I just returned from my first-ever cruise ship experience, a long-planned celebration of my father-in-law's 70th birthday. The fam spent a week cruising around the eastern Caribbean on Celebrity Cruise Line's mega-ship, the Millennium. This boat is incredible. It holds nearly 2,000 passengers and about 1,000 workers. It's got a casino, theater, spa, basketball court, art gallery, numerous dining rooms, a stunning amount of food and a high-tech computerized key-card system that lets you rack up huge additional expenses without ever really feeling like you're spending money. The boat is so big that when it is at sea you can barely even feel it move.

Though he won't remember any of it, I'm glad my one-year-old son got the chance to experience the cruise. I don't think there's any way in the world that cruises like this will exist when he is my age. The Millennium, they say, is one of the more eco-friendly cruise ships out there. But that's an oxymoron. The ship may not be pumping raw sewage into the ocean, but at 90,000 tons it's got to take quite a fill-up at the old gas station to keep this big tub moving. It sails almost every day of the year.

When society finally decides that fossil fuels are too valuable or too dangerous to burn for non-essential activity, you've got to think cruise line mega-ships are going to be pretty high on the list of shit to get rid of. If fuel gets expensive enough it may very well make more business sense to just dock a ship like the Millennium in Lake Michigan and turn it into a nice, high-end retirement community with great access to downtown Chicago. Or tie it up somewhere on the Gulf Coast and bill it as a casino resort that can actually dodge on-coming hurricanes. Hell, park it on the west side of Manhattan and call it a hotel. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay proposed that very idea during the 2004 Republican National Convention. What a visionary. In a world of expensive oil, there are still all kinds of uses for a ship like the Millennium. "Cruising" probably isn't one of them.

No problem. My big insight during our time on the boat was that it really doesn't matter a whole lot whether the cruise ship is actually moving. The sailing from port to port is the least important part of the cruise. The essential experience is contained entirely aboard the boat -- the pool, the breakfast buffet, the constant, never-ending attention of Phillipino deck hands offering you tropical drinks with little umbrellas sticking out of them (and then charging you $8.50). But cruising really only fulfills some aesthetic or psychological need. We could very well have dropped anchor somewhere just over the horizon and sat there for seven days. It would have been pretty much the same vacation. Maybe even better given the state of some of the port towns we visited.

Sure, sailing puts some wind in your hair and gives you the feeling that you're going on a big adventure across the high seas to foreign lands. But it turns out that when a small, eastern Carribbean town retrofits its port to accommodate six gigantic cruise ships simultaneously, it loses a lot of its original charm. In the end, a cruise ship is essentially a gigantic Las Vegas hotel that has some how pulled itself up from its foundations, lumbered across the continental U.S., and plopped itself in the ocean. The sailing doesn't much matter.

This became most clear during our trip ashore to Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. As we approached from sea, the town looked beautiful. It's got these imposing, 500-year-old Spanish colonial fortresses guarding the mouth of the harbor. And the town is still filled with colorful, old buildings built along block after block of narrow, winding, cobblestone streets.

But once you get into town, it's a total and complete disaster. Why? Traffic, of course!

I couldn't believe it. I don't know much about Old San Juan, but this much was clear: The town's entire economy is based on tourism. Its biggest assets are these charming old, winding streets and all of these incredible old buildings. The streets are absolutely perfect for strolling and shopping and sitting at cafe tables. And they are almost totally useless for motor vehicles. And, yet, there is no strolling, shopping, or sitting at cafe tables on the streets of Old San Juan. Rather, the public space between these beautiful old buildings is almost entirely dedicated to traffic and parking. If ever there was a place where everyone would benefit from pedestrianizing the streets, its Old San Juan. I've never seen a more clear-cut case.

The people of Old San Juan, mind you, aren't driving small cars. Puerto Rico is part of the USA. As in the USA, the streets are filled with massive SUV's and pick-up trucks. Most of the sidewalks have been trimmed down to about two feet wide to accomodate the traffic and make room for parking. It's insane.

This is the corner of a potentially beautiful public square that has been turned into a dysfunctional traffic round-about. Add your own horn honking and salsa music blaring from the car stereo to get the full effect. Why leave Brooklyn?

This is one of the main shopping streets in Old San Juan. It's easy to imagine this street filled with cafe tables and local merchants selling wares to the thousands of tourists who squeeze their way along the narrow sidewalks each week. It's hard to imagine that all of this unmoving private automobile traffic is actually essential to Old San Juan's economy.

I really like the little balconies on the old Spanish colonial buildings. You barely notice this stuff though, when you're walking along the street. The traffic takes too much of your attention. McDonald's too.

I didn't see any parking signs or permits so I assume that parking on these streets is free. This, to me, is mind-blowing. What a waste of truly precious public space! What is Old San Juan thinking? Whenever someone stopped to get in or out of a parking space, it blocked up traffic for an entire block, often making motorists go berserk. If San Juan wanted to solve its traffic problem, probably all it would need to do is get rid of the parking space and turn it into pedestrian space.

Sometimes I have to reality check myself. I mean, I've been known to be a wee bit oversensitive to urban traffic. Is Old San Juan really that bad or is it just me? So, I Googled "Old San Juan traffic" and one of the very first items I found was some old stock video footage of cars inching their way down the very same street above, filmed from almost exactly the same vantage point. Turns out that it's not just me. Old San Juan is notorious for its traffic congestion. You've got to wonder if the people who run this city even have a clue.

Despite the traffic, we had a great time. When it's time to lock me away in a retirement home, I don't think I'll mind it if the kid puts me out to pasture aboard the Millennium. I don't expect the boat will still be cruising. I just hope its docked somewhere sunny.

12:06 PM | Link |