People who like to go on cruises come out of the knotty-pine woodwork Up North.

But beware! COVID-19 ruins cruising.

“The Love Boat” changed my life. The weekly adventures of the Pacific Princess made me hanker for that lifestyle, so I set my sights on it. My dream came true in 2001, when the Holland America Line invited me to be a “guest lecturer” on a voyage from Capetown, South Africa to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was soooo much better than “The Love Boat”! I was hooked.

Forty-two cruises later — more than a year on ships — I’m here to tell you that the pandemic has changed the cruise industry in umpteen awful ways. It is less “The Love Boat” and more “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

“Love in the Time of Cholera” is a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is famous for “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which, in turn, is famous because Oprah Winfrey chose it for her “O Book Club.” It is set on a ship steaming down a river in Colombia during an epidemic. The vessel can’t stop at any of its usually scheduled ports along the way because of the risk of infection.

I was on a cruise like that in February.

The plan had been to call at many cities on the coast of Brazil, then ascend the Amazon, but a surge in COVID-19 put the kibosh on that, causing Brazil to close its ports. Instead, the ship steamed all the way from Montevideo, Uruguay to Bridgetown, Barbados without stopping, 11 straight “sea days.”

“Sea days” are unusual on cruise itineraries — the passengers aren’t there to go to sea, they prefer to go ashore someplace different every day.

That was my third voyage since the cruise industry reopened in October 2021. COVID-19 ruined the first two, too. There were outbreaks of the virus onboard during both. When that happens, the options for fun close one by one, beginning with the exercise room, sauna and steam room. Then the barstools are taped off. Then entire restaurants stop serving as members of the crew succumb to sickness and go into quarantine.

The outbreak was so bad on my second cruise, around New Year’s, that the cruise director himself went into isolation. Jamaica closed its ports while we were in the island’s waters. Ocho Rios was OK one day, but, by the next, Kingston was closed, unless one had booked a tour. (Thank Jah for the exception, or we wouldn’t have visited Bob Marley’s house).

But the worst by far was my last, just in June/July, when my spouse and I went to Alaska for four weeklong cruises. We both tested positive for COVID-19 after the first one. We spent 10 days in isolation, in separate rooms, on a special quarantine corridor where crewmembers in HAZMAT suits took our temperature daily and left room service outside our door in plastic containers. Port day after beautiful port day in the storied cities of Alaska went by as we looked out our windows.

The day we were sprung, I broke my arm, but that’s a different sob story …