I once lived without toilet paper for four months. I was studying abroad in Nepal, and I was convinced I needed to be completely submersed in the culture.

Having said that, as you can imagine, I used to be a complete cruise snob.

I believed that cruising was not traveling. I believed it was an excuse to behave like a prototypical American tourist: Consume vast amounts of inoffensive food, surround yourself with English speakers and wear tank tops and shorts. Even if you're a man.

Where was the adventure?

I preferred actually being in countries, interacting with the people, fumbling with the language, eating the food, getting lost. Even if it meant water-closet ablutions.

My enlightenment came during my dad's 60th-birthday celebration. A cruise veteran, he wanted the family to take a seven-day cruise to Mexico together. He was paying.

Even snobs have a price. Mine was a free tropical vacation. What can I say? It was spring, and I was starting to look pasty.

We boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise ship and set sail for Cabo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta.

Mainland pleasures

I wouldn't call the cruise ship a floating hotel. I'd call it a floating amusement park. Our ship had not one but two pools, indoor and outdoor. It also had a rock-climbing wall, a miniature golf course, a jogging course, a gym, a spa, a casino and a nightclub. As we pulled away from port of San Diego, a band on the pool deck lit into "Play That Funky Music." It felt like the start of a vacation on Muzak.

Everything had been perfectly calibrated not to offend. The music was never too funky, the food was never too exotic, the live entertainment was never too talented. One night the crew put on a musical revue called "Rhythm Nation," in which dancers can-canned, Russian high-kicked and Korean fan-danced to various ethnic versions of Janet Jackson's ancient pop hit.

We attended a brief presentation on the various ports we'd be visiting. In fact, it was an extended ad for destination shops that pay Royal Caribbean to advertise for them. As we walked in, the presenter shouted, "What are you going to do when you see something you like?"

"Buy it!" the crowd shouted back in unison.

Could be food critics

You know Jan and Michael Stern, the couple that travel America critiquing the best U.S. road food? My parents could be the Janning and Wendy Chan of cruises. They've sailed on the Mediterranean, the South China Seas, even taken a floating university cruise where they attended lectures and classical music concerts.

Every meal, my mom would deliver her critique. "Carnival's midnight chocolate buffet was much more," she paused to find the right word, "delicate."

On the lunch buffet: "It's not that the food was that good on Carnival, it's that it was steaming hot."

And as we warily eyed last night's roast beef disguised as the afternoon pool-side goulash: "Oh, you should have seen the barbecue on the Star Leo. They had a satay station! Another station — fish ball noodle soup! And another station — a wok! Chow mein!"

Her voice cracked each time she told the story of the Star Leo, which she took from Hong Kong to Vietnam.

But she didn't like the Leo crowd. "They might as well have been wearing their pajamas. People wore their flip flops to dinner!"

Her favorite staff was on the Mediterranean cruise, where they taught her the Macarena.

During our trip, she burned the soles of her feet on an overheated poolside tile and had to go to the ship's doctor. The cruise line refused to pay for her medical bill.

And despite all these strikes, I found myself more than tolerating the trip. I was definitely liking it. The days had a pleasant mindlessness to them. People who don't like cruises say there's nothing to do on the ship, but, in fact, I felt like my days were quite full.

I woke up, I went to breakfast. After breakfast, I read on the pool deck. After lunch, I would return to my room and would maybe catch a movie on TV. My family would get together for mahjong in the game room. Before dinner, I went to the gym and did Stairmaster with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

Mother, daughter bonding

Then I'd get to wear a swanky formal dress that I never got to wear in Seattle. I would fetch my mom and we would go browse the same six stores each night. We would order all the food we wanted at dinner, drink wine and laugh at each other's lobster faces.

It was the first family vacation a fight didn't break out. The closest we got was when my brother went on a mahjong losing streak and had to take a timeout in his cabin.

And it was better than a tropical vacation. I once spent three days on a beach in Thailand, and I was bored stupid.

In Los Cabos, we went ashore and took a catamaran to snorkel in frigid water. In Mazatlan, we got lost in dusty side streets searching for the old city center. I began to remember what it was like to really travel.

In Puerto Vallarta, we spent the morning browsing endless souvenir stalls, and missed the Mexican lunch hour. By the time we realized it, we were smack in the middle of siesta and all the restaurants had closed. We walked and sweated until we finally found an open restaurant.

At that point, I announced I would be taking a taxi back to the ship. The authentic ceviche was no longer worth the 60-minute search. My boyfriend hiked into the jungle foothills, and I returned to air conditioning. I was the spoiled American.

I wouldn't go on another cruise with my boyfriend alone or friends my age. If you're a parent looking to please everyone in the family, I have to warn you that I saw plenty of teenagers who looked mortified to be on a cruise with their parents.

But the cruise forced me to rethink my travel philosophy. I recently went to Vietnam and Cambodia. They had water pails in the bathrooms. I recognized them from Nepal. And I brought my own Kleenex.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or scha@seattletimes.com.