The Young and The Restless | Fed ’til the pants you packed no longer fit

While a cruise ship at sea might be even further isolated than ‘the sticks’, it’s actually a thriving metropolis.

How many towns with a population of 3000 do you know of that have a casino?

Sure, many small towns still have a local pub, but 10 bars and nightclubs to service 3000 people?

A public pool? Yes, of course. But four of them for that many humans?

A gaming arcade, boutique specialty shops, duty-free retailers, theatres, a photography studio, a day spa, an adventure park, an ice-cream shop — the list goes on.

Then there’s the food. Many restaurants with more variety than I can recall offering something to suit everyone on board’s cravings, whether it’s Italian cuisine, Chinese, Mexican, fish and chips, burgers, hot dogs — you name it.

How about a dessert bar that was open for more hours in a day than it was closed?

One you can return to as many times as you like; no-one is keeping you (or your waistline) in check.

Those are just some of the facilities available on board a cruise ship, specifically the one we went on a couple of weeks ago: P&O’s Pacific Adventure.

In 10 days, I didn’t witness a single staff member display even the slightest hint of irritation at any of the varying levels of rudeness I saw and heard passengers direct at them.

There were more than 1000 staff, and after interacting with possibly half of them, I could not fault one.

These people work on ships for 10 consecutive months out of every 12.

Some might not have seen their families or been home for nine months and 20 days when we boarded, which, if it were me, would surely affect my mood.

Yet all of them were so friendly, kind and accommodating. Nothing was any trouble.

While I discovered that cruising was not my thing overall, my boys and I still found plenty of things to love about being on board.

We hit trivia almost daily, whether in a small lounge or a large theatre, testing our knowledge of landmarks and movies, food origins and travel.

We even won ourselves a few shi…p prizes.

On day nine of 10, we could no longer resist the temptation to try our luck at bingo when the jackpot reached a tasty $10,000.

With electronic tablets wired in to the game so we didn’t even have to find or mark the called numbers — we were to simply shout “bingo!” if our screen alerted us we had it — you could be mistaken for thinking this was a boring and mindless exercise, but the entertainment team on the ship made every activity upbeat and fun.

Lighting and sound operators played snippets of music on cue, and, just like every other activity on board, there was plenty of audience participation to make it interesting and amusing.

One day I had my children escort me to a hard-to-find activity room on the ship so I could join a workshop and make myself macramé earrings.

Fellow crafters had brought along delicious-looking creamy cocktails with them. At 10 o’clock in the morning!

No judgment from me, of course, wink wink. It’s always five o’clock somewhere, and it doesn’t matter when you’re on holiday in the middle of the deep blue sea anyway.

However, I was already struggling to find my way around the ship without the help of my kids, so I avoided engaging in those even hazier shenanigans, as tempting as it was.

That night, we saw 12 or so ‘shipmates’ hypnotised on stage as comedic hypnotist Greg Hudson puppeteered them under his trance in what was the funniest display I’d seen in a long time.

Cynical me would usually be inclined to suspect they were paid actors planted in the audience, but they were passengers I’d seen day after day in dining rooms, on islands, at trivia with their families.

A few nights earlier we’d been mystified and amused by magician Adam Dean’s hilarious show of illusions.

We joined in Pictionary, watched movies at the top deck on the huge outdoor cinema screen, swam in pools, soaked in spas, shopped, sat and listened to live music in lobbies, bars and theatres, won rubber ducks in claw machines.

Of course, it makes sense for ships to offer endless entertainment to keep guests’ boredom at bay.

But if they’re drawing people out of their rooms and off their balconies away from those endless uninterrupted ocean views, they’re placing them in venues where they’re compelled to buy a drink or a snack (or a bingo tablet), so the money keeps flowing.

And despite loving getting off the floating village during port days and happily exploring on our own, there became a sort of comfort and relief after making it safely back ‘home’ onto the ship and into surroundings that had grown so familiar (apart from the layout for the directionally challenged ones among us).

Besides the white sands and turquoise water of our beautiful Vanuatuan destinations, perhaps our favourite thing about our cruise holiday was the adventure park.

There were all sorts of activities to do at The Edge, from rock-climbing to slack-lining, a mechanical shark (fittingly chosen over a bull for the ship) to a Titanic experience, a bridge walk to archery, and rope net climbing to ziplining.

We visited daily and grew to look forward to seeing the fun and friendly characters who worked that area: a Mexican named Hector who cracked cartel jokes a little too frequently to believe he hadn’t had some personal experience, and his Scottish boss, Danny, whose name badge suspiciously suggested his surname was actually Bagpipes.

Some things were at extra cost, but for around a hundred bucks a night per person in a balcony room, we had more food and entertainment choices than we could physically indulge in.

Whether you love being on a big old boat in the middle of nowhere or not, there’s no denying the value of a cruise holiday is rarely matched by one on land.

I reckon anyone who is in a position to should try cruising at least once.

You might never holiday another way again.

Or, if you’re like a restless and seasick me, you might never holiday that way again!