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Thinking of taking the grandkids on a cruise, without the soothing buffer of having their parents onboard? If so, you'll need this sailor's advice.

Planning a cruise is smart thinking for people who wish to avoid air travel but still want a special family trip. When I tell my friends that I - just me - recently took my granddaughters, Madeleine (8) and Hillary (5) on a three-day cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico, their response is instant disbelief: "Without their parents? Are you crazy?"

Our cruise, my first solo with grandchildren, could have been a Harry Potter nightmare had we not enlisted some of the ground rules that I firmly recommend for intrepid grandparents (see Do's and Don't's below). While planning in advance may appear like overkill, believe me, in the heat of battle one does not always think clearly - so established rules are your life saver.

Our adventure begins one day in July as we attempt to board the most enormous ship I've ever seen. We spend two hours winding along a serpentine line of fellow passengers filling out forms and switching sweaty hands between hand luggage and guitar cases. Finally, we are allowed to walk on board. As we negotiate the route to our cabin, we face 10 floors, four sets of elevators in varying locations, stairways too numerous to count, and 2,650 passengers scurrying around a seventy-thousand-ton vessel whose 700 crew members know everybody is lost. Once located, our cabin proves more than adequate. It features a toilet which flushes like a bomb blast and, on the bed, a bath towel folded like a rabbit.

Originally I believed this would be a cruise for families. Later, I learned it is for making families: this Carnival Cruise Line ship is named Ecstasy. Pleasure seekers have a wide range of opportunities - board games, a camp for kids, slot and video machines, dance classes, sweet treats, Teen Scene Final Blowout in the Stripes Disco, and Hey Mambo shows with Ziegfeld feathers and fluted fans. What I hadn't expected was the emphasis on the singles scene with a bevy of bare-legged, hip-swishing "Baywatch" babes busily gyrating to loud, hot, cool, and swing music. For "my kind" there are seminars on anti-aging, eat more to weigh less, cellulite solutions, and aching back remedies. As for the kids, they seem oblivious to the more "mature" aspects of the cruise.

Day # 1 goes like a dream. I am certain my friends were just plain chicken. The kids eat right, talk right, sleep right. They even act like troopers when Hillary pulls an ankle muscle charging down the corridor and Madeleine slams a heavy glass door against her head.

Storm Ahead

Day # 2 gets a bit dicey. Arriving in Ensenada, Mexico, we sign up for the "Blowhole" tour. The girls especially want to see foam shoot up through an underground tunnel. A cheerful local guide herds us onto a bus which takes us to a refugee camp look-alike. Tents as far as the eye can see hold all manner of lures for sale to eager tourists: beaded and silver jewelry, striped Indian blankets, handsomely decorated pottery, embroidered blouses, and Mexican team baseball caps.

My two girls are satisfied with gorgeous dolls, gecko T-shirts and "fashionable-for-the-funky" toe rings. As we re-board the bus, I ask the guide when we're going to see the blowhole. She says, "Theees is the blowhole!" which we never see since it is hidden behind the tents. Then she interrogates all the other passengers, "Deeed anyone else not understand me except for theeees lady? I am sure not!" At least, my two girls don't cross their arms and glare. They don't even tell me I'm not cool.

Rough Passage

But on day #3, the darlings strike. They take their positions and fire. It was the talent show that started it. Since the love of Hillary's life is show biz in the form of "ballet", she jumps at the opportunity to display her talent. At cruise camp she spends the morning practicing her steps, painting her face, playing pirate and going on a scavenger hunt. The treat of a lifetime, think I, querying her as she returns with: "Tell us everything!" Stonefaced, she bunches up her mouth, raises her head like a queen and marches off. Efforts to find out what went wrong are rebuffed, and the silent treatment prevails. At lunch, even the waiters notice the mood problem. To their credit, they, who are invariably kind, are now beseechingly attentive to Hillary who practically has to be dragged to the cabin for a badly needed rest.

For an hour while Madeleine naps, Hillary lies on her stomach, elbows bent, resting her chin on her hands, repeating her mantra: "I will not sleep, I will not sleep, I will not sleep." Well on my way to hypnosis, I dress the diva for her upcoming performance in a long taffeta blue-green dress with bows and streamers, redden her pouting lips and create a Rita Hayworth coiffeur. The performance goes adorably as she tap dances her way across the stage between bows and assorted kicking movements. As she tips her hat and points her cane toward the audience, we respond lovingly with "Hurrahs!" in a flurry of applause.