The hantavirus debacle raises a key question: why would anyone go on a cruise? | Dave Schilling

I don’t swim. This is a fairly crucial element of my backstory, something that defines me even if I don’t want it to and have begged people to stop asking me about it. Water and I simply have nothing in common. I’m a 41-year-old writer, and water is, well … wet. My son swims like a fish, and as soon as I dunk my head under the surface, I start wondering what it would be like to suffocate, how soon I can come back up, and what I’m even doing down there in the first place. As bad as a pool is, the ocean is even worse. It’s not just water. It’s water with living creatures in it. What’s down there? I don’t care to find out. Things are bad enough up here.

My general lack of interest in swimming, perhaps better described as a horrible fear, is one of the reasons I’ve never been on a cruise. God forbid I have to escape because of some kind of Steven Seagal/Under Siege situation. I’d jump on the edge of the boat, desperately attempt to doggy-paddle and end up at the bottom of the Mariana trench.

But the danger isn’t just outside the cruise ships. It’s also inside. The world is currently transfixed by the fate of the people aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship that became the center of an outbreak of the hantavirus, a virus I only knew about from a mention in the X-Files movie in 1998. Clearly, I’m no expert, but I’m at least savvy enough to know that it’s bad. More than 100 people have been evacuated from the ship and placed into various levels of quarantine to stop transmission. Less publicized is news of a British cruise ship dealing with a rash of stomach flu cases. Passengers on that boat have been temporarily prevented from disembarking so that tests can be done on those affected.

Now, one might feel quite trapped by the idea of being sequestered on a boat against one’s will. But you did pay for a ride on said boat, did you not? You willingly stepped on to the deck, flopped on your cot, and gazed out at the infinite blue of the ocean. You paid with your hard-earned money for this privilege. Maybe see the quarantine as a few free days on the open seas. Just stay away from the all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet, to be safe. Hospital quarantine, be it on land or ocean, is basically a cruise in that you can’t go anywhere, your meals are provided for you, and the water pressure in the shower is not going to be nearly strong enough.

With all these stories piling up about cruise ships turning into fetid petri dishes sailing on the water, I can’t help but feel vindicated. My mother, creeping into her 80s and with nothing but leisure to occupy her time, can’t get enough of cruises. She’s always pestering me to join her on some far-flung nautical journey – Mexico, Europe, Jamaica – as though I have randomly morphed into another person. A person who likes the water. I’m an absolute lost cause on that front. At this point, I’m starting to think that she’s made this her final mission before she dies. If she can just get me on a Carnival cruise to Tenerife with an open bar, a roulette table and a large waterslide, she can pass on to the next phase. How can I truly be a man until I experience the pleasures of all-you-can-eat hibachi on an interest-free payment plan?

I urge her, if she’s reading this, to give up. I cannot think of one thing that a cruise offers that isn’t available in the safe bosom of dry land. I can see a movie, eat a meal, get a spa treatment, and consume enough alcohol to sedate a tiger at home. At home, there’s a significantly lower possibility of me contracting a virus that will cause me to evacuate my colon at 15-minute intervals. I suppose the one perk of a cruise is I can play Deal or No Deal. Yes, on Carnival cruises, you too can participate in the classic gameshow where you have to guess the contents of a briefcase. On the down side, it costs extra, and you can’t even meet Howie Mandel. He’d probably never go on a cruise anyway, since he’s an avowed germaphobe. Putting a germaphobe onto a cruise ship is like dropping Theo Von into a Brooks Brothers. It’s just not happening.

I know cruises will not stop being fun for almost everyone else on the planet. If Covid didn’t kill our global enthusiasm for the slowest, most tedious trip imaginable outside of walking on a freeway overpass, then I think the industry is safe.

Plenty of people apparently enjoy cruises. That includes the billionaires who buy superyachts so they can experience a cruise that isn’t terrible – a cruise where you’re alone. A cruise where you can invite people if you want, where if you have enough money, you can manage the water pressure in the shower.

Like everything else, it comes down to class issues. For a price, you can experience the thrill (if there is one) of traveling by boat without the icky bits. Cruise lines are the middle-class response to this desire. You, too, can get out on a ship, but you’ll need to share the giant tin monstrosity with a bunch of strangers with varying levels of hygiene. And if you get sick, sorry. Here’s a voucher for Deal or No Deal – the game where you can maybe win enough money to pay off the cost of your horrifying cruise experience. Or to buy your own boat.

- Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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