Rant #1,675: Cruisin'

My family and I love to go on cruises, and we will be doing so later this year.

We work hard, scrimp for the money, and it is our payback for the suffering we go through at work each and every day.

We give up at lot each year to be able to do this, and it gives us something to look forward to.

And anyone who has taken a cruise will tell you that it is the ultimate vacation.

Well, Royal Caribbean has just tried to make cruising even more fun, larger than life and absolutely huge.

It is set to release "Harmony of the Seas," its latest cruise ship, which sets sail from Barcelona, Spain, on June 7.

The ship is so large that it is called "the tallest at sea," taller than the Eiffel Tower and wider than anything in its class.

It can hold up to 9,000 passengers in 2,700 staterooms, and being that as it is, you can probably call it a "city within a city."

You have the usual boutiques and shops on board, the usual amenities--including a state-of-the-art theater--and of course, you have several pools, one of them buttressed by what they are calling "the tallest slide at sea," where it is 100 feet down and 10 stories high.

It all sounds incredible.

The cruise industry has taken numerous hits recently, after some incidents where ships have gone out at sea when they shouldn't have, running into storms and making some cruises ones to forget.

There have also been several recent incidents where passengers have somehow fallen overboard, and ships have regularly been cited for treating many of their employees like dirt, underpaying them and overworking them, treating them more like indentured servants than as associates.

That being said, my family and I have never had a bad cruise.

Maybe we have been lucky, but we have never experienced anything untoward in the couple of cruises we have gone on.

We have taken both Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruise lines, and we have always had fun.

The next time we go, later this year, we will be taking Carnival, but we actually prefer Royal Caribbean.

Carnival is more of a party boat, and Royal Caribbean is a bit more sedate, but its quality of service--yes, I have heard otherwise--is better than Carnival.

You pay a little more for Royal Caribbean, but you get it back in service--and again, yes, I have heard otherwise.

This new boat just adds to the uniqueness of the cruise experience, and I just hope they have enough equipment heaven forbid they need it, if things go haywire.

Since the days of the Titanic, once you are at sea, anything can happen, and even though we have never had a bad cruise, things do happen.

We have had a cruise or two diverted off course because of bad storms, and we have missed some stops along the way.

We were on one boat that was so wobbly because of overall rough seas that barf bags were put on every banister on the ship, just in case one felt the need to use them.

We have seen some accidents involving passengers, like women tripping over their own feet walking down steep stairs, which are not so manageable when you are wearing the highest of heels.

And we have also experienced some boredom, because there is only so much you can do on sea days, when you are going to your next port.

But overall, we have never had a bad experience when we have cruised, and although we have heard to the contrary, I would say that probably 90 percent of all cruises go off without a hitch.

You hear about the bad ones, because the bad ones stand out.

My family and I are looking forward to our next cruise, and as cruise ships get bigger and bolder, all that we want to do is relax, whether we are on a large ship or a smaller one.

Because when it comes down to it, that is why we are there.

So you can have as many attractions as you want on board, but all we want to do is relax.

The cruise industry can make their ships any way they want to, but we come there for one reason no matter how incredible the ship is, and believe me, by the time we go later this year, we will definitely need that week to blow off a little steam.