Cruising without clothes - the (almost naked) truth

My sister and I were joining a 14 night transatlantic cruise from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale by flying into Barcelona’s El Prat Airport and picking up the ship at the harbour in Barcelona. Just after take-off passengers were informed that none of our luggage had been loaded on the plane and that on arrival we were to go to the airline’s ground handlers and make out a report.

Fortunately we were sitting near the front of the plane and we were young and fit so on entering the luggage claim area we ran as fast as we could and were just about first in line to give the ground handlers our details. With over 200 people on the plane it would have been several hours before those last in line were dealt with.

This was Saturday evening, the ship left at 4pm the next day. Would we get our luggage before then? That was unlikely but we provided details of our hotel in Barcelona. But if it didn’t arrive there where would it catch up with us? Cartagena? Malaga? Cadiz? Tenerife? Or 14 days later at Fort Lauderdale?

In the meantime all we had to stand up in were the clothes we travelled in plus a few essentials in a carry on bag. We had passports, credit cards, some toiletries and a spare pair of knickers but that was about it. Guidebooks, tablets and phones are not much use when it comes to clothing. We had no casual clothes for loafing around the ship during the day; no bikinis for sun bathing; no evening dresses for formal nights; not even any night clothes – although the airline did provide us with a baggy T-shirt.

Our luggage had not arrived by the time we had to check out of our hotel so we determined to buy a few more basic items of clothing in the hope that our luggage would be waiting for us at the next port. The trouble was that on a Sunday all the shops in Barcelona are closed. Even El Corte Ingles, probably one of the best department stores in the world was not an option. Instead we had to settle for visiting La Sagrada Familia and the Ramblas – which meant that after a day in the hot sun we were more than a little ripe! So much so that one disdainful lady in the check-in line moved away from us sniffing rather ostentatiously!

Our first stop onboard was Guest Relations to explain our plight and to let them know that we had informed the airline of our itinerary and our luggage might turn up at any time. Apparently this happens all the time and they assured us they had systems in place to receive the luggage when it arrived and deliver it to our stateroom. In the meantime they invited us to take advantage of the clothes they could make available to us in their ‘Lost and Found’ section which turned out to be an Aladdin’s cave of clothing.

It was amazing what passengers will leave behind on a ship. At first it was quite exciting, like having a dressing up box as a child, but the experience soon palled. The clothes were all too small, or, not surprisingly given the demographic of cruise ships, mainly too big or old fashioned. The wrong colour, the wrong style, for the wrong age. There were flowery hats and lurid scarves; bras for very large women and thongs that would have made a porn star blush. Plenty of kids clothes too as well as bibs and nappies. And hidden away in one out-of-the-way corner of this amazing assortment was what could only be called the S&M collection. We could have had our choice of whips, handcuffs, collars, nipple clamps and much more besides that I couldn’t possibly list here.

When she saw our surprised looks the crew member helping us explained that a recent cruise had catered for a group of fetishists and she believed that they had left so much behind because they didn’t want these items to be found in a search of their luggage by customs officials on their return home.

Nevertheless we did manage to assemble an ill-assorted wardrobe to last us until the next port, but not something that we were comfortable to walk around in.

What followed was a series of disappointments. At each port we reached: Cartagena, Malaga, Cadiz and Tenerife there was no sign of our luggage – plenty of texts from the airline apologising for the continuing delay and saying we could buy ‘essentials’ but no luggage. So at each destination we missed out on most of the sightseeing while trying to purchase a more suitable wardrobe, all the time hoping against hope that at the next port our luggage would come in, and each time suffering yet another bitter setback.

Tenerife was the worst because after that we knew that with seven straight sea days to our final destination, Fort Lauderdale, there was no hope of being re-united with our luggage until we disembarked.

By now we had basic clothing but nothing really smart and certainly nothing for the formal dining nights – which turned into a nightmare for us. We turned up as usual at our designated dining time and when the maitre d’ saw us he drew us aside and said that as we were not dressed suitably we would not be permitted to dine in the main dining room that night – we would have to eat in the buffet. As far as my sister was concerned this was the final straw (if only); she burst into tears at the unfairness of it all. For my part I tried to explain why we were not dressed formally but the maitre d’ was adamant and so I became increasingly angry, and loud with it. Aware that this was creating a scene he said that if we didn’t leave quietly he would have to call security. At which, to my eternal shame, I shouted ‘Why don’t you call the f*****g hotel director. Let him sort it out.’

And to our immense surprise the hotel director was called and was extremely sympathetic to our plight. Seeing how upset we were he organised for us to eat in one of the speciality restaurants ‘on the house’ but as we exited the main dining room we could see the looks of disapproval on the faces of the other diners and more than one ‘tut tut’ – which were repeated on subsequent evenings. Going to our regular table felt like running the gauntlet.

Things were made much worse the next night. We were passing through the Atrium where one of the cruise director’s team was entertaining a crowd of people. When he saw us he pointed us out as ‘those poor girls who lost their baggage and are dressed like scarecrows’. Presumably he thought it was funny but we were just mortified. We just fled to our cabin for the rest of the night.

A couple of nights later we ventured out to the late night disco, thinking that in the darkness of the nightclub we would not be recognised. No such luck. No sooner had we entered the club than we were spied by a group of drunken guys who requested that the DJ play something by the 70’s group Supertramp for ‘the tramps over there’ – pointing to us.

There was nowhere on the ship we could go without being pointed at or muttered about – sometimes sympathetically, sometimes not.

Even on disembarkation the nightmare didn’t end. The fact that we had no luggage raised red flags with both immigration and customs who interrogated us at length. We suspected that they thought we were drug mules, and initially at least they were very aggressive. They only released us after we showed them the long thread of text messages from the airline detailing how our luggage had failed to meet up with us. ‘Have a good day’ they said!

The icing on the cake, or should I say the final insult, was that the same airline that failed to deliver our luggage ‘bumped’ us from our return flights for 24 hours and we missed a day of work as a result.

They offered us no compensation and it was another week before they managed to finally trace our luggage – it was still at Heathrow where our journey had commenced. Apparently it had never left the airport despite texts to the contrary. And to cap it all they wanted us to come and collect it ourselves!