After being decimated by Covid, ocean cruising is making a huge comeback. First-time cruiser Chris Schulz joined the boomer brigade in Fiji.
I didn’t think about it. Didn’t even blink. The weather had been wet and wild. A recent brush with Covid left me with a persistent hacking cough. I’d angrily deleted Instagram to avoid tropical holiday snaps posted by family and friends. The All Blacks kept losing.
Would I like to travel to Fiji to cover the return of cruising? Of course I would. Get me the fuck out of Auckland immediately. Please.
It took standing in a queue full of old people on a sunny Denarau jetty for reality to set in. Surrounding me were mostly rich, white and retired couples ready and eager to get back to their cruisy lifestyles after two Covid-affected years off. I, meanwhile, have never been on a cruise. It felt like I was being dropped into foreign territory, sent to secretively observe, then write about, the same people I would mingle with around the breakfast buffet.
“Should I tell them I’m an undercover agent?” was a question that crossed my mind as I befriended Margie and Rob*. We’d just arrived on the deck of the 22-year-old ship Reef Endeavour and the retired Gold Coast couple were beaming, happy to be finally taking a trip they’d first booked two years ago. Learning I was on my own, the cruise veterans quickly sized up the pitfalls of solo cruising – it’s expensive, and, potentially, lonely. “I was wondering about the cost,” laughed Margie.
Advice flowed. Buying drinks from the boat’s bar is expensive, they warned. Rob explained how to tip apple juice from a bottle and replace it with gin, using food colouring to disguise it and sneak it past the crew. Margie made sure I knew to cram as much food onto my plate as possible with every meal, and to join queues early to grab the best grub. They reminisced about meals from past cruises. “You’ll put on weight on those American ones,” warned Rob. “I ate steak four nights in a row. You can buy all-you-can-drink passes.”
I looked around at my 65 fellow cruisers and suddenly realised I would be eating, drinking and socialising alone at an event built entirely for two. Everyone was coupled up and most were more than 20 years outside of my demographic. Pondering my predicament, I decamped to the boat’s empty second floor, stretched out on a lounger and attempted the New York Times quiz, Are you even fun? Before I could finish it I fell asleep, soothed to slumber by the boat’s gentle sway.
When I woke up, I knew what I had to do: I needed to find friends, fast. It turned out others did too. That afternoon, as the Reef Endeavour left Denarau and began exploring some of Fiji’s 333 remote islands, I met several people just like me. Americans Amber and Jenny were old school friends on an overseas trek before starting new jobs. In their mid-20s, they kept getting asked if they were a couple, and the constant explaining was exhausting. Meanwhile, Antonio, from Austria, and Kimberley, from London, quit their jobs and fled Hong Kong’s strict lockdowns for a nine-month world tour before their wedding.
Like me, neither duo had anticipated the whopping age difference they’d have with their fellow passengers. That night, over drinks that weren’t that expensive after all, the five of us bonded over our shared awkwardness. Armed with people I could dine with, drink with, share gossip with, and rely on for some dependable laughs, the cruise took on a completely different vibe. Finally, I could relax and enjoy everything Fiji, and our cruise ship, had to offer. It was time to meet some boomers.
It’s easy to see why retirees love to cruise. Removing paid employment from your daily schedule leaves a gaping hole and cruise ships easily fill it. The list of daily activities, left on a folded piece of A4 on our pillows every day, started at 7am and didn’t finish until after 9.30pm. For those that wanted them, there were oceans to plunge into, coral reefs to snorkel, remote islands to explore, and paddle boards and kayaks to ride. There were talks and tours by crew members, a marine biologist and captain Ken Bellantine. Occasionally, we fed reef sharks in the same water we swam in.
At night, there were cocktail hours, cultural events and canapes to enjoy while being serenaded by musical guests. If you ever got bored, there was food. Holy wow was there a lot of food. Breakfast buffets full of all-you-can-eat bacon and eggs, pastries, cereals, coffees and juices were followed by shovel-it-in lunches of steamed fish, fried chicken, salads, and dessert. Dinners involved multiple courses of squid, fish, chicken and gigantic steaks that I’m sure made Rob happy. In the background, easy listening staples were provided by a keyboard crooner who seemed keen to perform ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’ as often as possible.
On a cruise, food is a major attraction. Several people admitted to me that they felt it was the best way to get value for money out of the trip. Knocking back a hearty breakfast on day two, Perth couple Tina and Paul explained their second reason for cruising: ticking off their bucket list. “Soon, we won’t be able to do it,” said Tina, pointing out their advancing years. The two, originally from New Zealand, eagerly explained their upcoming 77-day touring itinerary for the rest of the year. But it was all practice for the big one: a 33-day Antarctica trip departing in January, a journey that starts at $68,000 per person.
How do they afford all this? “Drugs,” joked Paul. At least, I think he was joking. Sometimes, as he told stories of backpacking alone through Berlin and Mexico, and finding then snorting a kilo of cocaine floating down a Brazilian river, it was hard to tell. He later admitted the pair funded their lifestyle with 60 investment properties dotted around the world. “I retired my kids at six,” Paul boasted, showing off photos on his phone of his son, now 18, trekking up remote mountains. Then he listed all the rare meats he’d tried, including donkey, horse, whale and even cat.
