I didn't realize how much it wasn't my thing until a few days ago, I saw an ad from my local writer's organization. Someone is organizing a writing seminar on a cross-Atlantic cruise ship. And I shuddered.

And I started thinking about the reasons I won't be going on a cruise again.

I like discovery. I like traveling where I can find my own way, get lost, and get found again. I want to see where the locals eat, live, and shop, where the menus aren't in English any more, and the grannies are buying tomatoes and peppers. I don't mind a bug or two, I don't mind things that smell funny to my sanitized western nose. I'm happy to walk through a marketplace that reeks of dried fish and old socks to find burlap sacks marked in Thai characters stacked next to a family's stall selling rice noodles and chicken skewers.

On a cruise ship, everything is prescribed. Bingo at 1:00. Wine in the Fizz Bar on deck 6. Thursday night is Chocolate Buffet. Puerto Rico, served up like a margarita on a tray, is from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Monday. No time to discover. No time to get lost. Walk off the pier, take a taxi, see the sights, snap a picture, and be delivered back to the ship like a sack of potatoes.

I don't like my countries served up on a tray. I want to find them myself.

I don't drink a lot. Most of the entertainment on a cruise ship involves eating and drinking, in vast quantities. Bars and restaurants are everywhere. I don't drink a lot, and I shouldn't eat as much as I do. I'm not into bars, much, unless it's a seedy little raggae bar in Penang, Malaysia, where I sat with a bunch of British expats discussing politics in India. That was fun. But a cruise ship bar is kind of like Vegas--carpeted and garish and expensive, with employees who are just a little too eager to make sure I'm having the time of my life. (I'm not.)

I'm a cheapskate. The food in the basic restaurants was paid for with the ticket. Coffee, tea, water, and juice were paid for. All the rest costs, a lot. I'm sure there were many people on my cruise who paid their cruise fee over again in their bar bills. Everywhere we went were opportunities to whip out the room card and charge. At home, my husband and I occasionally have a date night having happy hour drinks and $1.50 plates at our favorite restaurant, and end up at the local library. That's how cheap we are. We pack brown bags and thermoses and water bottles, and save our money for airline tickets to somewhere special, where we still take brown bags and thermoses.

I don't want or need a diamond. This cruise, and many of the ports where we stopped, seemed to fixate on diamonds, gemstones, and jewelry stores. Really? I wanted to raise my hand and ask for socks. Or dishwasher detergent, or school supplies, or mangoes. I love finding little local department stores. I found one in St. Thomas, where they sold t-shirts, toothpaste, nail polish, and kitchen appliances. Diamonds? They were everywhere--for sale on the cruise ship, in every port. The cruise had seminars on buying gemstones. Who knew? Do people really buy them like postcards or snow-cones?

I like seeing what the locals do. I gathered from the ship TV that Cricket is a huge deal in the Caribbean. I would have loved to watch a cricket match, even though I don't know anything about it. People follow it religiously. But there was no time.We'd arrive overnight, get off in a port, have six or eight hours, and leave again.

I like being in control. If we like a place, we stay. If we don't, we move on. If we're in the mood to be lazy and hang around on the beach for a day, we do. On a cruise, they control the schedule, where you are, when you get off, and when you get back on. On days when I was tired, we were in port, and had to get off or lose the chance to see St. Maarten. On days when I was bored and restless, we were having a sea day, which meant walking laps round and round the boat as it motored through the water.

I learned that all through the Caribbean are local ferries between islands. I'd love to take those, and find some beach shack, and watch the sun go down. Then walk up to a market for some local beer I've never had before and an order of deep-fried fresh fish, wrapped in paper, and the proprietor doesn't speak English but his daughter does. Mmm. Yes. Fish and beer. On my terms.

I like quiet. Quiet, on a cruise ship, is in mighty short supply. The library was small and very full of other quiet-seeking souls like me. Everywhere else had live music, or bingo, or a loudspeaker announcing bingo. Or a limbo contest. Or a show. The rooms were nice but tiny (claustrophobic after three days), sort of like a high-end camper. The outdoor public spaces were crowded and noisy (pool=live band or piped in music). I found a few spaces that were quiet for reading in good weather, but once it turned cold (heading north) we all had to go back inside, and my room was it for privacy (shared with my daughter, who wanted to talk). I wanted a comfy chair and some tea to go with my book. Hard to find.

I knew I was seriously out of my element when I tried to take my kids swimming in the pool, and they were having (I'm not kidding) a sexy legs contest. At very high decibels. And when that ended, the band started. I would have killed for some noise-canceling headphones.

I don't like waiting in line. A cruise involves lots of lines. Lines to get on. Lines to get off. Lines to get your luggage. Lines to get your dinner. Lines to get another cup of coffee at the buffet. Feeding, clothing, and entertaining 2500 people is a massive affair. What the cruise lines really want is a person who will sit in a deck chair, in a long row cheek-by-jowl with a hundred or a thousand other people, and order expensive cocktails all day. That person is not me.

I don't dress up much. Dressing up for me is a skirt (one, singular) (multi-colored so I can wear it with three different shirts), a t-shirt with no writing on it, and some flip-flops. For a lot of the people on the cruise ship, their whole existence in life is to wear nice clothes (heels, diamonds, suits and ties), a different set every night. And clothes for the pool. And clothes for the nightclub on Deck 8. And more clothes for breakfast. I saw the luggage... rows upon rows of suitcases. We came in a carry-on each. The clothes were beautiful. But I don't want them.

Cruise ships mob the local places. Every time we stopped in one of these delightful little island towns, we were joined by more than 2500 of our closest friends. These places are small. I would have loved to see them as their sleepy little selves, without a ship (or three) in port. I didn't get that chance.

I had fun, in an anthropological kind of way. It was an adventure. I've always wanted to go on a cruise.

And now I have.

And I won't again.