Lost At Sea: The Luxury Cruise Industry

How could anyone have known that their days as husband and wife were already numbered? Neither would complete the cruise. According to her statement to Congress this week, Jennifer would find herself ditched in a Turkish port, her belongings piled in a heap by cruise-line staff on the dock. As for George, he would never be seen again. The cruise-line industry has enjoyed a boom in recent years, with as many as 10 million passengers a year succumbing to its sophisticated marketing. The ever-more luxurious ships have myriad restaurants and facilities ranging from climbing walls, health spas and ice rinks, to shopping malls and two-tier theatres. And then there are all the activities on offer. No longer is it about over-eating and taking an occasional potter around the deck to regenerate your appetite. There are shore-bound visits to temples, white-water rivers and beaches on islands privately owned by the cruise lines. What the companies do not advertise is this: setting sail on the open sea can be perilous. It is possible you won't come home. The industry does not want to overstate the point. Indeed, it is proud of its record of protecting passengers from danger. Every journey begins with that near-comical ritual of everyone - from grannies to two-year-olds - donning the daft-looking life-jackets, with whistles and lights, and assembling at the muster stations on the life-boat decks. No one takes them too seriously, but they should. Because people do vanish. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article333240.ece [BC Mary: Site editor: the preview shows the complete URL but part of it gets cut off in the submittable text, eh? Should end with /article333240.ece] [Editor's note: URL's are automatically shortened when they get modified to be a link - not to worry. It still works. DrC]

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