Odds and Ends

Really Bad Vacation Ideas

180 Comments

Are you tired and stressed from the rigors of fundyland? Doesn’t a vacation sound wonderful? Well, have we got a deal for you! Sign up for the West Coast Baptist Alaska Cruise and you can spend seven days on a floating Bible conference complete with preaching by David Gibbs and R.B. Ouellette! What could possibly be better than that?

This is the ship we’ll be taking. Be sure to check out our Jonah emergency plan in case of bad weather. (Chances are the lot won’t fall to you, so don’t worry too much)

These are the deck chairs you won’t be using. In face we’ll probably lock them up somewhere to make room for the outdoor mourners bench. Leave your bathing suit. Bring your Bible.

Here’s the shipboard entertainment. Sea sickness will seem like a welcome relief.

And of course, who can have a real vacation without being preached at incessantly? It’s not as if you could have stayed home and heard preaching like this just about any old week.

Yes, all this can be yours for the low, low price of $2,995. Or as it’s known in the Christian Education community: six months pay. But really can you put a monetary value on the blessing you’ll receive from being harangued on the high seas, blasted on the bounding main, and demonized on the deep blue sea?

One thing is for sure, you’ll remember this trip for a lifetime.

180 thoughts on “Really Bad Vacation Ideas”

  1. There must be alot of money to be made on these trips because ALOT of Souther Gospel groups and even Stnaley does one I believe. I wonder if this particular one gives the adults a list of what is and is not acceptable to bring along like they do the kids at camp.

      1. With all the wind on deck, those skirts are not going to be very modest at all. 😳

        And so very c-c-cold.

    2. Or worse, they don’t,so if you pack the wrong thing, you’re going to get The Look or ignored and your Bible won’t get signed and everyone will be out to get you saved.

      1. Yes! Yes! Yes! Some folks have a secret understanding that “casual dress” means all ladies in jean jumpers so you show up with a hoodie and sweat pants and they think you’re a reprobate. I might not agree with wearing skirts all the time, but if that’s the standard, at least tell me and not treat me like dirt because I didn’t comply with the unspoken rules.

        1. Exactly. I went to a shower once that had stated “casual dress” in pants (I wore nice khakis, too) and everyone else was in a jean skirt. Jean skirt does not equal casual in my book. Another time, the stated dress code was “business casual.” I wore nice khaki pants. Every other woman in the room (with the exception of one other woman) wore hose, heels, and dressy skirts/tops. I felt very out of place and I was steamed, because the invitation clearly said business casual and I was within the dress code for that. If they wanted skirts only they should have said so.

  5. People who used to go to church with me used to go on alot of cruises. I think they even went on an Alaskan one though probably not like this.

        1. In 1995, after four years of teaching in a Christian school, my salary was $17,150/year. After the mandatory 10% tithe of the gross pay, plus the deductions for taxes, I would take home $572 every two weeks. And this was the largest and best paying Christian school in the area!!!!

        2. In the early 90s, I earned $10,000 teaching high school English (plus whatever else they needed) in an IFB school. I had a master’s degree.

        3. The fundy school I attended paid my mom around $15k/year (women got paid at least $5k less than men per year as part of the church/school constitution). That was in the early 2000s. They def still pay women significantly less just for being female.

          Had a friend out of college in 97 that had a 1 year job he earned about 9 or 10k at some podunk school in NC, lived in a trailer, with no insurance, and they didn’t withhold social security or taxes (suspect they paid him as a 1099 contractor rather than an employee, but not positive). I know he had to do his own quarterly filings, which is awesome when you have to deliver pizzas at night, and spend your weekends grading papers.

        4. Even for only 9 months and every holiday known to man that’s just $667.00 a month. That’s terrible.

  8. “These are the deck chairs you may choose to use, but remember that mixed sunbathing is a slippery slope so men can sit on the starboard side of the ship; women on the port side.”

    1. My experience is that segregating IFB husbands and wives on different sides of the ship would cause the vessel to list rather badly one direction or another.

  10. I love the fact that even on a cruise in the middle of the ocean they are expected to wear suits and dresses. Wonder what time they get crazy at night and bust out the coulottes for segregated shuffleboard? I also picture the employees for the cruise line drawing straws to see who has to work these cruises. TIPS?? “Silver and gold have I none, but here, pay your car payment with this tract”.

    3. Ha! Coulottes and shuffleboard for the “after-preaching.” Bring your own Moutain Dew and be ready to share your best “led em to the Lord” stories. Party on brethren! 😉

    4. This appears to be a sister ship of the one we cruised on in January. No preaching. Do they plan to fill this ship? This thing has the capacity for 2000 passengers!

