Liveaboard with fewer old people?

[outofofficebrb]

It would be interesting to contact a company (e.g.: Aggressor) or boat and ask how time of year impacts customer demographic. For example, if you get on www.cruisecritic.com and express a desire to cruise with few children, or you have or like kids and want plenty around, there are themes you'll see in responses:

1.) Working people often don't take over a week off at a time, and younger people often have less to spend. Long cruises, costing more by nature, tend to feature an older demographic.
2.) Many people don't like pulling kids out of school. Therefore, summer vacation, and spring and fall breaks, have more kids/families. While minors & their parents would seem most affected, I would guess college students would be, too.
3.) So, if you like kids, summer or break cruises, 7-days or less (maybe 3-4 days on spring break if you're looking for drunken college party scenes) might be just the ticket.
4.) If you avoid kids, how about a 10+ day cruise in February?

Live-aboard customers probably have different issues; most probably don't get many kids under 10 (minimum dive cert. age I think), so unless they get a lot of teen (or college) divers in summer, I doubt there's as radical a shift. But maybe some? If most parents are 18+ years older than their kids, and minimum cert. age 10, figure a lot of parents of 'certifiable' kids are in their 30's or 40's. I'd think the customer base would skew older on kids, but still...

Richard.

I once sailed across the Atlantic on a cruise. We did 2 sailings back to back on the same ship. That was itinerary 1. I want to say it was 5 days at sea.....it was like a floating nursing home. Everyone younger and much younger didn’t have an extra 5 days to burn at sea given school and work/limited vacation and probably opted to fly. It was very interesting!

 

[ivorynightfall]

Wow, this thread turned out to be way more educational, thoughtful and interesting than I'd ever thought!

Thank you for all your responses. Particularly you, Kathy, I appreciate it

scubasteve, I will definitely let you know about next Liveaboard I take!

Outofofficebrb, I'm also in San Francisco! Let's grab coffee sometime, I'd love to meet and hear about liveaboards you're going on next!

I apologize if my original post is a bit patronizing - as an astute observer noted, boorishness is found in every age group and there is a particularly boorish couple on this Maldives explorer boat I'm on right now. It's not so much the old people, it's an awful old white man who has yelled at me multiple times now for being too aggressive (for context, I'm a young Asian female and do believe race/gender is a factor here). So much that I've taken the time to complain on scuba board on my vacation.

Eg he literally just said **** you to my face and called me a cockroach 3 times because I called out the fact that they'd moved my stuff - nobody else's' and three other people from my row are doing the same thing - from a sun lounger I had been using in the morning on the top deck. He then responded by spewing the hateful words above.I'm not one to get in verbal fights with people who are irrational - especially on vacation - but with 5 more days left I am dreading further interaction with this couple.

So I guess this has turned into - what do you do if you have an incredibly boorish character on your Liveaboard?

 

[Bubblesong]

No one should be cursing or name calling, this guy sounds scary and the Liveaboard should ban him from further bookings.
For YOUR future happiness, i do have a question for context: when you leave stuff on a lounger, is it for a few minutes to go to restroom, or to hold the lounger while you are diving, having dinner etc. Because on the ships that don’t have a lounger for every single person, leaving stuff on them while not in use for a period is not allowed, and it can be the crew that removes stuff. Also, Did you mean three other people have moved your stuff? ( A Whopping big clue to the general culture of shared limited resources) or that three people have complained about “Scary Harry the Haranguer”
So you are female, i guess my limerick wasn’t on the right track at all!

 

[Hoag]

@ivorynightfall please do not let that "particularly boorish couple" especially the man who was a jerk (to put it in forum friendly terms - personally I use a different term for what you described) intimidate you. They do not represent the majority of those of us who love live aboards. "Richard Craniums" (again to be polite) can come in all forms, but thankfully, they tend to avoid LOBs for the most part. As they say, timing is everything, and it appears that unfortunately, you seem to have bad timing. If you were on the trip a week earlier, or on next week's trip, then they wouldn't have been a factor.

To respond to your question of what do you do when dealing with someone like that, there is unfortunately no single easy answer. It sounds like he has triggered your "Fight or Flight instincts". There are a couple options depending on you. You can confront him. It sounds like he is trying to be a tough guy by pushing you around. People like that tend to back way off when their bluff is called. You can ignore him. You paid a lot to have an amazing vacation. Don't give him the pleasure of impacting it. Finally, you can report him to the ship's captain and let the captain deal with it. This might mean, however that if the captain chooses to ignore it your options later could be limited to ignoring him. I sincerely hope you find a resolution that lets you enjoy the remainder of your vacation.

Rest assured, that the only group that they truly represent is themselves. The attitude that you described certainly does not represent me even though I would guess (from your original post) that I am in the same basic age group as them.

I am genuinely sorry that they are having a negative impact on what should be an amazing vacation.

 

[tursiops]

I can understand that younger people would rather not spend so much time with older divers as it must be very embarassing when they find they can't keep up with the old farts.

On an Aggressor trip a few years ago, there were only two of us who got the Iron Diver Award (did all possible dives on the trip), the youngest guy on the trip, and me, the oldest guy on the trip. I was almost three times his age.

 

[tursiops]

...we just didn't see or hear it, being over 50 sucks.

