Dining with the captain: A cruise ship rite of passage (but not a ‘right’ of passage!)

Formal Night — The right attire for the Captain’s table!

There is a certain fantasy aspect to it: the formal invitation left on your stateroom door; the decision to say ‘yes’ to the invitation (who wouldn’t?); the decision about how to dress for this formal occasion(it’s always a formal occasion); the meet and greet in one of the ship’s lounges before the dinner; the parade down the inevitable great staircase in the middle of the two-tier dining room after everyone else is seated; the white-glove service; the sparkling conversation. Oh, wait a minute – there may or may not be sparkling conversation because (a) the captain might be unable to speak English; (b) the captain might be exceedingly uncomfortable with this required part of his otherwise marine-focused career; (c) your dinner companions might have moronic political views; or (d) all of the above. But then again, it might be a wonderful fantasy come true.

We started thinking back to our several dining experiences with ships’ captains and other assorted officers when we read an article on how to “score” an invitation to the captain’s table earlier this week. (When we find the link again we’ll post it.) We thought it might be fun to share a couple of stories that are imbedded in the travel memories of these discerning travelers.

Our first invitation to dine with the captain was on our 20^th anniversary cruise aboard the Celebrity Century in the Mediterranean. It was our first cruise on a Celebrity ship, but we had booked one of the largest suites on the ship: a Royal Suite (see our earlier blog post about how once you book a suite, you can never go back!). We figured that this must be the reason for the invitation and decided that it would be a great bit of fun. We were right.

We were lucky. The group was congenial, international, well-dressed and well-spoken – and the table manners were impeccable. Since then, we’ve learned that ship’s personnel scour the dining room for just such people – even if you book the biggest suite on the ship, if you and six drunken friends are sharing, you’ll never get that invitation. The piece we read earlier this week was spot on when it suggested that the most fun part of it all might be the fact that so many of the others in the dining room that night are wondering, “How in the world did they get that invitation?”

Art, just before our first experience at the captain’s table on the Century.

The captain that evening drank nothing but water, and left after a couple of bites of dessert. We all then sat and talked over brandy since we were enjoying ourselves so much.This was in contrast to a more recent captain’s table dining experience aboard the Silversea Silver Cloud. The Silver Cloud is a small luxury vessel, and the day had been particularly rough – especially for such a small ship. Neither of us is usually prone to seasickness, especially Art, but even he was a bit green that night. And we were not alone. There was hardly a person at the table that evening (except for the jovial captain) who was not a slight shade of green. We ordered the dining room staples that are on offer every night regardless of the chef’s specialty of the evening: grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and a small salad.As the dinner progressed, we could see everyone else doing exactly what we were doing: we were pushing food around our plates, pretending that we were eating. A sip of wine here, a gulp of water there, a smile at a joke the captain was making, a hiccup suppressed. Would he never leave? (It is considered rude to leave before the captain who usually has the sense to leave early.)

Finally, after a glass of something resembling a digestif and a full dessert (or two, it’s hard to remember through the memory of the nausea), the captain finally dabbed his lips with his napkin and arose. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief. As soon as he was out the door, we all arose almost in unison, bid everyone a pleasant good night and made a bee-line to our suite. We crashed on the bed to recover from the longest dinner of our lives. Well, we suppose it only felt that way!

dining with the captain book — Looking forward to reading this book!

There’s a new book (actually it’s not that new) out by author Sarah Edington called The Captain’s Table: Life and Dining on the Great Ocean Liners – we’ve just ordered it online and will let you know what we think.

Enjoy your invitation when it comes!

Capturing your travel: Evolving travel visuals and tips for shooting video

tuckers beach — We shot this at Tucker’s Beach in Bermuda a few months ago.

Every travel magazine has one: the ubiquitous travel photo contest. And if you’re anything like us, you have either submitted one of your treasured gems, or have at least thought about it. Then, when the winners are announced, you might offer that the photos are terrific – but you have ones that are just as good. The question is: why do we take photos (and video) when we travel? And how can we make them as great as possible?

For us, we are less focused on taking that perfect, contest-winning or publishable shot than we are in capturing some visual memories that we can take out months or years later and remember the feeling of the place. Over the years we’ve changed, too, though.

Our very first travel photos together were on a trip to Venezuela about six months before we were married (of course we both have photos from earlier, but our travel photos verify us as a couple from that hot & humid trip 25 years ago). Those fuzzy photos were taken with good old film, on some kind of simple camera – although it’s hard to remember now – there have been so many over the years. And although we can’t remember the camera, we certainly remember the experience whenever we crack the cover of that old photo album for a trip down memory lane – regardless of how truly awful they are from a technical point of view!

for desktop — Patty always makes sure to take a few photos that will make for great desktop backgrounds on her various computers. We took this one this past winter on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Through the years, one thing that we realize has changed is our intentionality about those photos. We used to just point and shoot. Now we compose and think about what we’ll see when we get home.

