The crowd is yelling.
”Go, go, go, go,” they`re shouting. ”Go, go, GOOOOO!”
And the couple that is the object of all this attention is definitely going. Head tilted back, Robby Skeens is pouring beer from a three-foot-long glass down his throat as his partner, Kathy Evans, urges him on. It doesn`t even look like he`s swallowing, the beer is just gushing down. He finally comes up for air and passes the huge glass to Kathy.
”Go, go, go,” the crowd shouts as she takes her turn. Beer dribbles down her chin as she follows his technique-just pour it in and don`t waste much time swallowing.
The glass, which started out with 42 ounces of beer, or the equivalent of 3 1/2 cans, is empty. ”Thirty-nine seconds,” yells the timekeeper. ”Robby and Kathy, they`re our winners! Let`s hear for them!”
Yeaaahhhhhhh.
Beer and suntan oil
This is Beer-Drinking Contest time, this is Fun Ship time. The beer is flowing on the Lido Deck of the Mardi Gras, one of eight ships in the Carnival Line. Chicago and much of the country may be shivering in the annual early-January deep freeze, but here, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean between Nassau and Ft. Lauderdale, the sun is hot, the sky is blue, the air is pungent with the smell of beer and suntan oil. Life is good.
Robby lights up a cigarette, holding a fresh can of beer in his hand.
”Drinking beer is just like sex,” he says. ”You want a cigarette afterwards.”
The Carnival Cruise Line has been in operation since 1974, and its vigorous advertising program as the line of Fun Ships has resulted in a definite image.
The Fun Image is beer contests, knobby-knees contests, men-dressed-up-in lingerie contests. The Fun Image is swarms of young people, playing and drinking in the sun. It`s romance at sea, sumptuous dining and a rum swizzle never more than a step away. The Fun Image conjures up a montage that is remarkably like the image projected by Club Med in the 1970s-a floating Club Med, a cruise away from inhibitions and into a world of zaniness and
(hopefully) meeting Someone Special.
Romance not guaranteed
”Uh, well, we don`t guarantee romance,” says Carnival spokesperson Tim Gallagher. ”We are definitely activity-oriented, but we don`t necessarily cater to the singles market. We have 11,000 passengers a week, and a lot of people would be surprised to know that 30 percent are over 55 (years old).”
The Mardi Gras is packed on this particular four-day cruise to the Bahamas. It has 467 cabins and its capacity, at two-to-a-cabin, is 906 (eight cabins are singles). But there are about 1,200 passengers packed on board. That means a lot of cabins have the upper berths pulled down and are sleeping four instead of two.
”Honey, we`ve got five in our cabin,” says Nancy Andresen from Minnesota. ”We can`t roll over at night without asking everyone else`s permission.”
She`s stretched out on deck, skin glistening with oil, with her four friends. It`s her, Donna, Linda, Teri and Carol, in their late 30s, and they are definitely on board to have fun. They are having fun getting away briefly from the men they`re married to.
”We are women of the `80s,” says Carol. ”We`ve got 11 children between us and our husbands like to fish and hunt. Now, does that sound like fun? No. This is fun. Look at our feet.”
They turn up the soles of their feet. Swollen, they say, from all their dancing the night before. ”It`s 30 below in Minnesota, and we`re here, dancing out on the deck until 4:30 in the morning,” says Teri.
A younger crowd
Here are some Fun Ship statistics: Average age on a Carnival cruise is 45. That`s about 10 years younger than on other lines, according to Gallagher. About 30 percent are under 35, another 30 percent over 55 and 40 percent between 45 and 55.
About 10 to 15 percent of those cruising Carnival are single. There are slightly more females than males, but that has been slowly shifting in the last few years, as men find out that this is a vacation where they`ll be in demand.
Cruising as a vacation is an industry that`s still in its infancy. Ships used to be a means of transportation, period. ”It wasn`t until the `70s that the cruise industry as we know it today began,” Gallagher says.
Now instead of a means of getting somewhere, ”the ship is the primary destination,” Gallagher says. ”And the ports of call are like Green Stamps- the extras.”
