Whatever happened to the idea of getting away?
There is so much talk right now about being connected and the trend toward vacationers not wanting to be unplugged on vacation.
Simply stated, I just don't get it and I don't want it.
There was a time not too long ago where we as adults worked our butts off so that we could afford the vacation and completely disconnect from reality. That way, we all came back to work refreshed and raring to go.
Now, if we're not connected, we feel like we're missing out on something. And if we're missing out on something, our job could be in jeopardy and we'll never be able to afford a vacation again.
I'm definitely of two minds here. I am a full-on geek when it comes to the Internet and smartphones. I must have every iDevice, my TVs must be smart, I have this uncontrollable yearning to have the latest bit, the next-gen wearable tech or the absolutely most-up-to-date version of Candy Crush.
I work from home, so I have a hard enough time physically separating personal from professional. But I'm also old enough to remember a magical time when I ended my work day and put work away. A time before even pagers were widespread, when work wouldn't dare attempt to contact us after hours because it was just too difficult to track us down.
Even as I walk down that memory lane, I remember the days when cruise lines would charge you $100 for 30 minutes of painfully slow Internet because it was a luxury to be connected.
The cruise lines, like the hotels and resorts before them, are now seeing that connectivity is an expected right these days.
So much so that Royal Caribbean pinned their latest offering, the Quantum of the Seas, around the concept. We're in a society now where a Smart Ship is welcomed, not scoffed at like just 10 years ago.
A Harris survey last year found that nearly two-thirds of employed vacationers surveyed planned to work during their vacations and wanted to have access to job-related emails and documents.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 15- to 24- year-old spend 90 minutes per day on weekends playing smartphone, computer and video games. I have an 11- and 5-year-old son. I don't need government stats to tell you those numbers are going up the younger they get.
When talking about the concept of the Smart Ship, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein said his company was simply reacting to market conditions, and that the entire industry was making up for lost time.
"Lack of connectivity had become a pain point," Goldstein told reporters during the Quantum launch. "It is our interest and intention to penetrate a wide demographic, who might not think cruising as the environment suitable to them."
Whereas Royal Caribbean and their rivals were struggling to get to 4 megabits per second just five years ago - a speed that mostly works for retrieveing email and basic web pages at best - the Quantum recently achieved 700 mbps speeds.
That's 14 times faster than my local Internet provider currently offers. Plenty of space to stream Netflix or play XBox Live games.
Yay, I say with a frown. Why do I want to watch Netflix in the middle of the ocean? There's plenty who do, though. Plus, that connectivity lets everything be connected, including things like the WOW band that uses tech to open staterooms and pay for on-board purchases. And being connected, you can make dinner or excursion reservations right from your phone.
OK, so there's advantages. But by allowing tech to dominate our vacation, we've sacrificed the very concept of vacation all together.
I say this now, but I'm the first one to be frustrated when I can't watch last week's "NCIS" on demand on my tablet from a resort in Riviera Maya.
Carnival has reacted in kind, promising speedier Wi-Fi on their ships over the coming year. Regent Seven Seas even lets you rent iPads on ship.
Experts say that the need for connectivity gets less with higher-end luxury travelers, perhaps a sign they aren't as worried about their livelihood going away if they're not connected.
I used to think that as the economy and job market improved, we'd be able to disconnect once more. But it's the new norm. And now that that we have a taste of the magic of being connected, all the things we can watch or play, we'll never give up that connection.
I'm in Harris' 39 percent that still cling to the concept that vacation should be vacation. As hard as it is to put it down or shut it off, I want to become fully immersed in my temporary adventure. The rest of the world will be there in a week.
Or will it? What do you know? What did I miss?
Even worse than being out of the know is being off of a news feed. We'll all become irrelevant if we don't let our Facebook friends know what we had for breakfast on the ship.
It's almost become a bragging game. How quickly can we make everyone envy us by posting photos to Instagram of every minute activity onboard?
We're so caught up in sharing what we did that we really don't take the time to savor what we're doing on these trips.
I don't blame the cruise lines. I appreciate them reacting to market conditions. Being a Smart ship is smart business.
I just can't help lament the death of the true vacation. While tech may give us the occasional experience we could have never dreamed of before, the widespread connectivity has killed our ability to take a breath, step away and get lost in the glory of getting away.
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