Cruise passengers are like members of a cult, claims Gary Shteyngart.
American author was on the maiden cruise of the world's largest cruise ship Icon of the Seas. Gary Shteyngart hated his experience and wrote that he cried himself to sleep every night on the ship.
Shteyngart hated the gigantic ship built in Turku at first sight.
“My first glimpse produced a feeling of vertigo, nausea, astonishment and anxiety,” Shteyngart writes.
According to him, a gigantic ship “doesn't make any sense”.
“It looks like a jumble of domes and minarets, pipes and roofs, like Istanbul designed by idiots.”
The Atlantic magazine commissioned the 51-year-old Shteyngart to write a travel report, or rather a travel essay, about the maiden voyage of Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship. The seven-day cruise left Miami on January 27.
Shteyngart's reportage was published last week on The Atlantic's website, and the article can also be read in the magazine's May issue.
Shteyngart is known for his satirical books, the most famous of which is Absurdistan, published in 2006. The Like publishing house published a Finnish translation of the book in 2007. In recent years, the man has worked in TV series production teams. He has written HBO's new series The Regime and served as a literary consultant in the second season of the series Succession.
Shteyngart's first disappointment was the view from his cabin window. The magazine reserved a cabin for the man at the last minute, so Shteyngart was exceptionally able to travel in a suite, the price of which was $19,000 on his maiden cruise. Despite the price, the view from the suite's window did not open to the sea, but to the interior of the ship.
“Traveling on a ship and not waking up to a huge blue ocean carpet. Incomprehensibly.”
The ship only 5,000 passengers were taken on the maiden cruise, although the ship can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers. In addition to the ship's operations, Shteyngart also describes the passengers and deals more broadly with cruise travel.
The bohemian writer living in New York was on the ship like a fish on dry land.
Most of the passengers on the maiden cruise are cruise veterans. The ship has more than 200 pinnacle club members, i.e. the highest level regular customers, who have cruised on the shipping company's ships for more than 700 days.
Some of them reached the top level during the pandemic. At that time, the shipping company offered double loyalty points if you ventured onto the ship.
Shteyngart names loyal customers as a cult, in which there is competition for status, as in the American way. The more you cruise, the higher your status is, and you get access to restaurants that ordinary travelers don't have access to.
“The most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean's tales is a certain Super Mario who has cruised so often that he now has his own desk on many ships”.
Shipping company sells new cruise experiences already during the cruise. The company's newsletter states that traveling is not vacation, but earned bragging rights.
The stupidest bragging rights of all is in the ship's jewelry store. There they sell a $100,000 golden goblet that entitles its owner to free drinks on Royal Caribbean cruises for the rest of their lives.”
Shteyngart admits that there is one customer base for whom a cruise makes sense as a vacation. A middle-class family can go on a cruise for $1,800 per person. On the ship, children can be left to play in the Surfside area while the staff watch over them, while parents can get drunk at the pool bar.
“This ship, this abundance – free nachos, milkshakes or gyros at every turn – was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. I wish I had just stayed a child.”
After the maiden cruise, the shipping company raised the prices of the cruises due to their high demand. Now the cheapest cruise costs $2,700.
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