ABOARD THE VOYAGER OF THE SEAS - I am standing in a glass-enclosed function room on the 14th deck of this cruise ship, tears streaming down my face, listening while 30 family members and close friends take turns sharing their feelings of love for my mother on her 80th birthday. My mother is a remarkable woman, not just because she is loving, youthful, and eternally optimistic, but because she was able to get me out here in the middle of the ocean on a ship the size of Cleveland.
Had my mother not let it be known that she would be thrilled to go on a family cruise for her birthday, I might have gone through the rest of my natural life without stepping aboard one of these behemoths. But here I am, finding myself -- gasp! -- having fun. I mean, what's not to like?
This is the Voyager, cruising's answer to the Starship Enterprise. It takes cruising where no man (or woman) has gone before. OK, it only took us to Bermuda. But at 142,000 tons, 1,020 feet long, and nearly 160 feet wide, the Voyager is one of the world's largest cruise ships, and its massive size makes it seem otherworldly. Turned on its end, the Voyager would be as tall as the Empire State Building, though tipping it like that would be a bit unnerving to the 3,700 passengers and 1,200 crew members who were on board with me as we sailed out of Bayonne, N.J..
Launched in 1999 by Royal Caribbean International, the Voyager is the flagship of the line's Eagle class. It sits more than 200 feet above the water with just 29 feet under the surface.
But it is the amenities that boggle the mind: the rock-climbing wall, basketball court, mini-golf course, shopping mall modeled after a boulevard in Milan, the casino, huge health club and spa, three swimming pools, six hot tubs, ice-skating rink, and theater that holds nearly 1,400 people.
If you can't find something to do on this ship, you are unfit for vacation.
The crew serves as many as 15,000 meals a day and the quantities are mind-numbing. Each day, I ingest a big buffet breakfast, followed by a huge buffet lunch, followed by an enormous and seemingly endless and very good dinner. If I want to try lobster tails and prime rib both, so be it. At the midnight, buffet, the crew puts out enough food to feed a nation for a week.
Cruising, however, is about more than food and drink and entertainment. It is a state of mind. Experienced cruisers knew what to expect, but my family of five had to morph into the rituals and rhythms, each in our own way.
On the morning of our departure, we boarded quickly and were sitting in the Windjammer restaurant eating lunch in under an hour. My mother, God bless her, greeted each of us with a long hug, a kiss, and her own version of the watusi.
''Are you ready to party?" she yelled to each of the 30 members of her entourage.
And party we did. As the massive ship left port and cleared the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge by a mere 16 feet, we found ourselves out in the open sea on a gorgeous early summer evening. We exploring our floating city of 14 decks and a fifth of a mile in length. One effective way we burned off some of the caloric overload was by taking the stairs, up and down, throughout the trip.
One day, we watched a spectacular ice show featuring an international cast of professional skaters. We saw Broadway revues, played bingo, and took enough photographs to nudge Kodak stock up a point or two. Dancing with Aunt Gloria, 82, to the strains of Usher on the pool deck at midnight is a memory I'll treasure forever.
My wife and I shared our stateroom with our 21-year-old daughter, and when our two sons and several young cousins dropped in, I felt like Groucho Marx in ''A Night at the Opera." The cruise line called it a triple, but anyone who suffers from claustrophobia would not want to put more than two in this confined space.
The saving grace was the balcony. Late at night, the sky was ablaze with stars.
Back on the ship after two days in Bermuda, which we agreed were hardly enough, we joined Captain Svein Pettersen, a Norwegian, at his table for dinner. He had been tipped off that my mother was celebrating a milestone birthday and invited 10 of us to join his party. As we feasted on shrimp cocktail, filet mignon, and Pouilly-Fuisse, he charmed my mother with stories of his 35 years as a Royal Caribbean captain -- and then surprised her with a birthday cake.
As she did for nearly the entire cruise, my mother blushed with joy and delight, a constant reminder for even the most devout noncruiser like me that the celebration had been well worth the Dramamine and the six pounds I gained.
Glenn Rifkin is a freelance writer in Acton. 
