Cruise Proud – Wear your ship-love on your sleeve … or right across your heart.

Monday Mantra

Fit to a T … Fit to a T … Fit to a T … Fit to a T …

Cruise Proud

Wear your ship-love on your sleeve … or right across your heart.

It seems that with every mention of cruising, there comes a comment about T-shirt shops. So, being an entrepreneurial kind of gal, I’m thinking it might be time to launch a full line of T-shirts specifically for today’s cruise passengers. Once I get some time, I’m going to print a bunch of these up, go down to the pier, hawk them to anyone getting ready to board a ship, and make a few bucks:

1. “Ask Me How Many Cruises I’ve Been On”: This one serves two purposes: For those who want to hear — in exhaustive detail — every single shipboard experience the wearer has had since his first cruise in 1972, the shirt’s message encourages conversation. For those who really couldn’t give a damn that the wearer had dinner with the captain of some rust bucket that hasn’t sailed in 25 years, it provides ample warning.

2. “I♥︎My Butler”: An ingenious way to let everyone know you’re occupying suite-level accommodations without coming right out and bragging about it.

3. “I May Be Old, But I’ve Sailed All the Cool Ships.”: This is for a more mature demographic. I’m thinking maybe a graphic of people hanging over the rail during a bon voyage party on the front and, on the back, a lineup of some of the classic ships people still talk about like Norway, QE2, Oceanic, and Rotterdam.

4. “Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Karaoke”: On any night when I feel like downing a few margaritas, I’d stick really close to anyone sporting this number.

5. “Keep Calm and Get the Beverage Package”: This will appeal to the frugal drinker and anyone else who can’t figure out how their end-of-sailing bar bill could be higher than their cruise fare.

6. “You Can’t Scare Me … I’m in an Inside Cabin”: Windowless rooms typically hold hostages and prisoners. Show the world how tough you are with this powerful message.

7. “My Other T-Shirt Is Tied to a Poolside Deck Chair”: The choice of the proud and irritating deck chair hog.

8. “Be Kind to Towel Animals”: There’s no need to be a vegetarian to wear this style (and thank God for that because the steakhouse is soooo good), but you can still exude compassion and sensitivity by advertising the fact that you care for your little terry friends and don’t immediately dismantle them and fling them on to the bathroom floor.

9. “Kiss My Patch”: You’re not risking seasickness on your vacation, and this design lets everyone know that you’re wearing your patch even in calm seas and on shore — and you don’t care what anyone thinks.

10. “Seven Short Blasts and One Long Blast (Sorry…I just left the buffet)”: Every T-shirt line needs a tasteless slogan that deals with bodily functions. This is mine.

And those are just for starters. What would your T-shirt say?

 

Judi Cuervo

Judi Cuervo is a New York City native who fell in love with cruising in 1976 during her first sailing aboard Carnival Cruises’ Mardi Gras. Twenty years later, she began her freelance cruise writing gig and, since that time, has covered mass market, ultra-premium, riverboat and expedition ships for regional, national and international publications as well as cruise websites.