A Winter Cruise By Barry Landy
In the winter 2012/2013 I decided to go on a Kosher cruise so that I would be guaranteed three services a day that I, as an avel, am supposed to attend. The cruise left from San Diego on a Friday and ended two weeks later in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also on a Friday, so for Shabbat it was not possible to travel far from the port where we landed. As a result we had two Shabbatot on the ship and a third one in Miami Beach, about 30 minutes drive from Fort Lauderdale. I should explain that by "Kosher Cruise" I mean a cruise which provided Kosher catering and all Jewish necessities, but only for a small minority of the passengers. Our group was perhaps 40 strong, out of about 1300 passengers on the ship. There were in addition some other kosher-eating passengers who were provided with airline style kosher meals by the ship's caterers, and many of them joined us for services.
Above: the ship from a local viewpoint in Mexico.
We left Cambridge on the Monday and went directly to San Diego where we have friends. We stayed with one who lives in La Jolla, a neighbouring town to San Diego. There is an orthodox shul in La Jolla and I found a good minyan there every morning, travelling sometimes by taxi and sometimes borrowing our friend's car. Our friend took us to the pier to board the ship on Friday morning and we boarded, not really knowing what to expect.
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