Now & Then: Christopher Columbus never cruised on a fun ship

Ocean travel has changed quite a bit since Christopher Columbus landed at Hispaniola some 534 years ago.

For one thing, he didn’t have to show his passport or go through customs. Also, there wasn’t a lazy-river pool with a swim-up bar awaiting Chris’ sailors to celebrate finding a direct route to Asia.

While historians estimate his largest of three ships, the Santa Maria, to be about 100 tons, the average modern cruise ship tips the scales at some 120,000 gross tons.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the Columbus ships weren’t equipped with casinos or theaters. They weren’t large enough to have running tracks or gyms. And forget about swimming pools and buffet bars.

In other words, the Columbus fleet was primitive by today’s standards. But the natives they encountered were even primitiver, or more primitive if you prefer.

Ginny and I recently sailed on our 16th ocean cruise on the Carnival Sunshine, one of the Fun Ships. It was our seventh voyage on the Sunshine so you’d think we would have known how to get around its 14 decks. Well, actually it has 13 decks but that number is taboo, just like hotels don’t have a 13th floor.

Anyway, getting from our cabin on Deck 9 to the dining rooms on Deck 3 and 4 would seem like a simple matter. But the problem is, you can’t get to Deck 3/4 from Deck 9. 

The reason for that is because the two-deck galley, or kitchen, blocks the passage from one end of the ship to the other. That means, to get from midship on Decks 3 and 4 to the restaurants at the rear of the ship, you have to go up to Deck 5, walk to the rear, then go back down.

By the middle of our eight-day cruise, we had relearned how to get to the dining room. That involved walking on Deck 5 through the casino, one of the few areas on the ship where smoking is allowed.

Getting from one deck to another involves riding elevators. Otherwise, you walk the stairs. Ginny does not do stairs.

But elevators can be lessons in patience. You push the down button and watch as an elevator goes down past your deck. So you wait for yet another down elevator.

So much of your time on a cruise is waiting for elevators. That’s why I asked and answered, “Why were stairs invented? Because elevators are so slow.”

Carnival has an app that you use to find out what’s happening. There’s a musical group on 5 midship or a show at 4 and 5 fore.

It helps to understand nautical terms, from bow to stern, to get around a cruise ship. But forget bow and stern. The nautical powers-that-be use fore, aft and midship.

I tried to teach Ginny these terms. Soon she was repeating, over and over, “Fore is the front, aft is the rear.”

On a ship with 3,000 guests and a crew of more than 1,000, you meet folks from everywhere. Our room steward, Eko, is from Indonesia, and we’ve met other crew members from India, the Philippines, Ukraine, Kenya, Jamaica and any number of other countries.

When we’re on an elevator or in the dining room, Ginny will ask her favorite question: “Where are y’all from?” We heard from people from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and several other states.

One night at dinner we were in a row of three tables. All three tables had Tar Heel folks, including a couple from the coast and a mother and son from Trinity.

On a recent cruise, someone came up behind me and said, “I know who you are.” It was a woman from Asheboro, of all places.

On that particular cruise, we met another couple from Asheboro. Must be a small world.

I saw a woman reading a book on the recent cruise. I asked her what the book was and she showed me Nicholas Sparks’ “Counting Miracles.” I told her I live in the town the novel is based on. “You live in Asheboro?” she asked. “It’s a good book.”

I have this feeling that Columbus’ crew was not as diversified as the people we’ve found on our ocean cruises.

Talking to folks from other states and different countries makes cruising special. Not to mention realizing there are neighbors on board. 

I’ll take that over finding a new world.

■ Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. 

Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.