Remember that feeling you got when you met your spouse/mate/SO/whatever you like to call them? Or when you met your best friend? That feeling that, “they get you”.

It’s a great and rare feeling. We come across so few people in this world who really get us.

I recently discovered that harryfat1 gets me … and not just because his username so closely resembles my body image.

harryfat1 composed a terrific trip report describing his family’s cruise trip on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. As good as the report is, the best part is his explanation of his reporting style:

Given I am a CPA, one would think I can focus intensely on various items. But when it comes to reading other cruise reports online, I have the worst case of ADHD.

 

Here is my typical reading of one page of the review (20 posts):

 

Blah, blah, blah (yeah, yeah, whatever, don’t know and don’t care, scroll down the page)

 

Blah, blah, blah (wow, nice picture. Wish I was on vacation now instead of being at work. Mentally Photoshop my face onto the picture and imagine myself was at the beach/ship)

 

Blah, blah, blah (yeah, yeah, whatever, don’t know and don’t care, scroll down the page)

 

Blah, blah, blah (hey, nice swim suit)

 

Blah, blah, blah (yeah, yeah, whatever, don’t know and don’t care, scroll down the page)

 

Blah, blah, blah (hey, nice picture. Make a mental note to steal, err, I mean, be artistically inspired by this picture as to take a similar one on my vacation in standing at the same spot)

 

DING! End of page 45 seconds later. Minimize the web browser and go back to work. Rinse and repeat later on.

For me, and probably other trip report scanners like me, when I read this it was like harry had taken a magnifying glass to my soul. And true to his word, his report is liberally padded with pictures. Some more interesting than others – as harry explains in another post:

One of my all-time favorite tour guides was a guy in Mazatlán who took us to Stone Island back in 2010 and during the entire tour, he would jokingly say “How about that – take a picture!” That became our family saying ever since. So everywhere we travel to – we always say have this in mind: “take a picture”.

 

Here is a sample conversation that might have happened once or twice:

 

“Hey, wow, check this out. Take a picture”

 

“WHY? It’s only dirt (substitute the subject “dirt” with anything else like toilet/shampoo/glass of water etc.) Don’t we have dirt at home? Why would we need to take a picture of dirt?”

 

“Because it is a cruise ship/vacation dirt that makes it special. Have you forgotten how much money we paid for this cruise/vacation? We want to take pictures of everything from this vacation for our photo collection and for cc folks. Besides, it doesn’t cost any money to take a picture like the old days of camera films.”

 

“Good point. You want me to be on the left or right side of the dirt?”

Of course, we all read trip reports for different reasons and we all like different writing styles – so harryfat1’s report might not speak to you like it has to me.

On the other hand, if you enjoy humorous reports about family vacations written from the perspective of a self-described “anal” “cheapo” “bad dad” who likes to include a lot of photos, then you are going to want to click through to this one.

Read or scan the trip report in its entirety: Cheapo dad’s trip report on Allure of the Seas sailing December 14, 2014