Join the Club: Born to Rum
Join the Club: Born to Rum Get a taste of island life aboard a rum cruise in the Caribbean. By Clark Norton As a young man, Dave Russell’s first encounter with a certain popular alcoholic beverage quickly turned sour. “I got sick on too much cheap rum,” he recalls, which put him off it for [&h
Join the Club: Curtains Up!
Join the Club: Curtains Up! All the sea’s a stage aboard a Playbill cruise. By Clark Norton Dr. Arthur “Bud” McDowell, a self-described lifelong theater buff, was listening to the Broadway music channel on satellite radio when he heard an announcement for an upcoming cruise called Broadway on
Join the Club: Smoke on the Water
Join the Club: Smoke on the Water Aficionados who take their cigars to sea enjoy more than just an open-air view. By Clark Norton Craig Carringer enjoys a good cigar — actually, about two a day during the week and four to five a day on weekends — and keeps about 400 on hand in […]
Join the Club: Blue Sea, Red Sea
Join the Club: Blue Sea, Red Sea Beyond just uniting the similarly minded, political cruises actually make waves in the overall governing landscape. By Clark Norton The tenor of the onboard discussions couldn’t be more different. On some cruises, the right can do no wrong. On others, the
Join the Club: Carefree Birding
Join the Club: Carefree Birding Birders of a feather do sail together By Clark Norton When Lincoln Soule of Denver, Colorado, made a trip to Florida’s Sanibel Island five years ago, he wasn’t scouring the beach for seashells as many visitors do. Soule, a dedicated birder, was focused on a bird t
Join the Club: Paranormal Cruises – Now You Sea It
Join the Club: Now You Sea It… The Ports of Apparitions Cruise is sure to draw ghost-hunters and those fascinated with all things (beings?) paranormal By Clark Norton When Peter Renn was growing up next to Addington Palace just south of London — reputedly haunted by a late-19th-century Archbisho
Join the Club: Ocean Blues
Ocean Blues Set sail with a ship full of great musicians and listen to what happens. By Clark Norton Seattle-area musician Ron Hendee had been playing trumpet since age 10, performing with a number of bands — jazz, blues, and rock — while earning the bulk of his living as a housepainter. Then, a
Join the Club: Hooked on Knitting
Hooked on Knitting Cruisers can count on cable needles, classes, conversation, and cross-stitch camaraderie on Craft Cruises. By Clark Norton Who would guess that a group of knitters would “have more fun and be more active than anybody” on a cruise ship? Knitters, that’s who. That’s the cont
Join the Club: Vampire Cruises
Cruises You Can Sink Your Teeth Into Vampire genre cruises draw fans looking for a “fangtastic” time. By Clark Norton Vampires — those sharp-fanged mythological creatures of the night who are said to subsist on the blood of the living – are as ubiquitous as Snooki these days, rising f
Join the Club: Ship-Deck Soccer
SHIP-DECK SOCCER Having a Ball at Sea. By Clark Norton In the spring of 2011, a girls’ soccer club in southern New Jersey called the Cape Express Bulldogs was casting about for a destination for a vacation soccer camp for its team of soon-to-be 14 year olds, many of whom had played together since
Join the Club: Astronomy
JOIN THE CLUB ASTRONOMY Sea-ing Stars A cruise ship is a perfect vantage point to study the sky. By Clark Norton During a 1998 cruise to Alaska, Neil Bauman — a self-described geek — recalls sitting on his verandah, alternately gazing at the glacial scenery and reading a technical manual about c
Join the Club: Can You Sea PTV?
Can You Sea PTV? From airwaves to ocean waves, it’s smooth sailing for fans of public broadcasting shows. By Clark Norton Martha Danker, a self-confessed “public broadcasting groupie” from Everett, Washington, had an unusual item on her bucket list. She wanted to meet Gwen Ifill, moderator of
Join the Club: Holistic Cruises
Join the Club: Holistic Cruises Cruising Cures Can you find wellness on the waves? By Clark Norton People love cruising for many reasons. But Betty Hoehn, a retired U.S. Steel employee from Jacksonville Beach, Florida, has a particularly compelling one. Hoehn is convinced that if she hadn’t signed
