny day at sea and another at the port of Ponta Delgado in the Azores, where I did a long walk on our last piece of terra firma, the Emerald Princess set a straight course for a five-day run to the Bahamas and Fort Lauderdale.
As anyone who understands navigation knows, straight is not the shortest route across the ocean. Our course, 255-256 degrees, was explained by Fergus Stewart, third officer on the Emerald Princess bridge, which is the control room that juts out from either side of the ship, high above the bow, to give pilots the best views of nearby waters:
The shortest distance between two points (the Azores and Fort Lauderdale) would follow the curve of the Earth. But that course, in the Northern Hemisphere, would have taken us toward the north.
Anticipating warmer weather toward the south, the captain chose a straight course from the Azores to Fort Lauderdale. Our course was about 40-50 miles farther than if we had followed the curve of the Earth.
Stewart said that repositioning cruises set a course even more to the south later in the fall, so a ship might take six days to get across the Atlantic from the Azores instead of five.
Exploring the ship
The Emerald Princess is the newest ship of Princess Cruises, an old line with British traditions that is now part of the Carnival fleet. Princess pioneered the popular outdoor Movies Under the Stars on a huge screen visible on the pool deck. Movies run all day and into the evening, with popcorn.
Top innovation on the Emerald (and sister vessel Crown Princess) is the adults-only Sanctuary, a private outdoor deck near the spa with cabanas, cushioned lounge chairs (for singles and couples) and attendants who provide drinks, snacks and spa services such as massages. The cost is $15 each time you enter.
The other major change from earlier ships is the room assigned to Sabatini's, a highly rated specialty restaurant with a Northern Italian theme (and a $20 cover charge). Sabatini's on Emerald has top-deck views of the sea, as well as a comfortable balcony with tables outside, where often I ate my buffet lunch from the cafe below.
You'll find good wine lists at $25-$50 a bottle at Sabatini's and at the ship's second specialty restaurant, the Crown Grill ($25 cover charge), which serves steaks, chops and seafood. All other dining rooms serve food at no extra charge.
On a ship longer than three football fields and tall enough for 15 passenger decks, there was plenty of room for roaming. I took long morning walks, starting at the aft end and exploring each deck, working my way toward the bow.
I met dozens of passengers from the United States, Canada and Europe, including families who were coming to Florida for the winter. Two men said they were working for the Hobart company, servicing the 71 dishwashers aboard. So far, they said, they had found 69 of the 71. They had yet to find a door that would take them to their final maintenance chores.
I had some of the same frustrations searching for the ship's golf simulator, where passengers play famous golf courses by hitting balls at a computer-operated screen. Charts showed it was on a top deck aft, but stairs didn't seem to go there, and as part of my seagoing exercise program I was eschewing elevators as I made my way back and forth from my cabin (Deck 11) to the Internet room (Deck 5), to lunch (Deck 15), the library (Deck 7), then back to the cabin to change for dinner (Deck 6). I found the simulator after climbing a series of outside steps and walking around the putt-putt golf course.
Sleeping with salt air
Of all the indulgences that vacationers consider when booking a cruise, the most popular is paying extra for a cabin with a private balcony. When compared with an inside cabin, outside cabins with a balcony usually double the cost. But this can be money well spent, especially if you will have sea days such as crossing the Atlantic. Many a day I sat for hours on my balcony, reading, snoozing or just staring out to sea. That's as close as you'll get on a big cruise ship to feeling one with the relentless, rolling, endless ocean.
Most nights, I slept with the balcony door open. The cabin steward always closed the door and drew the curtains while I was at dinner. The cabin may as well have been a basement cubbyhole.
When I returned, my first act was to open the curtains and door, inviting the salt air into my cabin, listening to the ocean rushing past in swirls of frothy water forced from the bow, gazing over white- capped waves as far as I could see out into the night.
Wind and water lulled me to sleep. During the night, at least once, perhaps several times, I would awaken, rolling out of bed to stand for a few minutes on the balcony, taking in the beauty and the power of the ocean.
On the last night of our voyage across the Atlantic, as we glided through the Bahamas and toward the coast of Florida, I awoke to look at the night sky, full of stars. I could see also a developing thin line of light on the western horizon where Florida awaited.
On his first voyage in 1492, Christopher Columbus spent five weeks sailing from the Canary Islands off Spain to the Bahamas. We had reached the Bahamas from the Azores in five days. The last morning on the balcony of my cushy cabin, I was thinking that five weeks would have been just about right.
David G. Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net and a blogger at TravelMaven.typepad.com.
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