Travel: Against the Tide

The Bahamian sun slides into the aquamarine sea as the last passengers of the cruise ship Nordic Empress return from a hard day of sunbathing, shell hunting and rum drinking on Coco Cay's white sand beach. "Bring me another Bahama Mama," yells Danny Rivero, 23, from amid 102 degrees hot-tub bubbles high up on the ship's sun deck. Fellow passenger Renato Deoliveira, 19, obediently passes along a lethal concoction of 151-proof Myers's rum, apricot brandy, coconut rum and fruit punch, while Ted and Kay LaTour, a Milwaukee couple in their 60s, laugh indulgently and sink lower in the froth. "Supposedly we're in a recession," says Ted. "But you look around this cruise and wonder."

Everywhere you look around the Nordic Empress, people like Ted LaTour are defying the dismal economic news back home. Across the teak sun deck, Nancy and Bruce Brentlinger of Terre Haute, Ind., are sipping their own Bahama Mamas and playing cards. Down on Deck 4, Tim and Ann Swan of San Antonio are dressing for the '50s rock-'n'-roll night. On Deck 5, Liz Scheetz from Chapel Hill, N.C., is slamming quarters into a Dynamite Jackpot slot machine, while around the corner in the Carousel Pub Mary Ann Brower of Pleasantville, N.J., is celebrating with a bottle of Freixenet champagne. In the dining room, with its two-deck-high wall of windows, the crew is getting ready to serve a dinner of lobster tail and prime sirloin to a sequined and tuxedoed crowd of 1,323.

Whoa, what's going on here? Consumer confidence sank to a 12-year low in January. Airlines are estimating a $2 billion loss for 1991. Hotels are struggling along with occupancy rates barely above 60%. Yet cruise ships are leaving ports from Miami to Los Angeles, New York City to Seattle, with their cabins more than 90% full. Despite the Persian Gulf war and the recession, the cruise industry posted a 10% gain in 1991. A record 4 million Americans took cruises last year, up from a mere half a million in 1970. Carnival Cruise Lines, the world's largest, and No. 2 Royal Caribbean Cruises report record- setting sales this year. In January alone, the two Miami-based companies took bookings from more than 615,000 passengers. "The tide is rising for the cruise industry," exults Carnival's senior vice president of sales and marketing, Bob Dickinson, chairman of the 34-member Cruise Lines International Association. "Cruising is hot."

Until the mid-1980s, the cruise-ship industry was a doddering old lady. TV's long-running Love Boat went a long way toward changing perceptions, as did heavy network advertising. Flashy new ships like Carnival's Fantasy and Royal Caribbean's Nordic Empress now lure passengers with soaring Hyatt-style atriums, neon-lit discos and casinos with low table limits. The elderly can still take a constitutional around the deck, of course, but the trend is toward state-of-the-art fitness spas and sports platforms for water skiers. Princess and Royal Caribbean lines have even bought islands for private beaches.