      1. Oh, the tips were added onto the cruise package as a gratuity “tax” at $12 per day per passenger. So the crew should be safe there.

    5. 12StepExFundy: I delivered pizzas while in Bible college. Every once in a while a driver would come back from a delivery with a tract from the church that ran the college and and ask me “Why don’t people from your church tip?”

      1. I do not think they truly understand how they are viewed by the community. They think the city is privileged to have them.

    1. I think I’d enjoy a cruise that featured Christian music (I like Southern Gospe, although P & W is my fav), but I really don’t want to be preached at on my vacation. I really love Jesus, but I don’t think my love for Him means I automatically want to sit and be lectured at for an hour every day on my vacation.

      2. PW – I’m with you, I love SG, but my wife, not so much. The Gaither’s do some cruises, I’m sure I would love to go on one of those. Tell you one that would be really great is Chuck Swindoll’s, they have one to the Med later this year and Steve Green’s gonna be singing. Swindoll always has great music on his cruises, of course I believe that Chuck is one of the finest bible teachers I have ever heard. Anways happy sailing!

        @Natalie – I’ve got one thing to say to you Luuuuccckkkkyyyy!

        3. Natalie – Probably shouldn’t have asked, because I think I know the answer. Stand by for some TMI!

        5. Greg – I’ll spare you this time. You’re full-blooded American enough to know what I’ll be doing. 😉

          Scorpio, don’t even try to kiss my a** after that comment below. I’m still not speaking to you… well, I am, but not after this… right…. now… 😉 😉 😉 (jk, of course)

      3. Being preached at every day is no fun. That is why I almost never went to church or chapel in my last year of bible college. I believe I saved my sanity by doing so. Days of Prayer were excellent shopping opportunities.

  12. Dr. Paul Chappell
    Dr. Don Sisk
    Dr. R.B Ouellette
    Dr. David Gibbs
    At least there will be plenty of doctors on-board when you get sea sick.

    2. Yes, but the only “cure” they’ll have for any ailment is for the reprobate sinner to read their Bible & pray. 🙄

      1. Men who are strangers to you, who like for you fluffing their ego, and for you to esteem them as being the same as the Apostle Paul. Not this boy.

        1. When I was at WCBC I was told from a staff member that shaking Pastor Chappell’s hand and telling him how great a job he is doing could be the difference between him giving me a good recommendation to a pastor to hire me after I graduate. And if I did not do that Pastor Chappell might think I did not like him

  13. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go on such a cruise. Enough Christians must like them for them to remain popular.

    1. This ties in with yesterday’s post “Means to an End.” A vacation for relaxation is not spiritual enough, but add in several preaching services and some old-fashioned music and their conscience permits it.

    1. I think awful would be more appropriate. I wouldn’t have any level of awe at all being bashed by these “jerks” for the entire trip.

  15. I feel really bad for the poor guilt ridden lady in the upper right of the picture who needs 3 people to lead her down the aisle/pray for her…I can just imagine the decision she made…that name taker is on it though…

        3. I’ve got Scorpio down today for a shampoo, haircut, and a good old-fashioned NC ASS-woopin’.

          😉

        4. Disclaimer: For anyone who would actually ever take me seriously (this has been happening lately), I was JOKING. I wouldn’t now nor ever actually really hurt nor threaten to hurt Mr. Scorpio or anyone.

          Spoken like a true police officer’s wife.

          (Seriously though, ya’ll know I’m joking. Someone took me seriously yesterday and I realize I may need to tone it down a bit.)

      1. how do i add an avatar? is their a secret fundy thing i am missing? i will not use that porte manteau, ever. it’s almost as bad as bennifer or brangelina.

        1. Go to gravatar.com. You assign an avatar to your e-mail address and then wherever you post on-line using that e-mail, your avatar will post.
          Good luck.

  18. Actually, the organizers don’t make any money, but they do get a free trip. All those European tours BJJr led? They were free to him. It’s a good racket if you’re interested in it.

  19. One big advantage is that if the ship gets stranded at sea they can put up some sails and let these blowhards propel it to shore. 😆

  20. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. I bet West Coast pays for Paul Chappell and his staff to go on these trips. It’s one of the perks of finally “making it” in the fundy realm. At the large fundy church I grew up in, it became a joke that the pastor, and always his wife, would be gone most of the summer on “missions trips”. If you were were a layman and asked to go along, you had to raise your own support, but the pastor and staff were always paid for by the church. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

    2. If the ship starts to sink, Sinners get the lifeboats. MenOGawd get the bellies of large fish or have to swim to shore like Paul. Children under the age of accountability go straight to heaven. Wives go with the husbands (they get to clean the fish). Older fundy kids will follow their moms. Preacher boys will jump in the water looking for large fish. Single fundy gals will jump in the water looking for preacher boys that found a large fish.

