When you’ve spent a week watching the best golfers in the world play in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, as we have, you’re vulnerable to a cruise that includes golf. Even more so if it includes one of the game’s greats, the under-rated Billy Casper. If nothing else, then, we have established our vulnerability.
Waiting for us when we returned was notice of a “sale” from Crystal Cruises, one of the luxury lines in the business. The offers are basically 2-for-1 (I’m working on her), for an opportunity to spend 11 days 
on the Crystal Symphony (in Quebec, photo courtesy of Crystal Cruises), listening Casper, sportscaster Jim Huber and PGA teaching pro John Clark talk golf. Also play 18 holes at a reputable course in the eastern U.S. or Canada.
The cruise goes from Montreal to New York…via Quebec City, Halifax, NS, Saint John, NB, Portland, ME, Boston and Newport, RI. Which golf course you play may depend on the weather.
And if golf’s not your thing, Crystal has a series of other interesting guest-speaker cruises on sale:
Science & Technology – Learning more about the world’s latest scientific and technological developments while on the Mexican Riviera, from Christopher Coburn (Cleveland Clinic’s chief of technology commercialization) and astronauts Robert Gibson and Rhea Seddon.
Mind, Body & Spirit – Instructors include Dr. Martin Lee, a Stanford University physicist who founded the Tai Chi Cultural Center in L.A.
Wine & Food Festival Voyage – World-renowned chefs and wine experts like Yerika Munoz, Jeremiah Tower, Madeleine de Jean (first female sommelier in the U.S.), Sandra Fernandez and Julio Bermejo, the tequila expert.
Jazz Voyage – Robert O’Meally, Director of Jazz Studies at Columbia University and the author/editor of such books as Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, and Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies.
As impressive as all that is, I’m still hung up on the golf one. That cruise — cleverly named Links & Lobsters — leaves Montreal on October 22, and my clubs are packed.
That’s it, I’m done.