fear of cruising

Most of you who post here are either veteran cruisers or are planning to be.
Once you have taken a cruise you are ready for your next one and are also a
recruiter for friends and family to join you.

This meets with varied levels of success...and I would like a little help if
you or anyone you know has successfully dealt with a 'fear of cruising'.

I have had more than one person express that they didn't think that they
could be on a ship with no land in sight. This to the extent that they
wouldn't even consider a cruise with 'land in sight' (like the Inside
Passage to Alaska). Just the possibility of 'no land in sight' seems enough
to close their mind. Yet the same people will gladly and eagerly travel in
a flimsy aluminum tube at 40,000 ft and 500 mph to go to some far away
place.

I don't necessarily want to cure them, but I would like a little insight
into this mindset. And, is there anyway to help them overcome, or at least
successfully cope with, this phobia?

"rieker" wrote in message
...
...
I have had more than one person express that they didn't think that they could be on a
ship with no land in sight. This to the extent that they wouldn't even consider a
cruise with 'land in sight' (like the Inside Passage to Alaska). Just the possibility
of 'no land in sight' seems enough to close their mind. Yet the same people will gladly
and eagerly travel in a flimsy aluminum tube at 40,000 ft and 500 mph to go to some far
away place.

I don't necessarily want to cure them, but I would like a little insight into this
mindset. And, is there anyway to help them overcome, or at least successfully cope
with, this phobia? ...

I'm not a psychologist but I know there are psychologists and
counselors who are very experienced at working with people
with irrational phobias.

Unfortunately, seeing a psychologist isn't cheap and I don't think
your health insurance will pay for a shrink to overcome a fear of
cruising.

As I understand it, the techniques they use are, to talk a person
through the fear, then to work on very small steps towards
overcoming it. For example, I know of a person who was afraid
of spiders. The counselor caught and brought in a really tiny
spider in a box. When the patient eventually could tolerate seeing
it in a box, she put it in her (the counselor's) hand and let it walk
around, talking calmly all the time. And so on.

My wife once overcame another woman's fear of heights by taking
her out on our second story deck, talking to her very calmly, and
gradually inching closer to the railing. After about a half hour she
had the woman leaning on the railing and talking normally, without
the elevated pulse and fears she first showed when walking out
on the deck.

Now, how do we do that with cruising? That's a tough one isn't it?

Apparently, hypnosis sometimes works with phobias.

Alan

Why not get the person to try river cruising? One can cruise on the
Sacramento, Columbia, Mississippi, Danube, Rhine, Thames, Seine,
Shannon, etc. I have been on all of these and land is in sight all of
the time plus they are docked every night at a port so one can get off
the ship and walk around on land. This could be comforting. The Inside
Passage on an Alaskan cruise is usually only one day on a 7 day cruise.

Three martinis!
"rieker" wrote in message
...
Most of you who post here are either veteran cruisers or are planning to
be. Once you have taken a cruise you are ready for your next one and are
also a recruiter for friends and family to join you.

This meets with varied levels of success...and I would like a little help
if you or anyone you know has successfully dealt with a 'fear of
cruising'.

I have had more than one person express that they didn't think that they
could be on a ship with no land in sight. This to the extent that they
wouldn't even consider a cruise with 'land in sight' (like the Inside
Passage to Alaska). Just the possibility of 'no land in sight' seems
enough to close their mind. Yet the same people will gladly and eagerly
travel in a flimsy aluminum tube at 40,000 ft and 500 mph to go to some
far away place.

I don't necessarily want to cure them, but I would like a little insight
into this mindset. And, is there anyway to help them overcome, or at
least successfully cope with, this phobia?

"JB Shaw" wrote in message
...
Why not get the person to try river cruising? One can cruise on the
Sacramento, Columbia, Mississippi, Danube, Rhine, Thames, Seine,
Shannon, etc. I have been on all of these and land is in sight all of
the time plus they are docked every night at a port so one can get off
the ship and walk around on land.

This is a good idea and might work for a couple of the folks that I know,
but I know one who can't even get on a rowboat. I don't know what happened,
but she has quite a problem. Sad thing, her hubby would love to do a
cruise. :-(

The Inside
Passage on an Alaskan cruise is usually only one day on a 7 day cruise.

