Awesome Hank
Being a photographer on various cruise boats for several years, I managed to meet a great variety of people. I would say that being in a boat for 2 or more weeks generates some very different dynamics compared to the time we spend on the ground. People seem to be more open and relaxed as admittedly they will accept the fact that the boat is where everything happens from developing a new friendship and flirting with someone to breaking up and divorcing!
Any of those massive luxurious boats that cross the oceans are in a sense like small towns. One thing to remember is that apart from the passengers there are hundreds of employees for whom the boat is the place where they work, live, socialise and sleep 24/7. Although this is against the regulations, there is a lot of social interaction between the members of stuff and the clients.
The most typical profile a passenger is that he is around 60 years old, retired and wealthy. Although they all belong to different professions and educational backgrounds, the bottom line is that the vast majority of them are very successful in their fields. Doctors, lawyers, publishers, editors, journalists, and civil engineers coexist with wealthy shop owners, entrepreneurs and tradesmen. That signifies that high education is not really one of the main factors, although a high income is.
Of course there is a small part of passengers who although they don’t make enough to be afford a luxury, they are happy saving hard in order to make their dream come true cruise. Some of them simply want to experience a different lifestyle which differs from their daily one greatly. Even though I gained most of my experiences on Silversea Cruises where I used to work, other friends mine that used to work for Oceania Cruises and Cunard Cruises have had similar experiences.
When it comes to sports, golf is definitely the number one while cricket and polo are also popular. I would strongly encourage people to try a luxury cruise at least once in their life as it is definitely a unique experience worth the money spent.
Tags: Cruises, Holidays, society, Travel
Posted in Cruises · July 18th, 2010 · Comments (0)
The last 20 years and the revolution of the internet and the computers has shaped tremendously the games kids have been playing. Sports and other outdoor activities were dominating kids play until the game consoles dominated the market in the end of the 80s.
Judging whether the change has been for the kid’s benefit or not is something for the sociologists of the future to investigate and make conclusions. Adults and people who didn’t have the chance to be part of the digital games revolution oppose strongly in that great influence computer games have in their kids lives and their main argument is that computer games are too static and they do not motivate children to move and excercise!
Looking at today’s kinds in terms of general knowledge one could argue that they know a lot more compared to the kids of previous generations mainly because of the vast amount of information available to them through the TV and the internet.
Creativity, great emotions and collaboration are cultivated by both types of play, the traditional one and the technological one alike. A very good example taken from the time I was a kid is a great game boys used to play which we were calling ‘exploration’. The main principle of the game was to enter an abandoned massive building and wonder around it for hours trying to identify as many unusual objects as possible.
I will never forget the day we entered that warehouse that used to belong to an electrical components entrepreneur who’s business had gone into liquidation. The amount of weird objects we had never seen before was incredible: from cable ties to circuit breakers , everything seemed really extraordinary for our minds.
Similarly, playing today a typical adventure game on a computer can lead to similar emotions if say; the main character is entering a similar building and is looking around for something interesting. One could argue that the overall feeling and the amount of adrenaline produced is more or less the same. Because I belong to a generation which witnessed the end of the traditional games and the birth of the game consoles I can say that the buzz I was getting out of the two was the same intense. Therefore, I cannot agree with all those who claim that computer games are dangerous are worthless just because they are not physical enough.
Tags: creative play, Kids, society, teenagers
Posted in Kids · July 1st, 2010 · Comments (0)