Ms. O'Donnell announced a surprise gift for the audience, a two-day cruise on a Royal Caribbean liner, and then made fun of the sponsor's lengthy promotional segment.

"You better give us something more than a two-day cruise for that hour-minute-long package," she said.

Mr. Italiano said he had lost $1,000 in the casino of the ship, the Regal Empress, more than twice the cost of the two-day cruise.

In March 2010 she started operating two-day cruises from the Port of Palm Beach.

Toward this end, Chicago embarked several Mauritian government officials on 21 August for a two-day cruise to Rodrigues Island.

The itinerary includes Manaus, Rio de Janeiro and a two-day cruise aboard a yacht on the Negro and Amazon Rivers.

Prices for the trips from Tampa begin at $165 a person for the two-day cruise and $595 for five days.

Rates start at $287 per person, including lodging, for a two-day cruise.

Yet that's the unseen land that beckons off the bow on the two-day "cruises to nowhere" that regularly depart New York.

Even a special two-day sentimental public cruise from the Western Isles to the Clyde via Oban had to be cancelled.