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Stu Bykofsky: Cruisin' (the high seas) with Stu

ABOARD THE LIBERTY OF THE SEAS - Where else, but aboard this iceberg-large, seagoing resort, could you find so many old, fat people hunting free food and so many young, skinny people hunting free sex?

ABOARD THE LIBERTY OF THE SEAS - Where else, but aboard this iceberg-large, seagoing resort, could you find so many old, fat people hunting free food and so many young, skinny people hunting free sex?

On the minibus that took elements of my family from the sprawling parking lot to the towering ship, we were joined by four women - three hotties and one nottie - loudly talking about getting drunk (the hotties) and bagging a male trophy (the pushing-40, married nottie). "I'd like him about 20," she said. "With my luck he'd be 17, jail bait."

Stay classy, ladies.

I am more qualified to talk about hungry passengers than horny ones, as I have been an "eater" my entire life, but had zero interest in sex for my first nine years. I also know that any time I write about sex, some readers feel I have gone too far, while others whine that I have left out the juicy details. Which of course I have. I am not a Kardashian.

Faced with the choice of saying too much or too little, I take the path most likely to infuriate my enemies.

Cruises are not my favorite form of transportation (the Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas does 26 mph tops, the same as an elderly driver on the A.C. Expressway) or accommodation. No matter how brilliant the design of the cabin, I'm still sharing it with my father.

Because of what I said about sex, I can't talk much about my brief encounter with Carla from Nicaragua, and Kristina from Greece, one tall, one short, both now living in Miami. Not much was going to happen with me sharing a cabin with Dad, and they'd probably like him better because he was the birthday boy, sliding into his 97th year, which is why the family assembled on the deep blue.

Dad likes cruising with the family, because we are trapped together. He also likes to have the casino, deck chairs and buffets all within a quarter-mile. Lately, he is limited in how far he can walk.

The doors to all the ship's restrooms have buttons on the wall so passengers don't have to touch the door handle previously touched by some pig who didn't wash his hands. I use the male pronoun because men aren't from Mars - they're from the farmyard. Along with Purell stations everywhere, the buttons thwart the notorious norovirus that periodically sweeps cruise ships, which otherwise are swept thoroughly.

But because touching even the button exposes you, I high-kicked the button with my shoe, leading the cruise director to offer me a supporting role in the ship's production of "Saturday Night Fever."

[Editor's note: It is doubtful that Stu actually was invited to become an entertainer.]

More believable, because I saw it, were women in white Mennonite caps sitting in the Windjammer Lounge buffet a few tables from women in Islamic head scarves, held in place by pushed-back designer sunglasses. I started looking for Hasidic Jews to complete the trifecta, but that much diversity was not to be.

The crew of 1,400 hails from about 45 countries and smilingly serves about 4,000 passengers, mostly American. North Americans are the world's No. 1 cruise passengers, followed by Chinese.

As a matter of historical record, when the Liberty of the Seas steamed out of Cozumel, Mexico, for home, the ship departing port with us, almost as if the two behemoths were in formation, was the ill-fated Carnival Triumph.

The fickle finger of fate (disinfected with Purell) spared my family from foundering at sea and turning Dad's birthday into something unforgettable in a really awful way.