FCH Celebrity Constellation

There was supplement about cruising with last week's Saturday DT, a supplement from some people called Imagine Cruising (also to be found at reference 3), in amongst the stuff about motoring, money, property and so on. We could, for example go for a cruise around the Indian Ocean, in the company of several thousand other punters, on the FCH Celebrity Constellation. A snip at between £100 and £200 per day per person, very much the same sort of rates as a hotel or care home on dry land. And with a doctor, nurse and well stocked pharmacy being thrown in. And you might get to have a ride on one of those 400 person bottles which passes for a life boat. See reference 2.

Then the thought struck me that maybe this was the way to get across the Atlantic, without having to be stuck in an aeroplane for six hours or more - with being stuck in a cramped position for that length of time being a bit of a pain these days. A quick gander at the schedules suggests that such a thing might well be possible - and not too time consuming as there are not too many World Heritage sites to stop off at in the North Atlantic. At 20 knots one should be able to do it in 4 or 5 days. For the two crossings, maybe ten days out of one's holiday.

However, I then find that the world of cruising is as tiresome as that of the insurance noticed a couple of posts ago. A world awash with haggling, long phone calls to computers & call centres, deals and special offers. A sort of car boot sale for the elderly. And while one could just pay the rack rate and have done with, I am sure that I would find it very annoying to find that we had paid twice as much as the people in the next cubicle. No where near rich enough not to care about such trivia.

I then thought that perhaps the answer is, rather than throwing thousands at cruise companies, to throw them at buying first class travel on an aeroplane, thus reducing the cramping factor a bit. With the catch there being that at first glance it is quite a lot more thousands and at second glance there is a car boot sale here too. Another world awash with haggling, long phone calls and so on and so forth.

So that is not going to do after all and I expect that we shall wind up sticking with the Isle of Wight. A couple of hours in our own car is much more manageable from every point of view.

PS: perhaps the long term answer is to reactivate insurance agents and travel agents, and just to pay them their 10% commission to do the car boot bit for you. Agents that are real people to whom you can talk to in person, face to face. Provided, of course, that it is just 10%.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/a-windy-day.html. For an example of a previous discussion of FCH.

Reference 2: https://www.rina.org.uk/mega-lifeboat.html.

Reference 3: https://www.imaginecruising.co.uk/.