The Love Boat

The Jerusalem Post, March 2005
by Lisa Alcalay Klug

A few weeks ago, I accepted one of my most unusual freelance gigs: a singles' cruise. Yes, I am unattached. But I was on assignment. I went strictly for research. Really.

Organized by JSinglesCruise.com, this cruise within a cruise was scheduled to set sail from Ft. Lauderdale for seven days in the eastern Caribbean, complete with a handful of maritime mashgichim, midnight buffets and even Shabbat services aboard the five-star Celebrity Millennium luxury liner. With 100 singles, mixers and other activities, it sounded like it could be wonderful. Or it could be a nightmarish, week-long singles event with a life jacket I might actually need.

Still, I had an assignment to complete and, with JSinglesCruise's three-part slogan, I had three tasks at hand: "Have fun. See the world. Meet your bashert."

Mission Number One: "Have Fun"

As we boarded the ship and headed to a festive welcome lunch, I was surrounded by familiar faces. Like a retrospective of previous writing gigs, there were two New Yorkers I met at last year's spirituality conference in Maui, the guy I met when covering Kosher Club Med in Mexico, a few friends from Isralight retreats and another female adventure traveler I met in Florida. At a minimum, I would be in good company.

Even better, our cruise director, Helit Edelstein, who spun JSinglesCruise off from her family's Kosherica cruise company, had carefully planned the entire week, even our dining companions. At each table, the same women were seated together every evening, with different men rotating between us, literally boy-girl-boy-girl. Rather than feeling randomly stuck together, we women became a sort of "Sex in the City" foursome (without the skimpy outfits and near-total hedonistic abandon).

We were all religious to varying degrees. Some of us knew each other prior to the cruise. And during each dinner, as the men came and (sometimes) went, we stayed put, sincerely enjoying our camaraderie.

That's when I realized the four of us were the anchor for this article. But only I had agreed to use my real name. They hadn't. So I invited them to create their own aliases. "Sarah" is the size of the show's narrator, Carrie Bradshaw. "Katherine" is a blonde like Samantha. And like a somewhat quirky Miranda, when "Taika" was given an option to create a new identity, she chose "something exotic." While my dark hair resembles that of the on-screen Charlotte, my role was 100% Carrie, toting along my laptop and keeping my assignment in mind.

When it came to the real test of this category, having fun, Sarah, Katherine, Taika and I knocked this one off no problem. Frum yes, but as we soon discovered, we also know how to get funky. Like sudden mascots of the show's "girls just wanna have fun" club, we held what you might call a "tznius all-girl boogie" in the ship's 11th floor disco, appropriately named Cosmos (a cranberry martini), every night but Shabbat. Our universal verdict: "off da hook."

With our easy dinner/disco rapport, we had no problem extending that to a fabulous time during daylight hours. On our first full day at sea, Sarah and I attended a Dudu Fisher concert arranged by Edelstein's father, Yehuda Schifman, the owner of Kosherica, which always sails in tandem with JSingles, making it easy for families and singles to travel together. In the ship's cavernous theater, we clapped along to Fischer's Elvis-inspired "Lecha Dodi."

We also enjoyed exploring the rest the ship, including the expansive women's sauna with a massive porthole, spa, reading and listening libraries, cinema, as well as a bunch of JSingles group activities, including speed-dating, games and even finger painting.

I admit, was fun.

And then, there were the "drinks of the day." As Katherine and Taika soon realized, Sarah and I tread lightly when it comes to cocktails. So we demurred to the other half of our foursome when it came to re-enacting this aspect of the legendary television series. From their on-deck chaise lounges and elsewhere on ship, Katherine and Taika sipped pina coladas, green apple martinis, frozen margaritas, Tom Collins and Hashem only knows what else.

With extensive glatt kosher buffets at each breakfast and lunch, and a nightly five-course, sit-down dinner, there were plenty of other calories easily within reach. So many in fact that Katherine and I, who often met up in the ocean-view fitness center, joked our work-outs were so intense that we had to make sure we consumed enough calories to avoid losing weight on the ship. Lest we disembark as waifs, we dutifully enjoyed sampling nearly everything available. Soon, our handsome Slavic dinner waiter was serving up plates of curly fries from the kids' menu without our even asking.

Mission Number Two: "See the World"

Few vacations offer the opportunity of going to sleep in one country and safely waking up in another without an assist from the black market. On Day Three, in our first port, Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, I joined a rigorous kayaking excursion through a wide river surrounded by lush, tropical foliage. I returned to the ship spent, definitely requiring a second dessert at dinner.

The next day, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sarah went off to visit an old friend. Taika went horseback riding. And Katherine and I headed to the lush rain forest that lived up to its name with a sudden downpour. The terrain was so gorgeous, we would have gladly kept hiking. But our driver insisted we quickly wrap up our tour. Somehow, it seemed, he knew of our weight maintenance program and the urgency to return to the ship for immediate five-star nourishment.

My favorite port was St. Thomas, where I spent the afternoon exploring town and the historic synagogue and the morning hiking and snorkeling in a protected biosphere. Amidst red mangrove trees, we spotted yellow-and-black-striped sergeant majors, tiny bright damselfish, barracuda, graceful (harmless) jellyfish, one magnificent green moray eel and many other fantastic creatures. But none of them were appropriate males on two legs, which leads me to the final frontier...

Mission Number Three: "Meet your Bashert"

At Friday lunch, we all received a party favor: a fist-sized squishable globe with green land masses punctuating bright blue seas. Under the JSinglesCruise.com logo, the ball featured the company's three-part slogan. I held it up for our foursome over all-you-can-eat sushi.

"Have fun," I said, making a virtual check with my forefinger. "See the World." Another check. "Meet Your Bashert." I stopped speaking and put the ball down.

I would have never imagined I would ever go on a love boat, let alone actually describe the experience in public. But this was great. There were eligible men in our group. And some women actually met them. Still, I had a fabulous vacation, I mean assignment. And instead of suffering one horrible, seven-day singles' party, it was more like camp, but with nightly turndown service and requiring a valid passport. Sure, there were plenty of couples taking shape, but there were also lots of folks without sweethearts enjoying each other's company, fantastic ports of call and an endless supply of curly fries.

Besides, it's not all about me... Sarah, Katherine or even Taika. On the August, 2004 cruise, a woman from New York City met a man from London. They're getting married in March. And on our sailing, one on-board couple had been dating for more than a year before they joined the cruise. On Saturday night, a great commotion broke out in the dining room somewhere between the entree and dessert. As the cameras flashed, a cake was brought to their table as everyone sang a rousing "siman tov u'mazal tov." As the bride explained, the cruise had sealed the deal.