Feedback from a cruise ship.

We went on a seven-day Caribbean "test" cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. The test was to decide whether or not a cruise would be the best vacation for our blended family of 10 if we were doing the arrangements and footing the bill. Our sailing dates encompassed President's Day weekend, so the cruise was fully loaded with families including kids of all ages.

We chose one of the new Celebrity line ships with lots of to-do activities that would appeal to the teenagers and young adults. Celebrity is owned and operated by the same company that owns and operates the Royal Caribbean. We had a nice but small stateroom with sliding doors onto a small balcony. Since the cruise lines serve five "formal" meals a day (not counting the pizza, burgers, fries, and ice cream that are available from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., there's not too much time for people-watching or just enjoying the view. But I did make some observations that may benefit or entertain Shopper Report readers:

The statistics about obese adults and children haven't zeroed in on cruise lines, which must feel like paradise for those who like nothing more than to eat their fill all day. Most of the overweight kids had $28.00 "soft-drink packages" which enabled them to get "free" refills of Coke, Mountain Dew, etc., all day and all night long. The kids take and drink the drinks everywhere--into the pools and hot tubs, into meals, into athletic facilities, etc. The packages operate like the soft-drink refills sold at theme parks, which enable kids to get a big drink holder and have it refilled all day. The cruise line drink packages are especially interesting because non-branded beverages like lemonade, iced tea, and orange juice are available "free" to everyone all day--include with the price of the cruise! Parents like the extra-charge soft drink refill packages because once they buy one, the kids stay happy independently, i.e., the parents don't have to do anything about drinks since the package enables the kids to put forth their special cups for another hit as often as they wish. Supermarkets are missing the boat here: They could certainly develop Special Shopper Cups that could be filled and filled again to make shopping much more fun.

Food-born illness appeared be widespread. Last year, cruise line sales had been adversely affected by media reports about viruses that were making lots of passengers ill. With 2000 passengers to feed five+ times a day, we saw enough food sitting out for enough time to raise my safety antennae. On three of the seven days we were afloat, one of the six people at our dinner table spent one full day too ill to do anything but stay close to the bathroom. (Put another way, 50 percent of the six people at our table got sick.) Happily, we all recovered, but the percentage is as distressing as the sickness.

The hard sell of optional extras was annoying. Many cruise repeaters actually apologized to us for the crassness of the selling, telling us it didn't used to be this way. Some of the sales pitches were delivered by the captain, [who didn't seem terribly comfortable pitching excursions, shows, and special meals. Hearing him make the sales pitches made me wonder if airline pilots would start pitching the Wolfgang Puck salads that the airlines are now selling for $10 a pop. So far, that job is still being left to the flight attendants.

Marketing "experts" have oversold the cruise lines on using the phrase "Your cruise" whenever the cruise currently underway is mentioned. We got sick of hearing and seeing the words "your cruise" by day two--when we still had five days to go. We felt we were being told to enjoy "our" cruise all day long, including the hours when anywhere on land would have been a more comfortable place for us to be.

Hearing about our cruise over and over made me wonder about my store(s) and my produce person and my deli guy. Stores and deli guys do become mine when they treat me well over and over again, and I like the idea that a store wants to be my store. I just hope they don't tell me about it over and over again.