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Jan. 14th, 2010
cruise: have a plan
Jan. 14th, 2010 08:12 pmSo we utterly loved the cruise. It was exactly what we needed, and we had really remarkable luck in choosing the right excursions and trips (both with the cruise line and on our own). The food was better than I was led to expect; the gluten-free stuff went reasonably well; and we had some great spa treatments. I attempted to snorkel for the first time, and wasn't very successful at it, but did, thanks to Patty's reassurances and help see some awesome fish. She did more advanced stuff and even saw a sea-turtle. I'll probably explain more of what our actual vacation was like in a future post as we start to post pictures. Right now, I sort of want to talk about cruise strategy if you're, well, people like us.
Cruises are extraordinarily heteronormative. (More on that later).
Cruises are also extraordinarily white (digression: I will note that the PoC on the cruise did tend to be closer to our ages -- we were some of the youngest people on the boat not traveling with other family, and we were asked often why we were (or if we were) comfortable with that. I spent a lot of time mentioning my age, because people tend to assume I'm much younger than I am).
Meanwhile, many Caribbean destinations are much more diverse and/or mostly Places of Color, and some of them are quite poor (Turks & Caicos and the Dominican Republic being the two that caused issues as described below).
And then you eat dinner with strangers in the cruise ship dining room....
I really would have thought that the combination of us being from NYC, obviously (I think) queer, and my often wearing a suit in the dining room would give people the idea that maybe we are "liberals" and they shouldn't ask our opinions on things like poverty, Muslims and the decreasing rates of reproduction by white people with the expectation that we would confirm their fears and bigotry.
Okay, well, ACTUALLY, I REALLY would have thought that common decency and sense would prevent people from holding the opinions they did in the first place, but that notion got shot down REALLY fast.
Because I would be wrong. SO WRONG.
So here's my advice to you if you go on a cruise:
Have a plan.
Are you going to challenge this stuff or do the confused thing so people either have to say something awful or back down? Because seriously, to me going to these beautiful places with these varying economies and social situations was to me a call to action that was an entirely appropriate part of my vacation, not some horrible inconvenience, as many people at dinner seemed to indicate. People want these trips, but they also don't want to have to see poverty! We were in Semana in the Dominican Republic (which we loved, btw, although few other people on the cruise did) about five days before the Haiti earthquake which transpired when we were about 90 miles away -- I actually saw it on CNN a couple of hours later when we were passing between it and Cuba).
Additionally, if you're gay, think about how you're going to introduce yourselves (another couple introduced themselves as "I'm so-and-so and this is my partner so-and-so" -- I find the level of possession in that discussion to be awkward, I also don't feel like heterosexual couples have to do that stuff -- it's obvious, right? -- so why should we?). I personally found it hard to know if we were not being out enough, or if we were being awesome and normalizing by assuming people were smart enough to get it. I'm still not sure, and I'll take this moment to note this is one of those "if you're not gay, you haven't had this experience and it's hard to describe to you" moments. Would you want to have to think about these things in your vacation? You would not. (And yes, I mention this so as to refer back to it later when I finally weigh-in on the latest fandom/slash/queer fethishization discussion/fuckery).
But, anyway. We loved it and are planning to do an eleven day one to the windward islands in 2011.
Cruises are extraordinarily heteronormative. (More on that later).
Cruises are also extraordinarily white (digression: I will note that the PoC on the cruise did tend to be closer to our ages -- we were some of the youngest people on the boat not traveling with other family, and we were asked often why we were (or if we were) comfortable with that. I spent a lot of time mentioning my age, because people tend to assume I'm much younger than I am).
Meanwhile, many Caribbean destinations are much more diverse and/or mostly Places of Color, and some of them are quite poor (Turks & Caicos and the Dominican Republic being the two that caused issues as described below).
And then you eat dinner with strangers in the cruise ship dining room....
I really would have thought that the combination of us being from NYC, obviously (I think) queer, and my often wearing a suit in the dining room would give people the idea that maybe we are "liberals" and they shouldn't ask our opinions on things like poverty, Muslims and the decreasing rates of reproduction by white people with the expectation that we would confirm their fears and bigotry.
Okay, well, ACTUALLY, I REALLY would have thought that common decency and sense would prevent people from holding the opinions they did in the first place, but that notion got shot down REALLY fast.
Because I would be wrong. SO WRONG.
So here's my advice to you if you go on a cruise:
Have a plan.
Are you going to challenge this stuff or do the confused thing so people either have to say something awful or back down? Because seriously, to me going to these beautiful places with these varying economies and social situations was to me a call to action that was an entirely appropriate part of my vacation, not some horrible inconvenience, as many people at dinner seemed to indicate. People want these trips, but they also don't want to have to see poverty! We were in Semana in the Dominican Republic (which we loved, btw, although few other people on the cruise did) about five days before the Haiti earthquake which transpired when we were about 90 miles away -- I actually saw it on CNN a couple of hours later when we were passing between it and Cuba).
Additionally, if you're gay, think about how you're going to introduce yourselves (another couple introduced themselves as "I'm so-and-so and this is my partner so-and-so" -- I find the level of possession in that discussion to be awkward, I also don't feel like heterosexual couples have to do that stuff -- it's obvious, right? -- so why should we?). I personally found it hard to know if we were not being out enough, or if we were being awesome and normalizing by assuming people were smart enough to get it. I'm still not sure, and I'll take this moment to note this is one of those "if you're not gay, you haven't had this experience and it's hard to describe to you" moments. Would you want to have to think about these things in your vacation? You would not. (And yes, I mention this so as to refer back to it later when I finally weigh-in on the latest fandom/slash/queer fethishization discussion/fuckery).
But, anyway. We loved it and are planning to do an eleven day one to the windward islands in 2011.
sundries: late night, very random
Jan. 14th, 2010 11:39 pm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
xtricks? Anyway, trying not to read, as I spent a lot of time on the boat (duh) cogitating on my own piece which I hope to be awake enough to write tomorrow.