Vacation/Travel Supplement

Water, water everywhere: Your hotel room travels with you on cruises

The Europa cruise ship is docked on the banks of the beautiful Blue Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. Most sea-going cruise ships offer all the amenities of luxury hotels—fabulous dining, entertainment, sometimes a swimming pool, on-board lectures and more. Cruise ships are available on many of Europe’s rivers—the Danube, Rhine, Mosel and others. These ships aren’t as large as the luxury liners. (Submitted photo/Bill Heck)

By John F. Fink

The last time I tried to count them, I figured that I have traveled to 61 different countries—some numerous times.

I did much of my traveling from 1974 to 1986 when I was vice president for six years then president for six years of the International Federation of Catholic Press Associations.

Then, while I was editor of The Criterion from 1984 to 1996, my wife, Marie, and I led tours sponsored by this newspaper to the Holy Land, China, the Soviet Union and European countries.

With all the traveling that I’ve done over the years, I was late in appreciating the benefits of cruises.

The first cruise we took was at the end of a trip to the Holy Land when we cruised from Haifa, Israel, to Athens, Greece, stopping at Ephesus and Patmos. Later, during another trip sponsored by The Criterion, we included the Greek Isles in our trip to Greece.

What’s wonderful about cruises is that your hotel room travels with you. You can unpack your luggage once instead of living out of a suitcase, packing and unpacking every day. You avoid those tiring and onerous bus trips since the cruise ship takes you from city to city. Most of the cruise ships offer all the amenities of luxury hotels—fabulous dining, entertainment, sometimes a swimming pool, on-board lectures and more.

Besides the sea-going cruise ships, I recently discovered the pleasure of riverboat cruises.

Three years ago, I enjoyed a cruise on the Yangtze River in China. Two years ago, I went on a cruise on the Nile River in Egypt, stopping to see the ruins of many ancient Egyptian temples.

Last year, we cruised on the Danube River in Europe, stopping to visit Budapest and Estergom in Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, the Benedictine Abbey at Melk and Linz in Austria; and Prague in the Czech Republic. It sure beat traveling by bus to those places.

Cruise ships are available on many of Europe’s rivers—the Danube, Rhine, Mosel and others. These ships aren’t as large as the luxury liners. The one we took last year could accommodate 144 passengers. It didn’t have a theater, pool, multiple restaurants or top-quality entertainment, but it navigated the river just fine.

Some people prefer the large ships because of all the extra amenities they offer, while others like the intimacy of smaller ships. I can’t honestly choose one cruise ship over the other.

A cruise to Alaska has become a favorite for many people. Sometimes the cruise is combined with air travel either to or from Denali National Park, but the one we took began and ended in Vancouver, Canada, and visited Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway. At Ketchikan, we flew in a small sea plane among the Misty Fjords and landed on a lake. At Juneau, we took a helicopter to the top of the glacier there. At Skagway, we took a train up a mountain as gold-seekers once did trying to get to the Yukon.

People take cruises to Alaska only during the summer. Therefore, many of those ships spend the winter in the Caribbean. One year, we caught one of those ships at Los Angeles and traveled with it to three stops along Mexico’s western coast, to Costa Rica, through the Panama Canal, then on to Cartagena, Columbia, as well as Aruba and Jamaica.

Another fascinating cruise we enjoyed was along the Yucatan Peninsula—the eastern coast of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras—where we explored Mayan ruins. We rode in small boats on a river through the jungles of Belize, took a plane to fly into the interior of Guatemala, and a long bus ride in Honduras—all to the intriguing historical ruins of the Mayans, who lived there from before the time of Christ through about 900 A.D.

Perhaps the most popular cruises, at least in this hemisphere, are to the islands in the Caribbean. We did that with one of our daughters and her family, starting and ending in Puerto Rico and visiting Barbados, St. Lucia, Saint Martin, the British Virgin Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

It’s hard not to have a good time on cruises in the Caribbean. We usually hired a taxi driver to show us around the various islands, although we rented a car once and took our own tour. Generally, it’s best to hire a taxi driver.

One of the challenges that people on cruises often face is the problem of getting to Mass on Sundays. Of course, that’s no problem at all if you happen to be traveling with a priest who has brought along a Mass kit. Otherwise, the situation varies considerably.

Some cruise ships have Catholic chaplains, usually retired priests who are given free cruises in return for saying Mass for the passengers, usually in the ship’s theater. The most notable of these priests undoubtedly were Holy Cross Fathers Theodore Hesburgh and Ned Joyce, who served as chaplains on Cunard Lines’ Queen Elizabeth 2 on a three-month cruise around the world in 1988 after their retirements as president and executive vice president of the University of Notre Dame.

I’ve never sailed on the QE2, but I’ve found Catholic chaplains on other cruise ships. When there is one, I introduce myself and usually end up as his sacristan, lector, altar server and extraordinary minister of holy Communion at his Masses. These chaplains also say weekday Masses at different times, depending on the day’s schedule of sightseeing.

When there is no chaplain, you have to find a Mass on one of the scheduled stops, and that adds enjoyment to your cruise experiences. When we found Mass in a church on the island of Rhodes, the pastor asked me to read the Mass readings in English, which I was glad to do.

The church we found in Juneau, Alaska, had a magnificent view of the mountains behind the altar.

Europe has many Catholic churches, of course, but fewer Masses than we have in the U.S. Last year, Marie and I went to Sunday Mass at St. Martin’s Cathedral in Bratislava, Slovakia, which has been the coronation church of the kings and queens of Hungary for more than 250 years. The Mass was celebrated in the Slovakian language. I had read the readings before we went to Mass so I knew what they were. That didn’t help, though, when it came to the homily.

There are occasions when it’s simply impossible to get to Mass. That happened two years ago during our cruise on the Nile River in Egypt. In that case, the best I could do was to organize a prayer service in the ship’s lounge for Christians who wanted to pray with us. Fortunately, I had brought along a Missalette.

I haven’t done an Amazon River cruise yet or a small boat cruise in the Galapagos Islands. Who knows? That might happen sometime in the future since I love to travel to new places by land, air and sea.

(John F. Fink is editor emeritus of The Criterion.) †