ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A well-adjusted young husband is on the verge of tears today after his new wife put her foot down.

His absolute worst nightmare is now a reality for 27-year-old Mike Donollon, who said he’d rather throw himself under a bus than spend 11 days cruising the South Pacific with his wife’s extended family.

After meeting wife Jahn’s family for the first time, Mike did consider packing it all in and moving on. He was immediately lambasted by her father for working in finance, calling him a “chair-sniffing Bulimba rent boy” over dinner.

“My wife is OK, I guess. We weren’t getting any younger,” said Mike. “Up until now, it was only Christmas every second year. I could handle that. Not 11 days straight on the high seas.”

Donollon has long been fascinated by the type of person who thinks going on a cruise is a good idea, but he never anticipated that his question would be answered from under his nose.

P&O Cruises are very reasonably priced. This, Mike says, is where the problem lies.

“I would honestly rather spend 11 days in hospital,” he said. “If you put a mountain of shit ket in front of me and told me to plough through the whole bag before work, I totally would. I’d literally rather do anything than go on this fucking cruise.”

A spokeswoman from P&O said that this is not an uncommon problem faced by some of their guests. At the start of last year, the cruise line included the ABC onto their basic channel pack and have included more destinations that aren’t Fiji.

“Albeit rare, we do have guests on board that don’t wear V8 Supercar team gear everyday,” said the official. “For the more astute person, we have on-demand programmes like QI and the news.”

When news broke in 2009 that the only alcoholic beverages on one P&O Cruise that year were Jim Beam and Cola cans, the company came under fire for pandering to a certain type of passenger.

It was on that very same cruise that over 4 tonnes of fresh pâté and soft cheese went off after nobody ate them. In fact, the ship had to be restocked in nearby Aukland after running out of microwave popcorn and flavoured condoms on the Trans-Tasman leg of the journey.

“We always run out of flavoured condoms and microwave popcorn.” said the official.