Porthole Magazine
September 1, 2005
He Said/She Said, Exotic Cruises

ex·ot·ic (egg-zot-ik), adj. 1. From another part of the world; foreign. 2. Intriguingly unusual or different; excitingly strange. 3. Of or involving striptease: an exotic dancer.

Heidi: You know, that word exotic is thrown around more than a jockstrap in a locker room. I mean, St. Thomas and Nassau are about as intriguing as a pair of socks. Then there's "deluxe" and "five-star." I've bunked in cabins and sampled many a cruise meal that were neither. Does anything actually mean anything any more?

Matt: Well, now you’re getting into semiotics -- signs, meanings, linguistic theory. The relationship between the word itself (the signifier) and the mental construction associated with that word (the signified) equals the sign, or the meaning -- but of course that meaning can vary within certain boundaries. What one person thinks of as “exotic” isn’t necessarily what another thinks of as exotic, but it’s some kind of exotic.

Heidi: You sure know how to beat around the bush with them big words. But yeah, exotic is in the eye of the beholder. Like, for some people who sample the Asian restaurants on NCL's ships, chopsticks and sake are like eating with pencils and sipping warmed-up Windex. (For the record, I absolutely loveeeeee sake!)

Matt: But what’s the meaning of “love” exactly? Do you really “love” sake? And do we really “love” writing about cruise ships? Which do you prefer, drinking sake or writing about cruise ships?

Heidi: Must you always put me on the spot like that?

Matt: We could make a movie: Heidi’s Choice. A freelance writer must choose between her love of sake and her love of cruise ships. I can see it now. Widescreen. Worldwide locations. We could get Lisa Kudrow to play you.

Heidi: So you're saying I'm a ditzy guitar-playing tone-deaf actress on a dopey sitcom that's not even on the air anymore? Well, I've been called worse.

Matt: Like what?

Heidi: Someone said I reminded them of Captain Stubing's daughter, what’s-her-name, Vicki.

Matt: Oy vey, does it always have to come back to The Love Boat?

Heidi: Well, that's what cruises are to a lot of people, opportunities for romance. What more exotic setting is there?

Matt: I dunno. The red-light district in Amsterdam?

Heidi: Oh god, you're such a guy. OK, so the disco on Carnival’s Sensation might not be exotic (or is it?), but sailing toward, say, Santorini, elbow-to-elbow on the rails, wind your hair, now that's exotic. Have you been to the Greek Isles? Nothing like it. Those little white-washed villages clinging to crumbly cliffs that are probably a zillion years old.

Matt: Been there. Pretty great. So that’s what spells “exotic” to you? Name a few others.

Heidi: The Galapagos, the Amazon, Thailand -- I mean, what corner of the world doesn't a ship visit these days? What’re some of yours?

Matt: Hmm. Galapagos, definitely. Morocco for sure. Siberia --

Heidi: Right, you were just in Siberia. Isn't that where they send people when they misbehave?

Matt: Used to be. Now they send them to New Jersey.

Heidi: Hey, Jersey's not so bad, I went to college there.

Matt: So did I, and look where it’s gotten us. We write about cruise ships for a living.

Heidi: There’re worse things.

Matt: True. I once knew a fella who worked in a ball bearing factory.

Heidi: Well, where would the world be without ball bearings? But y’know, talking about school reminds me of a cruise I'd love to do along the coast of North Africa.

Matt: What!?!?! Where’s the segue there?

Heidi: Wait already, you never let me finish. It's with an outfit called Travel Dynamics and it's like school, sort of. A professor who's done archaeological excavations all over Libya sails aboard an intimate little ship and tells you all sort of cool stuff about the country.

Matt: OK, that counts. That’s exotic. Very French Foreign Legion. Very Bob Hope / Bing Crosby. Hey, let’s write our own “Road to” movie. If you were designing your own custom world cruise, where would it go?

Heidi: You and your obsession with movies.

Matt: Better than being obsessed with cruise ship captains.

Heidi: Hmmph. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Back to the movies. Mine would star Jackie Chan and start in Singapore. I'd sail along the coasts of Thailand, Vietnam, and China, then swing down through Indonesia and south along the east coast of Australia to New Zealand, circumnavigating the South Island before wrapping it all up Auckland.

Matt: Nice. Does anyone actually offer that itinerary, with or without Jackie Chan?

Heidi: A bunch of lines are in the Far East, but I haven't found any that do all that in one cruise. I'm still looking, ‘cause I'm just itching to get away for a month or two. Drop everything and just go. Though I might get arrested if I leave my kids for that long. . . . Guess I'll have to bring 'em with me.

Matt: A world cruise with two-year-olds. The other passengers would love you.

Heidi: Couldn't they just turn off their hearing aids? Kids are people too, you know.

Matt: So you keep saying. For me, my world cruise would probably be on a freighter. Now that’s exotic: some tramp steamer sailing around the world with only a dozen or so passengers. I could pretend I was Humphrey Bogart -- as long as I didn’t have to answer to the name “Humphrey.”

Heidi: Well, Humph, I don't know if getting woken up by beeping cranes every morning is exotic, but otherwise it could be a cool experience. The ultimate antidote to touristy.

Matt: Sure. Hanging out at sailors’ bars in Africa, sailing through the Suez Canal. Hell, I’d get enough material for my first novel.

Heidi: You have a point there. Slinging back the booze with a bunch of sailors does sound sort of, well, romantic, but some of those working ships go north too, you know. How would scraping ice off your lips in Kirkenes grab you? You'd wish you were on a fun ship in Nassau faster than you could say “Jeg ønsker Jeg var på en moro skip inne Nassau.”

Matt: You’re talking about Norwegian Coastal Voyage, right? I’ve never sailed with them but it sounds great: Heading up the coast, in and out of fjords with the mail and freight, all the way to the Arctic Circle. That’s my kind of cruise. Sorta like Let’s Go Europe, Viking style.

Heidi: I thought you were Irish.

Matt: The Vikings invaded Ireland. That’s where the red hair comes from.

Heidi: Riiiight.