This past week, my wife, both daughters, and I were supposed to be on a cruise ship travelling around Alaska. We booked the cruise over a year ago and were greatly looking forward to our first vacation together on a ship with the entire family. We have never previously done anything like this with just the four of us.
In April of this year, we received an e-mail from the company that owns the cruise ship informing us that due to the recent pandemic, all of their scheduled trips were canceled until further notice. Our vacation was off.
The company told us that our money would be held in reserve so we could schedule a new trip when the ships were all back in the water, which is only reassuring if you believe the cruise company isn’t going to go out of business in the meantime. We will just have to wait and see.
Since we already had the time off scheduled for the middle of the summer, even though we couldn’t go on a cruise ship, we still wanted to take some sort of vacation. My wife and I decided that we would take our camping trailer and go on a short trip to an RV park. It’s not a cruise, but at least it was something.
It was something all right.
Instead of being on the Pacific Ocean, floating past massive glaciers and watching marine life swimming around the ship, we drove to an RV park located 45 minutes from our house with spotty Wi-Fi, 100 degree temperatures, and garbage trucks driving through at 3 o’clock in the morning. Not quite the same experience.
We left the kids at home because I didn’t want to listen to their complaining. It would interrupt my own complaining. Besides, someone had to stay home and feed the overabundance of cats that have recently collected in my home. (The kids wanted to adopt two new kittens, so I figure they can stay home and take care of them).
We originally scheduled a trip to Alaska because I thought if we went far enough away, my wife would be forced to stop thinking about work and actually enjoy her vacation. I still think it’s a good plan. However, because we ended up less than an hour’s drive from home, my workaholic spouse spent more time on Zoom meetings and phone calls than she did talking to me.
Of course, maybe finding reasons not to talk to me is her idea of a great vacation. If so, I can tell you that she had a wonderful time.
The RV park we selected was connected to the Jackson Rancheria Indian Casino. We decided on the casino for a couple of reasons. Namely, cruise ships have gambling and lots of food available, and casinos have gambling and lots of food available. It would be almost as if we were onboard the ship after all.
Except most of the casino was shut down because of Coronavirus. Half the slot machines were turned off, and the few that were still working were filled with sad-looking little old ladies trying to smoke cigarettes through tiny holes cut into their cloth masks. It felt like a scene from the Walking Dead, and I half expected at any moment for the people around me to suddenly stand up and begin shambling menacingly in my direction.
In addition to the ghost-town feel of the place, the restaurants were all closed as well. The only food available was a single food court where they expected you to line up, grab your food, then get the hell out. As far as cruises go, this was the worst one I had ever been on.
I still stuck around long enough to lose a hundred bucks in the slot machines before slinking back to the trailer park in defeat. It was not quite the dream vacation I had planned. My stomach hurt from eating like a raccoon rummaging through a garbage can, I was $100 poorer, and my wife spent most of her time sitting next to a slot machine on her phone, texting and sending e-mails.
After about two hours in the desolate remains of a once proud gambling establishment, we finally gave up and wandered outside to catch the shuttle bus back to the RV park. When I boarded the bus, the driver put on his mask for our safety and I watched as his glasses immediately fogged up.
Hmm. Coronavirus, or fiery bus crash? Decisions, decisions.
Oddly, I almost hoped that we did crash. As we careened off the road and down a steep hillside, I could pretend we had just hit an iceberg and I was going down with the ship. If we were fortunate enough to drive into a lake, even better.
No such luck. We made it back to our trailer in one piece.
Well, it wasn’t the vacation we originally booked. There was no boat, no scenery, lousy food, hot weather, and we were practically walking distance from home. On the bright side, though…
Nope. No bright side.
We wanted a cruise, and what we got was definitely not a cruise.
We are going to try again, however. We will use the money we have already spent to schedule a new cruise to Alaska for next summer. The entire family still wants to go. I only have one question about next year’s trip:
Should I wait until next year, or go ahead and book the RV park again now?
.
.
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