Onboard Obsessions: From Sound Bathing Under the Milky Way to a New Year’s Party at the Edge of the World
Cookie Moon
Cruises can take you to amazing places, including bucket-list destinations like the Galápagos or Greenland and tried-and-true favorites like the Caribbean and the Med. But so much of the fun comes from being on the ship itself. Here, we’ve expanded on our long-running column Onboard Obsessions, spotlighting all the little things we’ve loved while cruising lately. From an unexpected plein-air performance and chic libraries to possibly the most unique New Year’s party of all time, these are the kinds of moments, big and small, that turn mere passengers into cruisers for life.
Sea days are the best days
Die-hard cruiserati will tell you that sea days can be as exciting or relaxing as you make them. You can go wild and get inked at a tattoo parlor (now a thing, thanks to Virgin Voyages) or take care of your body with a satisfying hour-long run on a treadmill that seems to be floating on water aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s Viva. I finally grasped the freedom of a sea day during a 15-day Oceania Sirena sailing in Asia. There were five of them. What was I to do? A ton, apparently. Cooking demos, painting classes, bridge lessons, Battle of the Sexes trivia, afternoon tea, ABBA dance parties, and karaoke powered by plenty of liquid courage. I joined oiled-up sexagenarians for sweaty laps around the top deck and nearly fainted during a reflexology session in the onboard spa when a soft-spoken sadist crunched my feet like Cheetos. Earlier this year, three port cancellations on Viking Venus’s sailing through the British Isles gave me time to sing sea chanteys with the chipper Scottish cruise director and line-dance on the pool deck.
Sea days, like cruises themselves, are about spinning a fantasy—of being someone I’m not, of being free. I can convince myself as I roll from one all-you-can-eat buffet to the next that I will never gain a pound. I imagine myself running off with the ship’s dashing Ukrainian pianist, exploring new ports of call and stealing private moments in pockets where the security cameras cannot reach. (Would his wife mind? Would my husband?) The reverie collapses, of course, when I actually talk to the crew. They tell me about the businesses they want to start back home and the side hustles they run to make ends meet, about the children whose birthdays they celebrate over WhatsApp. The Indonesian housekeepers, Zimbabwean massage therapists, Filipino bartenders, Bulgarian nose flutists, and humble Burmese waiters—they’re the real heroes of the sea day. Getting to know them as multi-dimensional people, I’ve come to realize, is more enriching than any shore excursion. – Ashlea Halpern
Balconies are the best amenity to watch the world go by
The red woven hammocks on all the terraces were upright like swinging chairs but roomy enough to stretch out my legs—and I’m six feet nine. I settled into mine around the clock, watching a flotilla of seabirds after breakfast and stargazing at night. And let’s just say the hammock made things a little more fun when the seas grew rough around Antigua. —Scott Laird
Each night before bed I’d put in my room service breakfast order so I could watch the sun rise over the craggy peaks of Elba as I sipped my coffee and ate croissants on my private balcony. In the afternoons I watched the crew test the ship’s Zodiacs and submarines as the sunlight shifted the water from one shade of blue to another. Despite the other passengers who were on board, in those moments I felt blissfully alone. —Taylor Eisenhauer
The windows of my Panorama Suite slid open entirely, effectively turning the room into one ginormous balcony. In bed I would drink cappuccinos and glimpse the rows of Riesling grapes pass by along Germany’s Moselle River, the scents and sounds of the life on the shore creating a vastly more immersive experience than looking out the window ever could. —Sarah Kuta
A party at the bottom of the world
Dinner demanded four-inch heels. Sure, I’d been wearing clunky boots as I tromped across the icy snow of Antarctica earlier, but this was Silversea’s chic Silver Cloud, and I was determined to dress the part. My fellow passengers, wearing their finest threads and best baubles, paraded into the dining room, leaving trails of pricey perfume. Grinning waiters wore glittery silver top hats with “Happy New Year” spelled out in bold black lettering. Yellow, purple, and red balloons tethered to dining tables glided by.