      The Ship’s crew will sing Amazing Grace, fix the ship, and recover the lifeboats.

      Moral of the story: Stay with the ship.

  22. I can’t even imagine how miserable this cruise would be. Knowing me, I’d ditch the group and do my own thing.

    But, then again, I wouldn’t have booked the cruise through them in the first place, because that fare, for Norwegian seem expensive, which makes me wonder if some of that isn’t shaved off for The Doctors.

    But then again, I wouldn’t want to go on a cruise where I was going to get stared down for everything I did.

    1. “seems”… George hasn’t been reading his blue Abeka Grammar book…. not that it would help.

    3. My husband booked our cruise on Norwegian for a third of that…not counting the gratuity tax. Amd we had a balcony room. So, hmmm, where is that extra dough going??

        1. Hmmm. I imagine…it’s just me mind you… but I can see them getting that really cool suite up on deck 14, the one that requires your key card to even make the elevator go that far. I think I saw on the web site that it even has a piano in it! Probably white.

  23. I wonder if the praise band will rework the theme to “The Love Boat”?

    “Jesus exciting and new,
    Come aboard,
    He’s expecting you…”

    2. I’m wondering if they’ll pick out nautical or shipwreck theme hymns — the lighthouse, old ship of zion, love lifted me. Seems like watching a movie about airplaine crashes during an in-flight movie.

      1. I once took a trans-Atlantic flight where the movie was “Runaway Train” (or something like that). It was basically a train-wreck movie. I was trying to sleep, but every time some rough air woke me up, something else bad was happening to that poor train. I don’t know the real running time of that movie, but it seemed like about 845 hours.
        It was the next-best thing to watching plane crashes in-flight.

        1. I once watched “Speed” on a high-school bus trip to Florida. It’s not a good feeling to wake up from a nap and hear someone say “There’s a 50-foot gap in the road three miles ahead!”

      1. Ooooh, I just had a thought.

        Okay, say you were on this ship for your own vacation, you’re not familiar with the IFB world, and you’re taking a nice stroll down the promenade deck. You come to the front where the main theatre is and here a bunch of loud men going, “HAY-MEN!”, “THAT’S RIGHT!”, “PARK IT RIGHT THERE, MISTER!!!”

        You’d be looking for the nearest lifeboat. 😀

  25. Thanks to Jumper Junkie who found the link to this cruise yesterday. 🙂 🙂 🙂

    1. You know, I think they probably wouldn’t eat with the sinners on board and have a covered dish meal outside, complete with cold beans and too-cool-to-be-good fried chicken.

        3. @Jon S – Are you bleepin’ serious? Holy bleep. Wow, that makes atheists like bombing Baghdad makes terrorists.

        4. To be fair, I never knew a fundie to leave the fake bill tract as a tip. Usually it was left somewhere someone might see it and go “Whoo-Hoo!” and then pick it up and read it. On the other hand, rare is the fundy who will tip 15% for adequate service and increase tip for excellance.

  28. “the majestic humpack whale”

    I love typos in “professional” fundy materials. Seems they’re always good for at least one.

    Also, does anyone else find irony in them highlighting the totem poles in Ketchikan?

  29. I remember that even whilst in fundy-land I thought the cost for this — ahem — “vacation” was extravagent. I mean, just think of all the white pianos they could buy with those passenger fees.

    2. Yep! Me too – 1980, SOtL conf in Atlanta, GA. Picked up a John R. Rice Reference bible and filled it with signatures.

      Glory!

      😎

      2. This is at least the 3rd reference to signing bibles. is this done? if so, is the bible like a year book?

  33. I’ll um, sign up for that right now! I really look forward to hearing West Cost Baptist College’s “special music”, and preaching by a bunch of doctors who take one verse of Scripture, and try to get into the cracks of my mind, as that bunch is wont to do! Maybe, if we’re all good, they’ll let us watch a promo video for their little college as well! Movie night, perhaps?

  35. “If you get a few minutes you can work on your ankle tans”

    “My sermon tonight is on the sin of gluttony. No but seriously, be sure to check out the buffet. I’ll be here all week.”

    “…the low, low price of $2,995. Or as it’s known in the Christian Education community: six months pay.”

    “But really can you put a monetary value on the blessing you’ll receive from being harangued on the high seas, blasted on the bounding main, and demonized on the deep blue sea?”

