Floating the Small Idea

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados â€”  Western civilization did not produce the midnight buffet, that cruise-ship icon, by accident. Like the spangled gown worn on formal night or the invitation to dinner at the captain’s table, the midnight buffet, its boards groaning with cold cuts and ice sculptures, is a cruise tradition embraced by millions. And these traditions are honored and preserved, in varying degrees, by most of the big passenger ships at sea.

But what if you hate that stuff? What if you like sailing and water sports, love the idea of unpacking your luggage just once per vacation, but want to decide for yourself when to eat dinner? What if you’re equally dubious of old-fashioned cruises and newfangled, hyperactive “fun ships�? What if you suspect that smaller is better?

Then you consider a littler, less formal, more sporty ship. And perhaps, on a Caribbean evening around sunset, you end up standing on a tidy upper deck, craning your neck to see as the sails unfurl above.

There was no bingo game this afternoon. There are no table assignments for dinner. And there will be no variety show afterward. Just 74 passenger cabins line the halls, and among 87 crew members, not one is an ice sculptor. Tomorrow there will be kayaking and snorkeling.

Now a waiter arrives with your drink. The sails, adjusted by whirring computer-driven machinery, flap from four 200-foot masts. The waterfront lights of your tiny island port twinkle as you leave. An epic score seems to be called for. And lo, from the top deck’s speakers booms Vangelis’ thunderous theme from the film “1492.� In the trade this is known as a “sail-away anthem.� You find yourself standing in the middle of a fully orchestrated spectacle on a ship neither tradition-bound nor hyperactive.

Hmmm, you think. This cruising thing. It’s really not so bad.

Yes, much of the cruise industry seems to be sticking with tradition or filling decks with dizzying activity or building ever-bigger ships. In fact, a “medium-size� ship these days carries 1,500 passengers. But a handful of cruise lines have steered a contrarian course with smaller, more relaxed ships, and many in the travel trade see this resistance to regimentation as a sign of what’s to come.

“People do not like to be told that they have to eat at a certain hour,� says Mike Hannan, owner of San Marin Travel in Novato. Larry Fishkin, president of the Cruise Line, a Miami-based travel agency specializing in cruises, foresees a major baby boomer-driven trend toward informality, even on some of the priciest cruises offered by high-end lines such as Seabourn, Princess and others.

“You’ll see that the Seabourns of the world are becoming more casual, as a response to the marketplace,� Fishkin says. “And I think Windstar has something to do with that.�

Windstar, which sails four ships, cultivates a reputation for “casual elegance� and sets rates at roughly $350 to $500 per person per day. It is the line that delivered me to that Vangelis moment a few weeks ago, and its ships are also the most luxurious you can take without packing a necktie.

*

Other lines with small ships and casual, sporty approaches include Star Clipper (about $200 a day and up), whose two four-masted ships offer fewer creature comforts and more nautical emphasis, and Windjammer Barefoot Cruises (with even lower prices and far more rustic conditions). For a small ship with more adventurous itineraries and greater emphasis on learning, there is Special Expeditions. For greater luxury and less sports emphasis, there are such small-ship lines as Seabourn, Radisson Seven Seas, Sea Goddess and Silversea. (Costs on those top-of-the-line ships usually exceed $500 per person per day and sometimes exceed $750. Any well-informed travel agent should be able to give the coming year’s itineraries and describe ships.)

I took one of Windstar’s seven-day cruises in December, a southern Caribbean loop on its flagship, the Wind Star (built in 1986). For any traveler whose introduction to cruising came on more conventional ships, the features absent are just as striking as those present.

The Wind Star and its siblings, the Wind Song (1987) and the Wind Spirit (1988), feature no lecturers, no ship’s photographer, no entertainment beyond a small musical team, no formal night.

The passenger cabins are egalitarian: Everybody gets a couple of portholes and nobody gets a private veranda. Cabins have contemporary art on the walls, VCRs, CD players and televisions. (Movies, CDs and books are free for borrowing in the ship’s library.)

There is no elevator, a clear message that these ships are aimed at vigorous grown-up passengers. (The ship offers no kids’ activities, no baby-sitting, no discounts for children. Of about 140 passengers on my cruise, I saw no one under 18.)

Another key to the ship’s character can be found in the rear, just above the waterline. That’s the ship’s retractable sports platform, which folds out from the stern when the anchor is down and gives passengers direct access to water sports without going ashore.

A few other ships have some version of the same thing such as the marina decks aboard the three vessels of the pricier, more staid Seabourn line. But on Wind Star, the platform is a marquee attraction.

*

On the island of Nevis, our first port call, I took an introductory tour ($49), then returned to the ship, borrowed one of the sports deck kayaks (no additional charge) and paddled over to check out the Four Seasons Resort, by far the biggest business on the island. Another day, I leaped from the ship (a 3-foot hop from the sports platform, actually) and passed an hour taking turns being towed on an inflated banana, a lazy man’s alternative to water-skiing (which was also available). Several other passengers joined me, along with the ship’s doctor, Susan Schayes, who spends one month each year practicing (and banana-riding) aboard the Wind Star and--before you get too envious--the other 11 in Edmonton, Alberta.

While we splashed and struggled for balance, some fellow passengers lazed on the deck, got massages, got their hair done, or shuttled between the ship and waterfront gift shops on a small tender that made circuits every half an hour. Others found their way to island golf courses, snorkeled, made scuba excursions or windsurfed--most of those activities staged from the sports platform, with the help of Mike and Wendy Clifford, the bronzed husband-and-wife team running it.