My husband, Kary, and I donned paper crowns and blew noisemakers between bites of Oscietra caviar and buckwheat blinis. After dinner came the coup de grâce. Most expedition ships lack large outdoor spaces, but here all 200 guests could party on deck with 360-degree views of Antarctica in 24-hour daylight. We danced to Madonna’s “Celebration” and sipped the free-flowing Champagne.
At 11:59 p.m., beneath a benevolent sun and a pale blue sky tinged with gold over the snow- capped mountains—and no sign of life anywhere but on our ship—the cruise director began the countdown. We screamed, “Ten, nine, eight...” before slipping into the coming year. Kary and I embraced, and then hugged perfect strangers as if they were best friends returning from battle. There is no better way to ring in the New Year than with a group all alone at the end of the Earth. —Janice Wald Henderson
When cruising is a state of mind
On a clear, crisp evening on the Pacific, I blinked up at the Milky Way, took a series of breaths, and closed my eyes. The steely symphony of a sound bath reverberated through my still body. It’s part of Swan Hellenic SS Diana’s Explore and Restore programming, created with Deepak Chopra. The facilitator asked existential questions for us to silently contemplate. For me, being at sea can help facilitate such exploration. For one, there is the vulnerability that comes with being so removed from the rest of the world. Then there is the constant rocking, which can help stimulate your thinking. After a week of breath work, meditation, and more, I felt none of the dread I might have had before boarding this ship. I opened my eyes and saw the constellations. I haven’t found the answers yet, but for now, I’m okay with that. —Chloe Caldwell
Fantasy can be a design reality
If there’s a wall, a bed, or a headboard on Uniworld’s La Venezia, it’s covered by Fortuny fabrics, and it’s fabulous. Every inch is a tribute to Venetian maximalism; in the lobby I was transported to 1930s Giudecca via a replica of Mariano Fortuny’s Art Deco showroom. I may have lingered a little too long on the black-and-gold upholstered sofa. Fortuny shares space with other hallmarks of Venetian design, including stunning Murano-glass chandeliers, but it was the ornate leopard and jacquard prints that I kept considering for my own home. —Stefanie Waldek
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It feels good to do good
“Nerds unite!” I wanted to scream. I would have meant no disrespect; I fully count myself as a member of that group, as proved by the fact that I was gamely standing on the top deck of the expedition ship Viking Polaris in frigid temperatures to watch the launch of a giant weather balloon. The ship and her sister, Octantis, are the only passenger ships designed to help the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict the world’s weather. Which means their passengers are among a tiny percentage of the world who gets to watch the biodegradable balloon head for the stratosphere—and then see the real-time data it sends back to Earth through the attached transmitter. That moment still makes my spine tingle. In the sophisticated 380-square-foot science lab, scientists walked a few of us through the experiments taking place on board and off. Viking’s scientific enrichment program enables a team of working scientists and experts, including ornithologists and glaciologists, to conduct research with guests. Passengers ride in submarines to look for deep-water ocean life or dutifully note the birds they spot while sitting out on the Finse Terrace. For this secretly science-mad citizen, filtering water samples for microplastics in a lab coat was a winning combo of feeling good and doing good. Nothing nerdy about that. —Heather Greenwood Davis
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Photos that capture more than meets the eye
Last fall, I tried to use an iPhone to capture a grizzly bear and an elk facing off on a beach—a moment now forever memorialized as two dark blurry blobs in my camera roll. So, when I booked a Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic cruise of California’s Channel Islands, one of my very first stops on board was the ship’s professional “photo locker.”
Inside, there was thousands of dollars of high-end camera gear that anyone on the cruise could borrow. The onboard photo instructor, Brooke Juhala, expertly instructed passengers on how to use the equipment, as well as hidden hacks for iPhone photography. Perhaps overconfident in my skills, I reached for an OM-1 camera body and a 40-150mm lens: a big boy that would allow me to perfectly capture the endemic Santa Cruz scrub jays and adorable red-eared island foxes.
As we explored the quiet side of Catalina Island, Juhala pointed out when the light shifted to our advantage. A ray of sunlight hit a nearby bison, illuminating it against the backdrop of the surrounding hills darkened in the shade. Click. The camera perfectly captured the moment, turning what would have looked like a fuzzy rock from that distance into an image even clearer than real-life. —Naomi Tomky
This article appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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