    Darrell, you have a gift! Ever thought about going into comedy?

  36. Let’s hope the ship doesn’t go down. These MoG’s would hate to have their congregation learn that they can’t walk on water. 😆

    1. If the ship goes down, then it would be obvious there was unconfessed sin in the camp.

    2. The MoG I think you and I both know would be much more concerned about the state of his purchased hair as it hits the water. 😆

      1. LOL 12SEF. If I recall, he would be wearing a ball cap when he is on the deck. And he’d probably try to use his Dr. title to ensure a spot on a lifeboat.

    1. I remember reading advertising about that and thinking, “Never! Never! Never!” And I was still a full-fledged fundy!

        2. Woot! but i have to get some tattoos first; put earrings in my other ear; and learn how to swear in more languages.

          i would be a vegan for the trip and complain very loudly to them about the lack of vegetarian options.

          it is a powerful thing to fall into the hands of an angry ex-fundamentalist, with no apologies to Jonathan Edwards.

  40. I love where Pastor Chappell is preaching one week an elite leader of Fundyland on the stage. Next week a half dressed magicians assistant shaking her thing on stage…doesn’t that somehow violate secondary separation?

    1. It would only violate secondary separation if YOU did it; if they approve it (and get a really nice vacation out of it), it’s OK.

  42. If I felt like wasting some cash, I would go, but arrive with only my speedo and some large scale temporary tattoos.

    Front row anyone?!

  43. Not only can you go on a preaching vacation for $3000 you can also buy a brick to pave the walkway of the new athletic center for $1000. You can even have it engraved. I was thinking about buying one and having it engraved with the words “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD”

  44. The only thing that could even possibly make this thing worthwhile would be watching those who choose to make spectacles of themselves by running around during the service go over the railing like the guy who flipped into the baptismal.

    1. The church with the baptismal video you speak of is actually my home church, and we are not legalists, nor fundies. That stunt has actually never happened before, or since, but it sure was funny, and scored us 210 thousand hits on Youtube!

  45. I was a member of that church long enough to know that if someone asked you where you were going on vacation and you said something other than the preaching cruise people would look at you like you were either worldly or insane

    1. 10-15 years ago if a member had said they were going on a cruise their vacation choice would have been viewed as questionable by leadership (bars, casinos, sunbathing, etc.) Besides, shouldn’t all that money be going toward the building fund?

      Years ago, when we were still members there, I remember one couple who said they went on a cruise and ended up spending the entire week in their cabin due to all the immorality around them (we were all so guilt ridden).

      But since the Mannogid is now cruising, it is all okay. 🙄

  46. As we say up here in Anchorage.
    “Welcome to Alaska. Thanks for your money. Now get the hell out!”

    /Nothing personal. We just like our weird mix of guns, drugs, and non-religious folks. It’s been getting weird with the Palinites around here lately. Messing up our thing, here.

    1. That’s what people say in Anchorage.
      What people say in Fairbanks (where the cruises don’t stop) is, “The nice think about Anchorage is that it’s only 45 minutes from Alaska.”

    2. In Kodiak it’s, “Well, no, actually, we can’t promise you that it won’t be raining.” Seriously, somebody demanded good weather while she was getting on the tour bus, and she wasn’t joking.

      But we get a mix of smaller ships that feature scientific lectures as the entertainment, and behemoths on repositioning cruises whose passengers understand that they are getting a longer vacation but less prepackaged entertainment. So Rain Lady is not the norm.

    3. Tyler, I be “Valley Trash”! We have it all here, Commune Fundies to hippies hiding from the draft! I love AK. Then there is Talkeetna :mrgreen:

      1. Talkeetna: Home of the annual moose dropping festival. I once heard a radio interview with a Talkeetna woman whose job included fielding calls from animal rights activists who thought dropping moose was cruel.

        Jenny, are there really that many days when it’s NOT raining on Kodiak?

        (I’m prejudiced because most of my Alaska experience is in and around Fairbanks, which is more or less a desert.)

  48. Darrell–Do you know who that is preaching in the fourth picture? It looks a lot like an IFB pastor I used to have (although about 200 pounds lighter.)

  49. I’d hijack the ship and take it to the Caribbean … Jamaica … first stop: Hedonism II. 🙂

  50. excuse me while i barf…

    wow…close to $3000 for cruise to alaska? i hope they do not defile that cruise ship with their hypocritical fear mongering preaching!

    2. “…..hypocritical fear mongering preaching!”

      The preachers wouldn’t have anything to say then :mrgreen:

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