The Love Boat and other cruise ships in the 80's

Submitted by Mary on Thu, 08/12/2010 - 10:05pm (734 reads)

The TV show "The Love Boat" made people who had never before considered going on a cruise ship fall in love with the idea of going on a cruise. That show began in the late 70's, then sailed right on through the 80's until the summer of 1986, when it was canceled. A couple years before "The Love Boat" was canceled, we saw the first cruise line commercials to ever air on network television. In 1984, Kathie Lee Gifford starred in those commercials, advertising Carnival Cruise Lines. 

In addition to a cruise ship TV show and cruise ship commercials, I also remember an early 80's movie called "Table for Five" about a family on a cruise. I'm sure there were more 80's movies about cruise ships, or more 80's movies with cruise ship scenes. This is when "cruise fashions" started to become very popular. These are the clothes that make people feel like they are going on a cruise ship, even if they are just going to the mall. I'm talking about anchor earrings, a red and white top with a ship's wheel on it, and a navy and white striped skirt. 

One of my cousins and I used to play "cruise ship" in the early 80's, thanks to ideas inspired by the show "The Love Boat". We would pretend that the guest room at our grandparents house was our cruise ship room. The twin beds were perfect for our cruise, because we could leave a mint on each pillow.  We would get dressed up and go out to the pool and pretend we had an event to go to. Our favorite part was taking turns providing room service on a tray to our cruise ship room. We truly believed we were living a life of luxury on a moving cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. 

Maybe as adults we should try sometimes to get so lost in our imaginations that we truly believe we are somewhere else. I don't mean just visualizing it as we do as adults, but getting completely lost in the idea of it and acting it out, as we did as children. We could spend hours every night on a cruise ship right in our own homes. Maybe listening to "The Love Boat" theme song will get us in the mood.

 

Thank you to bellini347  for posting this video of clips from the Love Boat on YouTube! 

 

Comments

Comment viewing options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Love Boat memories

Submitted by Visitor on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 4:54pm.

Anchor earrings, yes, indeed were the "in" thing back then. Thankfully time and tastes have changed but it's certainly fun to remember the good old days. I could hear the Love Boat music playing as I read your article :)

Comment viewing options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Post new comment

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <p> <br> <iframe> <img> <b> <i> <table> <tr> <td> <th> <tbody>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Insert Google Map macro.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.