A beach outing
The ship cruises at night and is in port during the day. Freeport is first on this cruise, and Eric and Kim Eucher from Iowa, plus several others, opt to go to the beach instead of the market. They can shop anywhere, they say, but it`s the sand and sun and water they want on this cruise.
Their faces are turned to the sun. They`re drinking BahamaMamas, occasionally going into the water when the sun gets too hot, and talking lazily. In their late 20s, they`ve been married four years and figure it`s about time to start a family. But first, they decided to take a special vacation, just the two of them. This cruise is it, the special vacation.
”Let`s play some poker,” Kim says, digging into her beach bag for some quarters. Someone else produces a deck of cards. They sit in the sand, playing blind baseball and seven-card stud and sipping their rum drinks. This is happiness, someone says (after winning a pot).
For another couple from the Midwest, it isn`t such a happy story.
It`s a make-or-break-the-marriage cruise, they tell people. In their early 40s, married 20-plus years, it`s the first trip they`ve ever taken alone, without their two children. Their children bring them nothing but grief, they say. They both talk nonstop to other passengers, about their children, their problems, their marriage; others edge away from them.
For a third couple, the cruise is a 50th-anniversary celebration. At dinner one night, Henry and Lea Herman from Pennsylvania produce a long poem they`ve written. Here are a few lines:
”We`ve lived together 50 years (married)
had lots of fun and also tears
So here we are, as you can see, to celebrate our anniversary . . .
We`ve used the sundeck and casino
and we`ve played a little keno.
We`ve gained some weight and lost some moola
and gone to the disco and danced the hula.
We thank the captain and his crew
for all the things for us they do.
Everyone at the table applauds.
Almost everyone is with someone-if not a spouse, with friends. There are also many family combinations: mothers and daughters, sisters, brothers and sisters. Kathy Evans of beer-drinking fame is on board with her mother and her adult daughter. The number of those who travel totally alone is ”such a small percentage that we don`t figure it,” spokesman Gallagher says.
Bill Dellinger, 31, wearing cutoffs and a blue T-shirt that testifies to his snorkeling jaunt in Nassau, slides across the floor in an attempt to return a ping-pong ball that has a wicked spin to it. He misses.
It`s the ping-pong tournament, being held in the ship`s exercise room
(three ping-pong tables and some weight machines) and he`s a semifinalist
(about to lose). Slightly balding with glasses, from New Jersey, he is one of that small minority who is cruising by himself. It`s fun, but not the greatest, he says.
”There aren`t too many other single people who aren`t with anyone,” he says. ”I`ve met a few people, like at dinner and stuff. I`d go on a cruise again, but I`d bring someone with me.”
The dinner hour
Dinners are always a prime time to meet new people. But the first-night dinner on this cruise, when confusion and excitement are still rampant, has become an instant source of unhappiness for many.
The ship is supposed to sail at 5:30, and is pretty prompt. It`s about 5:45 when it starts to slide out of its Ft. Lauderdale pier. A few minutes later, the bells ring, announcing the first dinner seating.
A lot of the people at this first seating are not happy campers-cruisers, that is. They had requested late seating, which is 8 p.m., and eating at 6 p.m. is not to their liking. Maitre`d Mohammed (from Morocco) has his hands full, dealing with complaints.
The eight people sitting around one table had all asked for late seating. Two of them had requested a nonsmoking table, and four of the eight are smoking. All those folks who somehow were blessed with late seating are still out on the deck, watching Florida slip into the distance and the sun fall below the horizon. The unifying factor at this one table-in spite of age differences and smoking differences-is their unhappiness.
”And the language, I can`t understand what the crew (members) say and they don`t understand me,” says Dan Drake from Charleston, Ill., who is there with his wife, Tona. ”I asked one (crew member) about the bridge playing. I like to play bridge and I was told there was a lot of bridge on this ship, and he pointed to a bridge and kept telling me, there was the bridge.”
”Everyone wanted late seating,” Mohammed explains to the large dining room. ”Please understand.” Late seating, for the most part, went to those making their reservations far in advance.
The nightlife
The three major nightime passions are the disco, the casino and bingo. Bingo starts at 9 p.m., and is packed. The disco opens at 9 p.m. also, and really gets hot and wild after the midnight buffet.