That intentionality is never clearer than when we’re shooting vacation video.

We acquired our first video camera eight months after our now 23-year-old son was born (OK, we’re bad parents since we didn’t have one from the moment of birth but we can live with that!). The first few years were spent taking ever decreasing hours of video of the growing child. Capturing video of our travels began with those family vacations – first Disney World, then onto Barbados, Jamaica, then the European bus tour with a ten-year old, to the sophisticated Queen Mary 2 trans-Atlantic last summer with a suave and cultured 22-year old in an Armani tuxedo. As those vacations progressed to ever more discerning approaches to choosing place and experiences, so too did the sophistication of our video logs. In fact, that growing sophistication has been indirectly proportional to the size of the cameras! The one we use now is easily popped into a pocket, and takes videos of a quality that was unheard of when we first started capturing our memories this way.

Art is the videographer in charge of production on most vacations, although Patty as the assistant videographer gets handed the equipment from time to time. Art’s ability to capture scenes has improved so much that there is little editing needed on the return home these days. Gone are the days of pointing and shooting and shooting and shooting. Brief pieces of video that capture moments are threaded together to tell a story.

St. Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia (our back yard last week).

Our tips for shooting video that people will actually want to view after a trip:

Learn how to use your camera before you leave for your travels. This might seem like one of those obvious suggestions, but you’d be surprised how many people have no idea what their camera can actually do.
Practice using the camera before you leave. Actually push buttons, shoot footage and look at what comes out.
Actually look at what’s in your picture before you start shooting.
Shoot in short pieces. Stop and move to a different view and shoot another short piece. No one wants to see three minutes of the same scene.
Try to shoot scenes in which there is actual movement – otherwise you might just as well take a still photo. Three minutes of a tree is three minutes of a tree (and in video time, three minutes is an eternity!)
Turn off the camera before putting it away. Another seemingly obvious one – but we’ll bet the price of our next vacation that most of us have had what in our family is laughingly referred to as ‘camera-bag incidents.’ You know the ones. That’s when you leave the camera running and put it in the bag or your purse only to find you have 15 minutes of video from the inside of the bag. (Of course, the obvious possibilities for juicy commentary inadvertently caught are tempting.) We came home from our first visit to Venice with a terrific video of the floor of a gondola. All you could see was feet – but you could hear the gondolier belting out a Verdi aria.

One of Art’s finished videos that we like from last summer…

Early travel planning: Phase 2!

We have now moved into phase two of our advance planning for winter travels to come. As this past long, hot, summer weekend drew to a close, we checked our email and found that our travel agent, Angela, has been hard at work (as usual) trying to find us the perfect hotel accommodation to book-end our February 2013 cruise. But, it needs to be said that discerning travelers will want to be flexible in their planning.

art on mariner — Art on board the Regent Seven Seas Mariner in Montenegro. It was a great trip, but not a ship we want to revisit this winter in the Caribbean.

When last we visited this topic, we had pre-booked a cruise from Rio to Buenos Aires. Well…that’s now a memory. When we began to drill down into the cost, and whether or not it was really going to fulfill our desires for a South American holiday, sadly, we had to conclude that it didn’t. We had wanted to cruise on Crystal since we have yet to try it on our trip through the luxury cruise lines, but we weren’t able to come up with a single suite on the cruises we want even this far in advance. Angela went right to the source, but to no avail. That’s proof positive for us that advance planning is essential. So we booked on the same itinerary on another line. This time we were able to book the suite we wanted on Regent Seven Seas cruises. Which we’ve already been on. Twice. And it was on the Mariner. Which we’ve been on. And it was OK, but not an experience we need to repeat yet. So many cruise ships, so little time! So we moved on to plan B.

Plan A for cruise planning always starts with an itinerary we want, at a time when we can get away. Plan B starts not with the itinerary, but with a cruise line. Our second choice was Seabourn. The February time frame when we need to take a dip south is a bit challenging if you’re trying to avoid the Caribbean as we originally were. However, what we were really trying to avoid was repeating a series of islands that we’d already visited – either for a day on a cruise ship, or for a longer stay. What we found was the Yachtsmen’s cruise in the Caribbean that takes in small ports that the larger ships can’t reach. After all, the ship we’re now booked on, the Seabourn Spirit, has a grand total of 204 passengers. A yacht, indeed! So, that and the airline booking was phase 1 – phase 2 is a bit more challenging at this time of year since it involves finding the perfect hotels in Barbados

crane pool — We were considereing staying at The Crane in Barbados again – but at this time of year, the prices they’re offering for February are out of this world and not worth a return.

and St. Martin where the cruise begins and ends. That might sound easy, but when you’re trying to be discerning and the hotels haven’t really formalized their winter season yet, you can easily fall into the trap of paying too much for those 5 and 6-star properties. So, we’re going to wait.

