A final question to ask about the cruise ships is what do the political and economy and cultural understanding of these vacations fail to address? It seems that they have forgotten nothing. The cruise ship industry can be viewed as having created the perfect system—create a type of vacation that targets people who want to get away from it all, see the world and most importantly, spend money. Then these people are taken to an enclosed space where the only form of entertainment is to indulge and consume excess and luxury. Added to this plenty of warm and tropical islands and countries which offer the promise of culture and adventure, but without being able to compete with the cruises for the business of the travelers, and on top of that are easily exploited for the sake of profit. This is an entrepreneur’s dream come true, the most amazing way to satisfy the American public while taking there money!

But what if people started to realize this. After about one week of cruise ship research, two 19-year-old students could explain the tactics and patterns of these companies, and point out the social and economic flaws. We were able to laugh at the absurdity of the pictures and quotes on the various websites of these companies. And other people are not attracted to this contrived and controlled form of entertainment either. At the end of the day, the only thing that the cruise ship companies cannot control is the fact that they cannot overlook those people that ask questions and do not buy into the promises of fun on the open sea. And although most Americans are probably not classifies as these type of people, there are a few of us, and we sure as hell aren’t going on any cruises—we can find our FUN elsewhere. Back.