Actually, all cruises that leave from Vancouver spend several days in the
Inside Passage. Cool and calm. It's the Seattle round trips that have to
hustle in the open ocean to complete their round trip in 7 days. They miss
a lot. (most of the Inside passage)

Did not think i would ever take a cruise,fear of deep water(cannot swim)
my husband talked me into a cruise for our anniversary in 1972,and have
been cruising ever since,just do not think about being on deep
water.Keep my mind occupied with other things while sailing.
surfer e2468

"rieker" wrote:

Most of you who post here are either veteran cruisers or are planning to be.
Once you have taken a cruise you are ready for your next one and are also a
recruiter for friends and family to join you.

This meets with varied levels of success...and I would like a little help if
you or anyone you know has successfully dealt with a 'fear of cruising'.

I have had more than one person express that they didn't think that they
could be on a ship with no land in sight. This to the extent that they
wouldn't even consider a cruise with 'land in sight' (like the Inside
Passage to Alaska). Just the possibility of 'no land in sight' seems enough
to close their mind. Yet the same people will gladly and eagerly travel in
a flimsy aluminum tube at 40,000 ft and 500 mph to go to some far away
place.

There are lots of people that are afraid of flying too you know.

I don't necessarily want to cure them, but I would like a little insight
into this mindset. And, is there anyway to help them overcome, or at least
successfully cope with, this phobia?

My husband has a friend whose wife is deathly afraid of the water -
she can't swim.

I would echo the river cruise thing. Or maybe even a canal cruise,
like in England on one of their narrowboat canals. Emily Kimbrough
wrote a whole series of books about traveling in Europe, and she was
afraid of heights, afraid of flying and she had only learned to swim
across the pool the short way, so she didn't want to be farther away
from the shore than she could swim. She did two canal/river cruises
in England, and one in France where she rented the boat with friends.
In two cases she had someone else driving the boat and opening the
locks, and in the third one, she and a friend rented a power boat and
were a little more adventurous. I know there are 'hotel' type canal
boat cruises available in England where everything is done for you
(and no children under 14 are allowed).

The water is not very deep - maybe 6 or 7 feet, and I can walk along
the canal path (where the boats used to be pulled by horses) as fast
as the boat goes.

Stay drunk the whole cruise???


"rieker" wrote in message
...
Most of you who post here are either veteran cruisers or are planning to
be. Once you have taken a cruise you are ready for your next one and are
also a recruiter for friends and family to join you.

This meets with varied levels of success...and I would like a little help
if you or anyone you know has successfully dealt with a 'fear of
cruising'.

I have had more than one person express that they didn't think that they
could be on a ship with no land in sight. This to the extent that they
wouldn't even consider a cruise with 'land in sight' (like the Inside
Passage to Alaska). Just the possibility of 'no land in sight' seems
enough to close their mind. Yet the same people will gladly and eagerly
travel in a flimsy aluminum tube at 40,000 ft and 500 mph to go to some
far away place.

I don't necessarily want to cure them, but I would like a little insight
into this mindset. And, is there anyway to help them overcome, or at
least successfully cope with, this phobia?

"The Wolf With the Red Roses" wrote in message
...

Many sailors on the old Sailships never learned how to swim as it
would only prolong their deaths.

That's good to know, but I'm not 100% certain that it would
comfort the person who is afraid of cruising :-)

"The Wolf With the Red Roses" wrote in message
...
....
Most people are not afraid of the water because they cannot swim.
Many cannot swim for the very fact that are afraid of the water. Like
most irrational phobias, it is usually based on some type of mental
trauma like almost drowning in the bath tub as a baby or something.
....

Good point. There are different reasons why people may be
afraid of the water. A real therapist would try to discover the
person's reason before attempting any therapy for it.

Incidentally, how we deal with our fears is much influenced
by the people around us. When I was a young boy my Dad
tried to teach me to ride a bike. Naturally I crashed on the first
ride and wouldn't try again no matter how much he coaxed me.

Later, a neighborhood kid that I looked up to found I couldn't
ride. He said, "You can't ride? Why it's easy. I'll show you."
He put me back on the bike, pushed me along and shouted
instructions.

I could be lame in front of my Dad, but not in front of my
peers in the neighborhood. More mortified by looking lame
in front of the other kids than afraid of crashing, I quickly
mastered it.

The original poster didn't mention the age or gender of the
person(s) with the fears. But it may be that peer pressure
continues to work even at older ages.