This was my second "ocean" cruise. My first was in 1960 on the Buckner, a troop ship. The food was terrible, sea sickness was rampant, boredom was everywhere, men sleeping with men, it was a Biblical mess. The "beds" consisted of canvas stretched from plumbing pipes with no wiggle room. Although I was only 5 feet 8 inches at the time, my head was on one pipe and my feet were on the other end. I was holding onto the pipes to keep from being thrown off of my platform when the captain announced, "No hear this, stand by for rolling of the ship." I honestly thought the ship was going under. Our sleeping area was in a room that I really believe was under the engine room. We had an emergency drill shortly after we go on board and we could not get but the stairways we had come down and hatches were locked. After several attempts to reach the deck, we finally got up there and the captain announced that because of our delay, we would have to have another drill in a few hours. Without any pre-plan, we all took off our hats and threw them up to the sky as if we had just won the Army-Navy game. The captain was irate. We never had another drill. After eating swill in the galley, which was ventilated with open port holes with water sometimes splashing in, we enjoyed cleaning up. I was on a detail that got to wash the mops on the fantail of the ship. We tied ropes to the mops and let them wash off in the prop wash. One by one, the mops were returned to the sea and we came away empty handed. Viking was a few thousand times better in every way that the Buckner.