| Rick Press The first time I boarded a cruise ship, it was the late `70s - the "Love Boat" era. Disco was king, Julie McCoy was queen and my college roommates and I were wild and crazy guys out to impress The Ladies. Every woman on the S.S. Dolphin bound for the Bahamas looked like Cheryl Tiegs. Every guy was a Gopher.
Since then, I've always thought of cruising as the ultimate Coors Light commercial - a fantasy that should not be fooled with.
So when my wife suggested earlier this year that we join our family - 11 strong - for a seven-day cruise to the Caribbean, I was skeptical: "Honey, I can't see your mom and me competing in the belly-flop contest."
My idea of cruising, much like my taste in music, was stuck in the `70s.
In the last five years, cruise lines have all but shoved their swinging-singles image overboard, transforming their ships into Shangri-Las for floating family vacations. More than 1 million kids traveled on cruise ships in 2002, almost double the number that cruised in 1998, according to Cruise Lines International. The ships have become sprawling planned communities, with country-club amenities for all ages: rock-climbing walls, elaborate playrooms and teen discos for kids; nightclubs, spas and golf ranges for Mom and Dad; bingo and endless buffets for Grandma and Grandpa.
More important, cruise lines have figured out what the Pilgrims and Oprah could not: how to bring families together without tension, tears or bloodshed. I've never had a less stressful vacation.
And I did get to spend time with The Ladies: my nieces Maleah, 7, and Brooke, 5. We went ice skating. On a boat. On the ocean.
It was better than anything I did back in the "Love Boat" days.
I should've known. For something to be this seamless, this well-orchestrated, this beloved by people of all ages, Disney had to be involved.
Mega-Mickey started the whole trend.
In 1998, the amusement-park giant christened its first ship, Disney Magic, and the cruise industry quickly fell into formation, says Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor of the online travel magazine "cruisecritic.com."
Since then, many cruise lines have improved on Disney's concept, Brown says. All the newest ships are equipped with state-of-the-art kids centers and plenty of perks for families. Princess' Caribbean Princess offers drive-in-style movies under the stars; Camp Carnival has a full-scale Fun House. For adults, there are private pools and supper clubs.
"Today's ships are being created for families," says Brown, "but they want adults to have a good time, too."
We set sail on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and headed for the islands of Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. The ship was the size of a small city - Hurst, but with better food.
With more than 3,000 people onboard, I was worried that it would be like a trip to the mall the day after Thanksgiving. But with 15 decks, umpteen restaurants, five pools, a casino, shops, two theaters and several dance clubs, it never seemed too crowded in any one place.
It took us the first full day to explore the ship and discover a fraction of the fun stuff: miniature golf, basketball, inline skating, ice skating and a rock-climbing wall for the active set; bingo, bars, gambling, shopping and sunbathing for the rest of us.
The first night at sea was Super Bowl Sunday, a tiny fact I tried to forget as our family gathered for formal dinner at 6:30 p.m. We ranged in age from 5 to seventysomething and had traveled to San Juan from Virginia, North Carolina and Texas.
We seemed like a large group sitting around the table, but throughout the cruise we gravitated into smaller, sometimes unlikely subsets. It was during those times that our family gathering felt most intimate and meaningful.
Jim was the only person I didn't know before the cruise. (He married into the brood, like I did.) But he quickly became my best bud when he suggested that we sneak away to watch the Super Bowl. I'd promised my wife, Liz, I wouldn't mention the game, but next thing I knew, Jim, my mother-in-law, Jeanette, and I were perched on stools at the Gravity Bar, a sports bar tucked among the swanky shops along the ship's Royal Promenade deck.
Jim, a fiftysomething ex-football star with a personality and heart the size of Texas, quickly made friends with everyone in our orbit. He bought drinks and made a few friendly wagers on the game. And he kept ordering expensive single-malt Scotch for my mother-in-law, who happily obliged.
As the ship left dock around 10 p.m., the three of us had bonded while watching the Patriots' dramatic win. It was one of the more memorable Super Bowls in my lifetime.