However they made their money, travellers like Tina and Paul are needed by Fiji. The country relies on tourism to keep the economy ticking over, and its residents employed. The industry was decimated by Covid, a tour van operator called Shaz told me after picking me up from the airport. He lost his job and his family converted the back of their house to farmland, selling fresh chillis and coriander door-to-door to survive. Now, the 27-year-old worked 14-hour days ferrying tourists around, a job that allowed him to support his four siblings. Shaz sipped a 4pm coffee and kept his phone on his lap in case his wife called – she was due to go into labour with their first child any minute.
It’s true that tourists are returning with gusto. “Since Fiji’s borders opened in December 2021, over 180,000 Fijians have been able to return to work,” Sonya Lawson, Tourism Fiji’s regional director for New Zealand, told me. This year’s visitor numbers are already more than double last year’s, and many of the arrivals are from Aotearoa. Fiji remains a compelling tourism hotspot. “Considering Kiwis have only been travelling since March, these numbers have exceeded our projections, and holiday-makers are showing no signs of slowing down,” Lawson said.
On the Reef Endeavour, most passengers were from Australia, and many were taking their first cruise in several years. But everyone’s discovering that travelling is not as easy as it used to be. At Auckland International Airport, many bars and eateries remain mothballed. Just one other plane left over the nearly three hours I waited for my flight. Queues are also longer; it took nearly an hour for Fiji’s border security to check everyone had the appropriate paperwork. Proof of Covid vaccination, evidence of travel insurance, and a paid RAT test are required to pass. The Reef Endeavour required a negative test for boarding.
Confidence has been a little slower to return to the cruise industry. The Reef Endeavour, with a capacity of 130 guests, is on the smaller side, but only 65 were on board for the three-day leg I joined. Perhaps the memory still lingers of early pandemic cruise ship horror stories, like the Diamond Princess, which saw infected passengers confined to their tiny cabins for weeks. Still, crew members were delighted to be back at work. One, called Sam, told me his salary helped support his seven siblings. He had dreams of one day captaining his own ship, a gruelling 10-year process of training and monitored sailing.
To succeed, Sam needs cruise ships to return to full capacity. Time and again I was asked by cruise ship guests and crew to send them my story once it was published. Across my trip I built up a catalogue of email addresses and Instagram accounts to do just that. As soon as I landed back in Auckland, I received a message from the ship’s PR team asking when my story would run. It felt like a lot was riding on what I wrote. I hope it’s not.
“We’ve got a problem,” declares captain Ken. He’s leaning on the balcony of his boat, his weathered skin taking in yet another sunset. Until recently, a small sandy island that passengers had been ferried to for a terrific mid-ocean afternoon swim had been visible. Two years ago, the island was never covered fully by water, even during the highest of tides. Now, we couldn’t see it, and high tide was still an hour away. “We’re going to need to find somewhere else to take people for a swim,” he pondered.
Climate change is a huge concern to Fiji. No one seemed to want to talk about it, despite Fiji’s prime minister Frank Bainimarama warning, at a summit in 2015, “the Pacific as we know it is doomed”. Cruise ships are not environmentally friendly, producing at least twice the CO2 emissions per passenger of a long-haul flight. The other concern is plastic. The stuff keeps washing up on Fiji’s beaches, and before each swim we’d wander along the shore filling bags with discarded water bottles, pegs and two-minute noodle wrappers.
It’s understandable that no one wants to risk ruining their good times with tough talk. After the last two years, many of those onboard the Reef Endeavour wanted to use their first holiday in years to forget Covid dramas and climate concerns and fill up their plates with buffet food while sinking another bottle of Fiji Gold in the sun. To be fair, it’s pretty easy to forget your day-to-day concerns when another tropical island and coral reef swim is just around the corner. We visited so many stunning, isolated beaches I lost count. Isn’t that the point of a holiday anyway?
Pulling up on one particular island, I suddenly realised I recognised it. My family are diehard fans of the TV reality show Survivor and the last two seasons of the show were filmed in Fiji. Some of the structures, including a hut, remained on the beach. Delighted, I snapped photos to send back home and began searching, fruitlessly, for a hidden immunity idol. That afternoon, we visited the island where Tom Hanks’ Castaway was filmed, and turned brown coconuts into our own version of Wilson, Hanks’ volleyball friend.
On the final day, on yet another stunning beach, with palm trees looming over us and my footsteps the first to disturb the smooth sand, a portable speaker was set up and a rugby ball procured. A game of beach rugby between a New Zealander, an Australian, Rob from the Gold Coast and three superior Fijians erupted. “Good step,” yelled one at me generously as I twisted, turned and fell into shallow waves. Cardi B’s ‘WAP’ – the uncensored version of the brutally explicit banger – blasted across a beach full of mostly retirees. I’d just scored another story to share with my squad over dinner that night.
When magic moments like that happened, my initial despair at taking a solo cruise turned into something else. I have new Facebook friends and email chains full of people I never thought I’d meet, and a collection of memories I never thought I’d have. Some of us are already planning a catch-up in November. My Covid cough has disappeared. Traveling overseas for the first time since 2019 really did change my vibe. As the crew sang us off board on my final morning, I took my time departing, sharing hugs and saying lingering goodbyes with my new mates. I almost – almost – didn’t want to come home.
Names have been changed. The writer travelled courtesy of Tourism Fiji and Captain Cook Cruises.