Qualified Perceptions

Yeah, we were just a subgroup of the cruise. The first cruise was about 250 people, this one was 500-something, out of a total passenger set of more like 1500. The main thing about cruise ships is that they're not designed to have everyone in one place, ever - there's two seatings in the main dining hall (plus the buffet), there's two identical shows in the main hall (which a lot of people skip anyway), so I think we were close to the maximum that we could, as limited by the big hall (but which was too many for the little hall where things like karaoke were). So being all the people on the ship would probably have to have different logistics, more like a conference where everyone isn't expected to be at anything specifically.

Holland America is apparently the Retired Folks cruise line (as opposed to say, Carnival, which is the young party-boat line or Disney, for families with kids), so we were different than the average passenger. (Apparently also much nicer than the average passenger, which surprised us. Not that we're not nice, but I have to admit that "the *nice* people" is not part of the nerd archetype; we're supposed to be socially awkward and weird. Not that there weren't any of that subspecies. :) )