Dave Rubin, in his final year at the University of Illinois at Champaign- Urbana, is playing blackjack, $2 bets. The dealer is a tall, young Jamaican woman with a dazzling smile. The dealers on this ship are tough, no-nonsense dealers; no kibitzing allowed, and players are often sharply reprimanded, almost rapped on the knuckles, for not making proper hand motions.
But there`s a chemistry going on here between this Jamaican dazzler and Dave, and they meet at 3 a.m. (after the casino closes) for a drink. ”We talked a lot, she is a great person,” he says later. ”What a smile! Her whole face lights up, and that`s her personality, too. I`m going to write her.”
While Dave Rubin is playing blackjack and looking forward to his after-blackjack drink, Marie McMahan, a widow in her late 40s, is showing the younger kids a thing or two about dancing.
It`s well after midnight, and the disco is in full swing on the deck. McMahan is wearing a black filmy dress with a low neck, a full skirt and black underwear that shows occasionally as she swirls, and she`s burning off calories by the second with the fast rock music. Onlookers are applauding her ability, and some even toss coins. ”I can outdance any kid here, I`ve always thought I`d like to be an exotic dancer,” she says.
She`s from Maine, and is on this cruise with two friends. One friend is also a widow and the other is divorced; their ages are from 48 to 53, but they`re not telling who is what.
”We wanted to have fun, and we are,” she says. ”Everyone is friendly, but it`s up to you to make the move. If we just sat back, a lot (of people)
might say, oh, those old ladies. And in our age group, the men are looking for younger women, so it`s definitely up to us to get out there and make our fun. ”If any of us were to meet someone, a romance sort of thing, well, that would be nice. But it`s not what we came for.”
Is there romance?
Rick and Regina Hill of Kansas City are sitting at the bar. They`re brother and sister from Kansas City, in their 20s, and-well, maybe romance is too strong a word, they say, but adventure? You bet.
”I met someone up on the deck and took her back to the room with me,”
Rick says. ”And I was there, and I had to go stay in the shower,” Regina says.
Honestly?
They vow it`s true. ”I was in that shower until 3 a.m.” she says. ”All curled up in a fetal position.”
”We gave her a pillow,” Rick says. ”She had a pillow in there.”
It`s a story they`ll probably both always remember, but it probably doesn`t classify as ”romance” as in true love.
But, yes, there can be true romance that comes aboard ship, and that testimony comes first-hand from the unlikely source of 11-year veteran cruise director Kenneth Day.
Last year, at the captain`s party during a three-day cruise, he asked a 9-year-old girl to dance. She was too shy, he says, ”and then this other lady said, `I`ll dance with you.` So we danced the polka.”
A little while later, he asked her to dance again. Then he asked if she was going ashore to the Nassau casino later that night. She said no, so he asked if she would like have a drink at 10.
”I was sitting right over there,” he says, pointing to a nearby table in the Carousel lounge. ”And when she walked in, it was like BOOM. I couldn`t believe it. I started saying to the crew, `I`m in love,` and they kept saying, `Oh, come on, all the women we meet? You think you`re in love?` But I was. BOOM, just like that.”
She handed him an envelope the next morning. It was marked
”confidential,” and inside was her phone number. His phone bill over the next 10 weeks added up to $1,200. They wrote and sent each other videos. They were married about six months later.
He points at the lounge table again. ”Right at that table. BOOM.”
The assessment
Would they do it again?
That`s the question that goes around the dinner table the last night. There`s agreement on several points: Most of the daytime excursions on shore had been great. The disco was the place to meet people. If you didn`t like disco, you might have a problem. Bingo was the other major activity, but that`s not a meeting-people sort of thing. The price was definitely right
(ranging from about $550 to $1,000, including airfare, for a four-day cruise).
And the weather-well, the weather had been perfect. Who can argue with the low 80s, blue skies and smooth seas?
The consensus: A four-day cruise is a great way to find out what cruising is all about. It`s not a vacation any of them would care to take alone, although it could be done. And they would have all preferred to have dinner at 8 p.m. instead of 6.
