Taking a Cruise
on the Aircraft Carrier USS Kitty Hawk,
CV63.

There were a lot of things to take pictures of, as you can see.  I guess we were all tourist, in a sense.  We felt like we were on one of the cruise ships or taking a vacation cruise.  We had the chance to see things that only a very small portion of our population will ever see.  We traveled all over the Western Pacific and visited many countries.   Once, I was looking at some luxury cruise brochures from one of the famous cruise ships.  They went to Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, just like us.  But unlike us,  they went to Hong Kong on the 4th,  to Korea on the 5th and Japan on the 6th.  If you think about it, with all of the sailing time included, they only spent a couple of hours at each port.  What are you going to do with just a couple of hours in port.  It sounds like a lot of expensive stress to me. You really don't have time on a vacation cruise to see any of the countries that you visit because you only spend a couple of hours in these countries, so you're stuck eating lunch and getting back to the ship in time for it to sail.

On the other hand,  we went to Hong Kong for three full days, to Korea for five full days and to Japan for ten full days.  We also visited Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Okinawa, Hawaii and spent a lot of time traveling around these countries too.  Comparing the Navy to one of the  civilian cruise ships is like seeing a movie at a OnmiMax theater as compared to reading about the movie from an ad in a book.    And on top of that, the Navy Pays You, where on a civilian cruise ship, you pay them.

I'm sounding like a recruiter again but it's true.  There are a lot of opportunities in the Navy.  It really is more than a job, and a good job, it's really an adventure with lots of cruise travel for you to enjoy while you're getting paid and at the same time being trained very well for a high paying civilian job in the future.

Please not that I have highlighted Vacation Cruise above.  The vacation cruise that this link points to is much different than the average vacation cruise ship, this vacation cruise is an expedition cruise instead.  Click here to read more about this fantastic vacation cruise ship.