So, as noted here before our departure, Kate and I spent the last week and a half (and a bit) on a Caribbean cruise with Seabourn, which was something of an experiment in side hustles. Back in January/February when I was doing book promo events for A Brief History of Timekeeping, one of the people who watched one of my livestreamed book talks was in charge of booking speakers for Seabourn’s “Conversations” program, and emailed me to ask if I’d ever considered doing lectures on a cruise. After a bit of Googling to verify that this was a legit operation (I had never heard of the line before), I said “Tell me more…”
And that’s how we ended up booked on an 11-day trip through the eastern Caribbean public-lecturing for my supper. I did four talks on board (slightly tweaking some existing book talks for the venue), and we were “table hosts” for four nights, dining at the formal restaurant with other guests who were selected by some procedure that remains obscure to me.
When I told people about this trip, including SteelyKid and The Pip, the most common reaction was some form of “Wait, you think people are going to go to a physics lecture on a Caribbbean cruise?” As you can see from the photo above, taken at the start of my first lecture on board, people actually did come to the talks— I think the audience averaged north of 30 people, which is pretty respectable given that there were only about 400 passengers. They were good audiences, too— I got good questions every time out, and a number of the folks who came stopped me later on to ask follow-up questions or just say that they had enjoyed the talks.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from “table hosting,” but had a somewhat reasonable idea having done something similar at Renaissance Weekend events in the past. This was a little better, actually, because the tables were generally smaller; it was generally me and Kate and 5-6 other people, which made it relatively easy to carry on a conversation that included everyone. We had a very nice time at all of them; not super heavy conversation, though I did get asked about the recent fusion experiment quite a bit…
The food on board was excellent. Between table hosting and the location of our suite, we mostly ate at “The Restaurant,” which was the most formal of the normally included dinner options. (There’s also “The Grill” which is a reservation-only operation that we weren’t able to get to.) This operates at a level of formality that we’re not really used to— one night when we were at a table next to the window, the waiter apologized for not being able to serve my food from my right side, which I wasn’t aware was a Thing. Even the less formal options were great, though— the “72-hour short ribs” served poolside one night were a real highlight.
The ships are all-inclusive, so dinner, wine, and after-dinner port were all part of the deal; there’s an option to buy a premium package, but my palate is not so refined as to have any problem with the regular wine selection. It was surprisingly nice not to have the little bit of friction that comes with having to confirm and sign off on wine and beer orders (as we’ve needed to do on previous cruise vacations). We half-jokingly reminded each other when we got lunch at BWI on the way home yesterday that we needed to stick around and actually pay for the food and drink, as opposed to just walking out.
The service was generally excellent— Kate compared it to a less kid-oriented version of the Disney cruise we went on some years back, and I think that’s accurate. They had the same mix of cheerfully enthusiastic high-touch service and mildly frightening efficiency that you see in the Disney operation. This was especially impressive since they’ve only been back in full operation since June, and had had to let something like 90% of their customer-facing staff go when the pandemic had the whole industry shut down. There were very occasional rough spots, but on the whole it was great service (tempered slightly by the usual liberal guilt that comes with being waited on to a high degree…).
The itinerary for the particular trp we were on featured two full days at sea on either end, which was when three of my four lectures took place (the fourth was just before dinnner when we were docked in Sint Maarten; unsurprisingly, this was the one with the smallest crowd…). Other than that, I didn’t have any particular responsibilities, so we took advantage of our port stops to go out and explore places with much warmer weather than Schenectady. We spent a day tromping around Old San Juan, and another hiking up to the fort in Terre-de-Haut, and a couple of days (in Antigua and St. Kitts) doing boat-ride-and-snorkel excursions. On our last stop, I hiked over the hill from one part of Jost van Dyke to the other, then took a shuttle bus back and met Kate for lunch at a bar where we watched the second half of the World Cup final.
Back in June, I went to a Zoom orientation for Conversations speakers, and they had a bit where we were put in breakout rooms to meet some other speakers. The few I was placed with were retired academics (as was the other non-Seabourn-employee speaker on our cruise), and, yeah, I can absolutely see where this would be a sweet retirement gig. It’s a little tricky to schedule this kind of thing right now— my parents are way too good to us, and came up to stay at our house and keep SteelyKid and The Pip fed and pack them off to school and other activities. But when the kids are off to college and Kate no longer has to count vacation days, oh, hell, yes, I could do this a bunch.
Full on retirement is a ways off yet, but assuming they’d have me again, this was a good enough experience that it’s worth a bit of schedule juggling even now. Or possibly trying to parlay this into a speaking gig on a more kid-friendly line, so we could bring SteelyKid and The Pip along. We had a blast, and it was very restorative after a long and trying Fall term at work.
With that said, we now head into the peak Holiday Season— the plan is to head down to my parents’ tomorrow evening for Christmas with the family. And I get to spend some time sorting through and editing some of the 2000-plus photos and videos I took on the trip. Here are a few wildlife pics that I’ve already pulled out:
And now I will stop bragging, as The Pip demanded every time I sent him a photo from the ship…
So, that’s an unusually sunny post from me. I’ll return to grumbling about things soon enough, though there may be more vacation photos along the way. If you want to see any of that, here’s a button:
And if you feel so moved, the comment section will be open:
Annette and I went on a cruise for our 25th anniversary and have gone on at least one every year since. I would definitely book a cruise that you were speaking on! Sounds like a great time.
I could definitely see attending something like this - it sounds like quite a fun time. Alas, I'm unlikely to convince my wife to take a cruise (and it's probably not high on my list of venues either). Perhaps someone will put something similar on at a terrestrial resort of some sort.