I've never quite understood the cruel irony of The Family Gathering. People who love each other, and rarely see each other, foul it up by injecting so much unnecessary anxiety. When we docked in Aruba and piled off the boat for our first all-in-the-family excursion, I feared that the tension of trying to please 11 people at once would rear its ugly head.
Thankfully, Jim's wife, Dee, a veteran cruiser, came to our rescue. She and Jim charted our course for the day, hiring a small bus to show us the island and then take us to one of Aruba's beautiful beaches for snorkeling and sunbathing. We stopped to load up on "cerveza," then made a brief stop at the driver's grandfather's house to pick up a cooler. It was a charming detour that showed us a side of island culture we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
For a few extra bucks, we could have taken one of Royal Caribbean's orchestrated excursions (ranging from $40 for island tours to $130 for golf getaways). Equipment and transportation are included, so it's a no-muss, no-fuss option. But throughout the cruise, we preferred to explore unfettered (and save our money for the casino).
Liz, her mother and I enjoyed a great day in Curacao, where we were surprised to find the oldest synagogue in constant use in the Western Hemisphere. Built in 1732, temple Mikv Israel Emanuel and its museum were a cultural highlight of the trip. Another day, Liz and I took a ferry from St. Thomas to the island of St. John and went snorkeling at Cinnamon Bay.
With so much free stuff to do on the ship, we didn't feel compelled to go ashore every day. Liz's brother David and I played several windswept games of miniature golf. My niece Maleah and I played pingpong well past her bedtime. When I couldn't sleep, I wandered down to the casino to find Dee and Jim playing blackjack. Up on deck, I'd find Dee's sister, Pat, sitting and soaking in the sea air.
When I needed a few minutes to myself, the adults-only pool or the gym did the trick.
Even the kids had their own space. After dinner, Brooke would ask to go to "school," a k a the Adventure Ocean children's program. She played while her parents hit the casino, knowing she was only a pager beep away.
The formal dinners became our together time - which made sense, because food is the common denominator of any successful family gathering.
Cruise ships are nothing if not 24-hour floating smorgasbords. Adventure of the Seas has round-the-clock room service, midnight buffets, self-serve ice cream machines, even a Johnny Rockets diner that offers takeout. The food wasn't outstanding, but it was plentiful. And look at it this way: It's almost impossible to get into an argument with your wife or your mother-in-law if your mouths are always full.
The eating orgy became a running joke - and a competition. When David and his wife, Monya, discovered giant chocolate chip cookies on Deck 5, I raced down there and grabbed a couple even though I could feel the seams on my pants splitting.
By the third day of breakfast and lunch buffets, five-course dinners and midnight snacks, I had given up any ambition of climbing the rock wall. But I couldn't pass up the chance to go ice skating. As I strapped on the skates, I fully expected to be paying a visit to Doc Bricker's office afterward.
But my two nieces helped me find my form, and I even skated backward a few feet. Brooke held my hand as we shuffled around the rink, and we waved to her parents, aunts and grandmothers. It was an honest-to-goodness family moment.
Later that night, we watched the professional ice show. I think there was even a former Olympic skater in the cast. But I'll take skating with my nieces any day.
As the final few hours of the cruise were winding down, we all sat in one of the ship's theaters, waiting to retrieve our luggage. The cruise directors took turns trying to pump life into the crowd, but after seven days and countless buffets, we were all ready to go home - if only to stop eating like prisoners just off a hunger strike.
But we had made it. An entire week with family and not one tense moment.
All the credit doesn't go to the cruise industry. My brother-in-law David may be the easiest-going guy in the hemisphere. And Jim, Dee and the rest of the family are fun-loving Southerners who know how to have a good time.
Still, there's something to be said for the convenience of cruising and the natural way it brings families closer together.
Liz and I got to spend precious time with our nieces, swimming, skating or just giggling with them in their cabins at night. We also got to enjoy several days wandering the islands with her mother or snorkeling with David and Monya.
A few months after the cruise, we learned that Jim had been diagnosed with cancer. He's fighting hard, and I'm betting he'll beat it. But the sobering news made me cherish our high seas Super Bowl party all the more.
We talked about making it an annual thing. This time, I'll buy the Scotch.
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Rick Press: rpress@star-telegram.com.
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(c) 2005, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
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