This Honeymoon at Sea Has Lasted a Lifetime

As the sailing ship Wind Song sliced through the waters beyond the Bora-Bora lagoon, I wondered how this dazzling craft--with its air of an opulent yacht--would be as a place for a honeymoon.

So I asked a young couple who were sprawled on the deck and nut-brown from a week in the sun. They had been married in Los Angeles before flying to Tahiti to join the cruise. The captain had toasted them at his first-night champagne party.

“It’s great,” the bridegroom said. “We have privacy when we want it. And we can be with others when the mood strikes. People have been really nice to us--on the ship and on the islands. We even learned to windsurf.”

“I wasn’t totally surprised,” his bride interjected. “We had fun on the Wind Song last year in the Mediterranean . . . In fact, that’s when he proposed.”

Romance, by any definition, is an eternal part of sea travel. People fall in love with ships, with the sea, with ports, with captains and, occasionally, with each other.

Fierce loyalties build for a certain cruise line, or even a specific vessel. Some travelers will follow a favorite ship anywhere, and alter their travel dates to make it work.

No travel experience is more distracting than being swept aboard a sleek cruise ship, gliding along a maze of corridor and stairs and getting installed in a snug new home, with just minutes to spare before sailing into unsuspected adventure. With the loosening of the last lines to shore comes a feeling of exhilaration and peace.

Certain ships seem wed to certain destinations. I loved having my own balcony on the Royal Princess when transiting the Panama Canal. I loved listening to the sounds of the jungle . . . the machetes hacking away at overgrown hillsides . . . the squawks of parrots . . . the waterfalls that thundered near Gatun Lake. I treasured the sudden showers that hung a rainbow over my view, and the yellow butterflies that alighted on my railing.

I savored being alone on this historic passage instead of in the crowd at the bow, where the sport was to avoid flying elbows and video cameras.

In Scandinavia, I lean toward ships that were born in those northern waters. The Seabourn Pride, with its Viking crew, made the journey along the Norwegian coast north of Bergen seem like a holiday call on family. Small enough to be flexible, the Seabourn Pride allows creative improvisation to match the weather and the seas.

After a rain-slogged stop in Bergen, our itinerary listed a day at sea en route to Oslo. Instead, the captain came on the intercom and invited us to spend an afternoon in his hometown of Lillesand. Lillesand, the sunny. Lillesand, the village of crisp, white-frame houses and abundant flowers and splendid rocky coves.

And I shall always have a place in my heart for the Royal Viking Sky, on which I sailed in the summer of 1973. It was the ship’s first cruise, its delivery trip from Trondheim to Copenhagen. It was my first cruise as well. And the last time, thanks to a prescription called Tigan, that I have been truly seasick.

That is a big consideration in choosing a shipboard honeymoon. Both partners should be comfortable at sea.

Easy introductions to cruising are those trips through sheltered waters, such as the scenic Inside Passage to Alaska. I recall standing on the dock of the mighty Island Princess, far north of Vancouver, and talking to her British officers about the legendary weddings-at-sea.

“Captains from the United Kingdom have not had the authority to perform marriages since 1856,” a wry Scot told me. “That was the year our clipper ships first managed to reach Australia and New Zealand in nine months.”

Yet the trappings of romance go on. A good-natured and attentive staff can make every passenger feel loved.

At our farewell party in Alaska, the captain turned to his deputy and said: “Go give a kiss to the woman at table 82.”

The officer scanned the room.

“Sir,” he replied with grace, “I’d rather kiss the woman at 41 twice.” And so he did.