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Can a Millennial overcome a mortal dread of cruising?

Can a Millennial overcome a mortal dread of cruising?

After 15 years of saying no to cruises, the time finally came to walk the gangway to meet those towel animals and other weird traditions.

The writer Sam Buckingham-Jones and his wife, Chrystal, before embarkation in port of Rotterdam, after which their ship was named.  Chrystal Buckingham-Jones

Sam Buckingham-JonesMedia and marketing reporter

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There’s little that can prepare a first-time cruiser for the sheer weirdness of the whole experience. It is at once pure comfort and yet strangely off-putting; immensely organised and somehow profoundly chaotic; squeaky clean, and yet there’s only so much hand sanitiser that can go around; masterfully prepared and also mass-produced; crowded and lonely. It is, I learn, not a given that a human being in 2024 knows how a lift operates.

These are a few initial thoughts (of many) after a week on a top-tier mega cruise ship, the MS Rotterdam, run by Holland America, a high-end line running 11 vessels all over the world. Our itinerary departs Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest city, before stopping at four Norwegian towns – Eidfjord, Alesund, Skjolden and Kristiansand – and returning to where we started.

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Sam Buckingham-Jones
Sam Buckingham-JonesMedia and marketing reporterSam Buckingham-Jones is the media and marketing reporter at The Australian Financial Review. Connect with Sam on Twitter.

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Original URL: https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/travel/can-a-millennial-overcome-a-mortal-dread-of-cruising-20240731-p5jxvu