The modest number of passengers also leaves more room for spontaneity in choosing activities. Casual visits to the ship’s bridge are encouraged, and you can take your dinner early or late, at a table for two or table for 10, choosing your own dining companions, if any.

Equally important, the galley is able to reach beyond the generic fare often served up on larger ships, and send out dishes such as herbed ravioli, roasted rabbit and risotto of acorn squash (with lobster and tarragon) without fear of complaint from resolute surf-and-turf eaters. (Chef Joachim Splichal, of Patina fame in Los Angeles, is credited as designer of the cuisine, although the ships’ on-board chefs take their own liberties.)

However, if you’re one who likes exploring a ship at leisure, your investigations on Wind Star aren’t likely to take more than a few hours. If you’re unimpressed by the stylings of the resident musical duo in the lounge--and I was--there’s no live alternative aboard. Also, if you find yourself targeted by that fellow passenger carrying around the unpublished novel/unappreciated demo/underexplored personal history, evasive action is not always easy when there are only about 140 of you.

But these are minor things. In the larger picture, it’s an easy life on the Wind Star. And it’s clear that the cruise line’s management believes that baby boomers want a different sort of cruise than the generation that preceded them. Further evidence of this strategy: Windstar in late 1997 purchased one of Club Med’s two smallish and sporty ships. Windstar is widely expected to buy the other Club Med ship as soon as red tape allows.

Windstar says its average passenger is 48 years old and the average couple earns $75,000 to $200,000 yearly. So it seemed on my ship. There were a few couples who had never cruised before (that’s the case for about 25% of Windstar’s passengers), several who had only cruised with Windstar, and a few who preferred this to more traditional ships. Many were Southern Californians--surprising given the roughly 12 hours of flying and standing around that it takes to reach Barbados from LAX. There was a Santa Barbara businessman auditioning the ship for a corporate incentive trip. A chief financial officer and doctor from Minneapolis. An Orange County insurance company investigator who specializes in nailing lawyers. A Los Angeles lawyer who specializes in nailing insurance companies. (They got along fine.) Several told me that their vacation had come down not to a choice among cruise lines, but a choice between Windstar and an active, upscale resort, perhaps in Hawaii.

*

Many of those aboard didn’t realize that since 1989, Windstar Cruises has been a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., the giant behind the 11 Carnival “fun ships� and the 11 ships of Holland America Westours, leading the mass-market cruise industry in market share.

If you’re on vacation, of course, the ship itself might be more interesting than its owner’s last annual report. For instance, the Wind Star’s relatively modest size and shallow draught--just 14 feet--give the vessel a chance to comfortably approach smaller ports not found on standard itineraries, such as Nevis, the tiny island group called Les Saintes and Bequia. Even when coming off such a ship, no cruise passenger is likely to stumble onto many genuine cultural revelations during a six-hour port call. But these island stops were more relaxed and sensible than many I’ve seen.

At Nevis, the crew went ashore and staged a barbecue on a nearly empty beach, complete with a locally hired steel-drum band--a feat that would be impossible with 1,200 passengers.

On Terre-de-Haut, one of the French Les Saintes islands, passengers strolled the few streets of the main town, outnumbered by day-trippers from Guadeloupe.

Similarly, on Bequia (pronounced BECK-wee), cruisers found their way to the prime beach (where lambs and goats played on the sand), headed off for lunch in local restaurants, or nursed drinks in waterfront bars. I didn’t have that invading-horde sensation that can haunt self-conscious tourists when stepping off a tour bus or bigger ship.

*

Another appealing novelty of Windstar ships is the idea of sailing on a vessel that actually has sails. Amid 20-knot tail winds off Dominica, Capt. Henning Heltberg came to the public-address system to announce, with evident pride, that we were traveling at eight knots, engines off. Another evening, having pulled away from Nevis, the same voice announced that we’d exited the harbor on harnessed wind alone. (In the week, this ship spent 93 hours in transit, 17 of them under sail only.)

But the most exhilarating portion of the itinerary for most passengers, without a doubt, came as we pulled away from the French designer-store shoppers’ island of St. Barthelemy. In a rare intersection of itineraries, the Wind Star’s sister ship Wind Spirit was in the same harbor, and outward bound.

The two ships might be relatively small, but when the 440-foot-long vessels drew up beside each other, traded horn blasts and blinked lights, we felt big.

Each set of passengers crowded the rails, admiring their mirror image, sea foam flying, sun setting, flashbulbs popping. Yes: another Vangelis moment.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Blowing With the Wind Star

Windstar Cruises (telephone [800] 258-7245) will keep the Wind Star (148 passengers) on Barbados-based Caribbean itineraries through March 22 (fewer than half a dozen cabins remain), then send it to the Mediterranean in the spring and summer, Southeast Asia in the fall and winter. The Wind Spirit, identical to the Wind Star, will summer in the Mediterranean, winter in the Caribbean. The Wind Song, also identical, summers in the Mediterranean, winters in Costa Rica. The recently acquired Wind Surf (312 passengers in 125 cabins and 31 larger suites) will summer in Mediterranean, winter in the Caribbean. Itineraries run seven to 15 days. Rates run $350-$500 per person per day.

For those even more intrigued by sailing ships, Star Clippers (tel. [800] 442-0556) are two 360-foot, four-masted ships with lower prices and fewer amenities than Windstar, but greater emphasis on maritime tradition.

Among the lines with pricier small ships or yachts: Cunard (Sea Goddesses I and II); Seabourn (Seabourn Pride, Seabourn Spirit, Seabourn Legend); Radisson Seven Seas (Song of Flower, Radisson Diamond, Paul Gauguin); and Silversea (Silver Cloud, Silver Wind).