ALL ABOARD THE BUFFET: The Cruise Ship Sails Off With the First Plate While the Road Trip Revs Its Engine Right Behind

Contestants, step up to the pass. Tonight's mystery basket holds five ways to run away from your inbox: the resort all-inclusive, the road trip, the big-city culture break, the cabin-and-hiking-boots escape, and the floating hotel with its midnight chocolate fountain. One question, five dishes, and a dining room that is already banging cutlery on the tables. What is the best way to take a vacation? (Pause. Long pause. Somebody cue the violins.)

The opinion markets on Morfi opened this fight less than a day ago, and the first tasting is already in. Out front: the cruise ship vacation, at 42% consensus with 9 holders putting their money on it. Right behind, engine ticking and snacks rolling around the passenger seat: the road trip with your own car, at 32% consensus, backed by 9 holders. Still on the menu and waiting to be judged: 3 other sides.

Keep in mind what those numbers measure. They are the crowd's conviction, not a head count, and so far 21 unique traders have staked $35,305 on their palates. It's an early service and the plates are still warm, but the first verdict has a clear flavour: the dining room wants to be carried, fed and entertained by a giant ship, while the runner-up wants the wheel in their own hands. That's room service against the open road, the tasting menu against the drive-thru.

Now the judge's verdict, and yes, this is pure opinion, served hot. The cruise ship is a soufflé: impressive when it arrives, a bit hollow once you dig in. Ten decks of everything, and somehow every port is only six hours long. The road trip is a slow-braised stew: messy, bickering, a wrong turn and a gas-station pastry of questionable age, and it's still the meal you'll be talking about in ten years. If you ask my palate, the crowd has plated this one in the wrong order. The car deserves the gold spoon. The ship gets an honourable mention for the dessert bar.

But a judge is only as good as the next tasting, and this kitchen has barely got the stoves lit. Watch whether the cabin hikers and the city-break crowd come in late and shake up the pass, and whether the all-inclusive resort, the cruise ship's land-bound cousin, starts stealing its diners. Think the judges have got it wrong? Join the market on Morfi, put your money where your mouth is, and plate up your own verdict. Service is open. (Dramatic pause.) Cook.