The Cruise of a Lifetime

What Kind of "Triumph" on Carnival Cruise?  

There is just something strangely ironic that a modern vessel outfitted with the highest grade technology and craftsmanship would have its propulsion system blow out and strand 1500 in anything but a lap of luxury--and the vessel's name is "Triumph."  Really!   It brings to my my mind the actual sighting of a 60 foot sailboat that sailed right onto a reef--and its name was "Brilliant."  

 Alright, let’s not knock this one too badly.  The boat broke down with 1500 aboard who had booked a cruise for the “time of their lives”—and they got it—but not the way they expected.  Apparently there was a fire and the propulsion system crashed.  Everything is “okay,” the boat did not sink—but its hardly first class accommodations.  Can the passengers play their cards right?  Full refund and a free cruise later on?  Really first class accommodations in New Orleans—everything is booked—with private charters set to fly them back to Houston.  What else can be done?  After all, now they have a story to tell for the rest of their lives. 

 
 Walker Percy, American Book Award Winner, has said that we need these kinds of disruptions, major excursions off course so to speak, to prove to ourselves that we are alive. It shakes us out of the malaise, the doldrums of our lives.  Life after all is not a cruise, though that’s what we may have signed up for. Percy also promoted the idea that nobody can escape from their own freedom "to steer their own boat" so to speak. There is only one captain on board your boat.  All kinds of circumstances come and go--like being stranded on a luxury yacht--but you can only determine how you will said through those waters.