From time to time people will ask us why we don’t just wait until the cruise lines start pushing the winter cruises that they start to discount later in the year. “You’ll get more bang for your buck,” they tell us. But they’re wrong – unless you think that something is of value just because it’s cheap. We don’t happen to take that view.

There’s an analogy to shopping for clothes. If you always wait until everything is on sale, you’ll never really get what you want – and you’ll always be ‘settling’ for what’s left. If you don’t like something enough to have bought it at full price, most times, you shouldn’t buy it on sale either. Buy something just because it’s on sale hardly demonstrates discernment – but if it’s n sale and you love it, then that’s great! Sadly, that happens only once in a while. So, for the big-ticket vacation planning, get out there early and start turning your dreams into reality!

Tips for early planning:

Start by figuring out where you want to go.
Then decide how you want to get there.
Determine your budget – and shop within it rather than lower.
Keep an open mind.
Don’t book something just becasue it’s on sale!
Set a deadline for when you want all of the final bookings complete.
Be prepared to put Plan B into motion if necessary!

Is your casual ‘smart’? Cruise ship attire…take 2

There isn’t a cruise travel web site or discussion board that isn’t full of questions from first-time cruisers (and even more seasoned cruisers trying out a new cruise line) that doesn’t have a slew of questions about the appropriate things to wear on board. And we say, “Bravo!” to everyone who cares –because we’re here to tell you that not everyone does! Our April cruise taught us that lesson. Yikes!

The last time we took on the subject of the dizzying array of sartorial monikers in our discussion of dressing for dinner on board cruise ships, we reviewed some of the definitions of the various levels of dress expected (permitted?).

smart casual in MC — Art shows off his casual attire for going ashore in Monte Carlo – an onboard ‘smart casual’ evening look!

It’s fairly easy to figure out what to wear during the day because you really need to dress for your location and the weather. If you’re in the Caribbean you’ll be more casual than if you’re visiting Rome, for example, on a Mediterranean cruise. And you’re unlikely to wear a bathing suit on deck if your cruise is leaving from Reykjavik. The most confusion is within the evening “casual” dress codes because day-time casual won’t cut it. So, we thought we’d provide a bit of sartorial guidance – based on our ever-present agenda of generally improving the dress and behavior of tourists everywhere (Do we need to say it one more time? White sneakers are for the gym. Do you know what an embarrassment you are for your countrymen? You know who you are.)

What the heck is ‘smart casual’?

Could the cruise lines have chosen a more oxymoronic way to describe what kind of ambience they’re trying to create in the evenings? There is usually nothing whatsoever ‘smart’ about casual. What’s important to understand here is the objective: when a cruise line says smart casual for evening, they’re trying to have a laid-back vibe that doesn’t encompass what you’d wear on Saturday afternoon at home on the couch quaffing a beer and watching the game. There should be more emphasis on the ‘smart’ part than the ‘casual’ part. Step it up a bit, people.

Although the cruise lines try to define what they mean, we think people need pictures and a list of what not to wear (with apologies to Stacey and Clinton from the TLC television show of the same name). Here are the things you should not wear on smart casual night:

smart casual not 2 — There is nothing smart about this casual!

Flip-flops. How many times does it need to be said? Flip-flops are not real footwear.
Ripped jeans. On the cruise lines we prefer, jeans are not permitted in the dining room in the evening ever, even without rips. Just leave them for the day time please.
T-shirts without collars. These are for the daytime. The very least you can do is pack a golf shirt with a collar.
Shorts, unless you’re a model and the shorts are Bermuda length.
Bare stomachs. We just put that one in because we think bare stomachs should be relegated to the beach and the pool – and even then only if you actually look good in that kind of beach wear.
Pedal pushers. This is the odd length of female trouser that flatters no one. If you wear a slightly high heel, you can get away with a cropped, narrow pant. That can look modern, but if you’re in doubt, wear either a casual skirt or a pair of full-length pants.

Then what’s ‘elegant’ casual?

Some of the luxury cruise lines have a dress category that they like to call elegant casual. We like the sound of that, and although they do have a definition, most people on board the six-star lines have no need of explanation. This is what they’d wear out to a casual dinner at home. It’s a step up from the smart casual look, and just makes the ambience of the evening that much nicer without having to get dressed up as in the more formal evenings.

Our pictorial guide…