Yeah, I never really handled big crowded things well even in the pre-pandemic decades. I was socially awkward enough around a lot of people that mixing with others conferred no benefits in terms of access to better food, shelter, etc. and it also wasted a lot of time and energy and was more of a source of high stress.

So a cruise would, for me, not be a pleasant experience. It would be a lot of stress, from the flight to wherever the thing departed in the first place, worry about lost luggage, damaged stuff, missed connections, and all the other things that can go wrong when traveling at the mercy of a huge faceless bureaucracy.

Then after 9/11, the hassle factor quickly had me so totally done with commercial air travel. Stories of elderly forced to leave medication behind because it might be a weapon, the horrors of the trials and tribulations of the disabled trying to travel, and numerous other stories in the press, just drove home the message loud and clear that we the great unwashed are not welcome on board an aircraft. I decided around September 12th that I was never going to ever give "them" the opportunity to publicly humiliate me in the guise of security theater. And true to my word, I have never set foot into the secured area of an airport since, much less actually boarded a plane to go anywhere.

The horror stories of people trapped on a ship Petri dish pretty much has set in concrete my opinion that I will never set foot on a cruise ship, ever. I will never, ever give them an opportunity to leave me trapped in a harbor unable to leave. Nope, just nope. They can all go bankrupt and cut up those ships for scrap, because I've seen this year how fast that thin veneer of civilization can turn such an experience incredibly ugly in a hurry. Nope, not gonna touch that with a ten meter cattle prod.

I enjoy being around people and still can’t imagine going on a cruise.  I will probably offend a whole bunch of people, but what is there to do other than eat, shop at stops and run around a great big boat?

Showtalk said:

I will probably offend a whole bunch of people, but what is there to do other than eat, shop at stops and run around a great big boat?

Sleep, gain 30 pounds, and of course catch any communicable disease that any other passenger has.

Yes. What was that air vent disease?

Showtalk said:

What was that air vent disease?

Legionaire's disease if I remember correctly.

It was pretty nasty to catch.

And there's some other nasty diseases that can  spread like wildfire through cruise ships.