Amazon.com description: Product Description: Although seven million Americans happily go cruising each year, about 75 million could but never do. Cruise Savvy is designed to seduce that vast, land-locked majority aboard. It is written by John Maxtone-Graham, the world's most articulate and entertaining maritime historian, who says that his specific aim is quite simply "to turn you on to shipboard."

Cruise Savvy is not a guide, nor does it rank or recommend cruise lines or ships. Rather, it is something far more valuable, a fascinating primer about yesterday's and today's shipboard. Contained within these pages is everything that a novice passenger should know before clambering up the gangway: What itinerary, what ship, how long a cruise, what to pack and what to expect once the whistle blows and the ship leaves dock. Maxtone-Graham then documents cabin mystique, deciphers dining room lore, explores the world of entertainment aboard, investigates excursions ashore, unravels the tipping conundrum and suggests what to expect (or not to expect) from the genial crew members who make these great ships so appealing.

Cruise Savvy will become an indispensable volume for all passengers, whether first-timers or habituŽs.