I'm not a gambler, but the one exception is on a cruise.
The Shifting Role of the Cruise Ship Godmother
07.11.2024 - 21:23 / cntraveler.com / queen Elizabeth Ii II (Ii) / Oprah Winfrey
This story is part of the 2024 Bright Ideas in Travel, our annual list that recognizes the players, places, and projects that are approaching travel’s most pressing issues with thoughtfulness and zeal.
For as long as there have been ships, there has been some form of religious—or superstitious—blessing ceremony.
From Catholic blessings of Portuguese fishing fleets to the human sacrifices of the Viking era, different cultures took great lengths to ensure the success and safety of sea voyages. That’s because ships used to sink. A lot. (It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the Titanic was never christened).
Over time ocean voyages shifted away from a means of survival to a leisurely method of transportation, setting the stage for “pleasure cruising” as we know it today. With lower stakes and safer ships, holy water and blood were soon replaced with Champagne.
But one maritime tradition that has withstood the test of time is the naming of a cruise ship’s godmother, or a civilian sponsor (usually a woman) who is chosen to bless the vessel with good luck and protection. Modern day cruise ships have been blessed by godmothers of the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Malala Yousafzai, J.Lo, and Oprah Winfrey. The title typically requires very little beyond attending the cruise ship’s naming ceremony—bottles are smashed, speeches are given, perhaps there’s a concert or party—and then the cruise ship can go on its way.
Who is eligible for the role of a cruise ship godmother has shifted over the years from royalty to big-name celebrities, to more philanthropic figures. But now, as cruise companies reckon with their at-times contemptuous relationships with port communities over issues like pollution and overtourism, the industry is due for yet another overhaul of the godparent role: one that is not just a one-way christening of the ship’s good fortune, but a multilateral blessing of the ship and the communities it visits.
That’s the concept behind luxury cruise line Seabourn’s recent appointment of the Wunambal Gaambera people, an Aboriginal Australian community of the northern Kimberley region, as the “godparents” of its newest expedition ship, Seabourn Pursuit. The ship departed for its inaugural voyage through Australia’s Kimberley region on June 22, 2024, with the official christening ceremony on June 29, when it ported at Ngula (Jar Island).
Over the past decade, the Wunambal Gaambera people have worked toward a sustainable return to their Indigenous land. During World War II, their ancestors were forced to relocate from their Country along York Sound off the Kimberley coast to Catholic religious missions in Kalumburu—a region over 100 miles away. Today, tourism to Wunambal Gaambera Country—also called Uunguu,
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