I am perched at the top of a perfect wave surfing across the Atlantic 200 feet above sea level. No, I am not hanging ten on some gigantic Tsunami rushing toward distant shores - and I am not exactly in the Atlantic. I am in a 32-foot wide, 40-foot-long heated pool, with jets shooting out 30,000 gallons per minute, creating a 30 mph current, and a 10-foot-high permanent artificial wave - The FlowRider.
You have seen the image on television: a handsome surfer with long blond hair balancing atop the Biggest Cruise Ship in the World: Freedom of the Seas, which begins its inaugural cruise on June 4th from Miami.
The reason for the wave and the surfer dude is to show that cruising is not for the newly wed, overfed, or nearly dead.
Cruise lines are trying to erase the geriatric image of cruising - my mother once took a round-the-world cruise and on her return regaled me with stories of the body bags being hauled down the gangway on a conveyer belt early in the mornings at every stop from China to Southeast Asia. Royal Caribbean wants to promote that one visual image so powerful that it can shatter all preconceptions...and they seem to have succeeded. Family cruising is hot with multigenerational baby-boomer families. Bring grandma and the kids - something for everyone on seven miles of deck. With me, they have hit their middle-aged target. As a skinny fifteen year old, forty-five years ago, I always wanted to surf like my older lifeguard cousins. But I hardly ever managed to stand up. Who says there are no second chances in life?
The FlowRider is kind of like surfing-lite. From a beach you have to maneuver out through the breakers, paddle furiously to catch the wave, and then attempt to get to your feet. On the FlowRider you start out standing on a little board and hop over to the current. But it's harder than it looks. Out of the hundred or so people who tried it one morning only about three or four managed to stay up even for a few seconds. Most people are instantly swept off their feet by the strong current and pushed over the ten-foot wave to the padded back wall. A large audience gathers around to watch the silliness. The swiftly rushing stream rips off the bathing suit bottoms of at least five women and a few men to the delight of the spectators in the amphitheatre. But the intrepid surfers keep coming back for more. I manage to get up a few times. They take my picture. I am in heaven. I am fifteen years old again, a slim and handsome daredevil; the girls applaud. Most of my baby-boomer sixties friends would never be caught dead on a cruise ship. It's not cool - something for old people or for people who don't really want to travel to a foreign country at all. Normally, traveling is difficult. You have to worry about where you are going to sleep each night. You don't know where your next meal is coming from. You have to figure out trains, buses, road directions, crowded airports, weird money. It's all very upsetting...and exciting. 
But cruising on a ship like this is easy and predictable. "Look Ma, there's Cozumel or Montego Bay. We can rush out and buy cheap trinkets and be back at the ship in a few hours, and not even have to leave the port." The Freedom of the Seas is humongous, four times as big as the Titanic, as high as a 24-story building and four times as long - a perfect self-contained world - a Battleship Galactica. It has an ice-skating rink, a basketball court, a mini-golf course, a boxing ring, a large game arcade, a five story-climbing wall, and a casino that would not look out of place in Atlantic City. There is a six story high shopping arcade and an auditorium that seats 1,350 for nightly Broadway shows. The main dining room soars three stories high under an enormous crystal chandelier and seats an intimate 2,100 passengers at one time. The ship sleeps 6,000 passengers and crew. There is virtually no reason to ever leave the ship at all. It is the ultimate destination all by itself. The ship is a floating chunk of Las Vegas - glitzy, ersatz, and flamboyantly gaudy, with mock antiquity all over the place. My college age son distains the surfing pool and other activities. He has set a pub crawling goal of drinking in each of the 18 bars in one single evening. At least he won't have to drive home. The unanswered question is: if they build them will anybody come? A gaggle of similar, even bigger cruise ships are on the way. In the fall of 2009 Carnival will unleash the 222,000-ton Genesis with room for 6,400 passengers. Already lines are discounting some prices for the summer and fall. But 10.1 million Americans will sail this year, a 47% jump from five years ago.
This gargantuan floating theme park is definitely uncool and a kitschy way to travel, but I will probably be back with the kids. They won't gripe about the food or having nothing to do and I never did get to the climbing wall. It is like touring the world without ever leaving home.