You've had a number of posts in this thread that make me quite happy that I am not on the same liveaboard as you. Unless you are trying to be funny, in which case you need to seriously work on your delivery.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This thread has me wondering whether the demand for liveaboards is going to decline in the future. It has been said in past discussions that young people aren't taking up diving in the numbers that people did decades ago. It has been said that Millennials are more interested in other things, or of those who do get into diving, have a different way they want to approach diving than past generations. Cruising may be at a peak of popularity now due to the Boomers and their relative wealth. Ten or 20 years from now, there may be less demand for cruises of all types, especially dive liveaboards. Then again, maybe cruises, including liveaboards, will adapt to a new demand and gear cruises toward whatever the current generation wants a cruise to be. For example, shorter than a week? Less luxurious?

what do you do if you have an incredibly boorish character on your Liveaboard?

You start a new thread on that topic.

 

[Sam Miller III]

When My wife and I last visited Cozumel aka "Coz" we were in the senor bracket -- now we are in the antique category
A snippet from an event of long ago

"My wife Betty and I last visited Cozumel about 30 years ago...It was becoming too commercial and too crowded even at that early date for us-- we always attempted to remain ahead of the wave of dive locations popularity.

We had a great time with two Bonne Terre mine guides so many years ago. They had never dove open water, but were very comfortable in the salt water open ocean and for some unknown reason perhaps by natural selection we buddied up with them for most of the week.

The word had got out among the staff and other vacation divers that we were not typical Cozumel vacation divers

On the very last day of our visit we had made several dives and were underway to the second and last shallow dive site of our week long vacation.

I speak Spanish and had been speaking "Spanlish" all week with the crew. I inquired in Spanish as to how long to the next dive site ? Their reply in Spanish "45 minutes."

I returned to my seat along the gunnels informed my wife and our week long buddies buddies that we had 45 minutes to relax

Then I said what the heck ? Why not ? So I said " You are from the Missouri the 'Show Me State' - I will show you-- Pull out your dive bags start fiddling with your equipment" which they did. Soon the entre boat of divers were pulling out there dive bags, preparing their equipment and putting on their wet suits

As soon as every one was fully prepared to dive we shoved out bags under the seat and resumed out conversations for another 40 or so minutes to we arrived at the last dive site.

Some started chuckling that they had been had others were so hot the deck was steaming .

At the end of the dive and our vacations the Missourians insisted that it would be their honor to carry our equipment to our room for packing - Who could refuse that offer ?

We will never forget those two Missourians from Bonne Terre and the fun we had !"

the message is clear --Never trust an old diving couple who began diving before Cousteau

sdm



'





.

 

[Kimela]

@ivorynightfall - I am so sorry you are being treated this way. This is NOT 50+ behavior! Even IF this guy has a legitimate complaint with you he is handling it like a bully. If you were a large man and he treated you this way it may have come to blows. He's taking advantage of you being both small and female, assuming you cannot or will not push back. Classic bully/jerk behavior. I'd speak with a crew member and ask how they'd like to handle it. Hate to put more responsibility on their plate, but I can't see a way for you to handle it without the possibility of it getting even more ugly. (Anyone who is a crew member on a LOB who would like to suggest a different course please jump in.) You may be asked to accommodate him in some way - but he should be censured in some way. This guy is outrageous. (Please tell me he's not American ... or at least not from the Midwest!)

You might consider going on one of the Scubaboard Invasions. They'd embrace you as one of their own (I'd like to say "we", but I haven't been on one yet. It's on the bucket list). While it's true that folks here can get into a snit about BPW or jacket style BCD's, I'm sure they set that aside while on vacation!!!

 

[Schwob]

Wow, this thread turned out to be way more educational, thoughtful and interesting than I'd ever thought!

Thank you for all your responses. Particularly you, Kathy, I appreciate it

scubasteve, I will definitely let you know about next Liveaboard I take!

Outofofficebrb, I'm also in San Francisco! Let's grab coffee sometime, I'd love to meet and hear about liveaboards you're going on next!

I apologize if my original post is a bit patronizing - as an astute observer noted, boorishness is found in every age group and there is a particularly boorish couple on this Maldives explorer boat I'm on right now. It's not so much the old people, it's an awful old white man who has yelled at me multiple times now for being too aggressive (for context, I'm a young Asian female and do believe race/gender is a factor here). So much that I've taken the time to complain on scuba board on my vacation.

Eg he literally just said **** you to my face and called me a cockroach 3 times because I called out the fact that they'd moved my stuff - nobody else's' and three other people from my row are doing the same thing - from a sun lounger I had been using in the morning on the top deck. He then responded by spewing the hateful words above.I'm not one to get in verbal fights with people who are irrational - especially on vacation - but with 5 more days left I am dreading further interaction with this couple.

So I guess this has turned into - what do you do if you have an incredibly boorish character on your Liveaboard?

Wow.
I might be older than you and white and male and boring... and live in the Midwest these days, so I got a few things going against me from your POV (which in other context I might perceive as prejudiced), but hopefully I am not boorish. If I come across a non- occupied lounger in the shade that Is reserved with stuff but stays unoccupied for quite a while and no other shaded lounger is available I might also move things to be able to lounge for once. I might even think occupying shared things when not using them is uncool or selfish. I am not saying this is what happened, my interpretation / reading may be flawed... But even with all that said, the way you describe this person's abusive behavior, that behavior is definitely not cool, not called for and just brands him for the bully (or worse?) that he is. And he definitely deserves being stood up to. Sorry you are stuck with that guy.
Normal would be to adress the situation by talking about it in a reasonable manner to determine who did not right by whom (it might be a one way thing or a two way thing, adults should be able to work through that) and how to do better next time. His bully approach is very wrong. Hopefully the crew will assist with the situation when you bring it to their attention. They should.