Day 1, Saturday, November 13
Galveston, getting on board.
We flew from San
Jose to Houston,
and took a bus to the ship. That was a disaster – the busses were over an hour
late.
Day 1: Our cabin
But, when we got on board and
found our cabin, someone, probably the travel agent Cathy Licardo, had it
decorated for Mischel’s November 11 birthday.
The cabin has a bed, closet, bathroom
(shower), TV and minibar, desk and chair, sitting chair, and a little balcony.
Day 1: Our cabin
Gerry visiting our cabin.
Day 1: Boat drill
Immediately after leaving port,
they have a boat drill. The larger boats hold over 100 people and are used to
“tender” people ashore in ports with no place to dock. I’d like one of the
double-hulled ones: they’re fast and stable.
What you don’t like to see is
the hand holds on the bottom of a lifeboat (like the front one).
Day 2, Sunday, November 14
At sea.
Day 2: First formal
dinner
Despite prior arrangements, the
first day we weren’t seated with Gerry and Edna Ott, but the second day we
moved to their table.
The reserved seating is for
dinner in the deck 6-7 dining room. We had the late (8:30) seating. You don’t have to have dinner
there: there are a couple small restaurants (Italian and Sushi) behind the café
on deck 11.
Breakfast and lunch were usually
cafeteria style (five lines) in the café on deck 11, although we had breakfast
in the dining room a couple times, and you can have any meal delivered to your
cabin.
Day 3, Monday, November 15
Cozumel.
Been there, done that.
Took a cab downtown and shopped.
Day 4, Tuesday, November 16
Costa Maya.
Originally, Day 4 was supposed
to be Belize, on the Yucatan peninsula just south of Mexico. Belize got cancelled because of
“political trouble”, which we found out was that they raised the rates for
ships to stop there.
We weren’t looking forward to Belize.
It’s a poor country, and the only reason we heard of to go there is to take a
boat and snorkel or scuba the offshore reef. Sour grapes.
Anyway… Mexico is opening a new tourist area on the Yucatan peninsula called
Costa Maya. They bill it as the new Cancun.
Day 4: Tender to Costa
Maya
No dock, so tenders were used.
The overhang is the bottom of
deck 11.
Day 4: Mayan temple
The main attraction is some
newly restored Mayan ruins. This is the largest of several temples.
Interesting, but quite a ways
inland, an hour and 20 or 30 minute bus ride.
Day 5, Wednesday, November 17
At sea, heading for Panama.
Day 5: Sunset
This picture enlarges quite
well. I use it for background on my computer screen.
Day 5: Martini bar
Decks 5 to 7, looking to port.
The aft elevators and the dining room are on the left.
“Port” and “left” both have four
letters, so “starboard” must be right.
Day 5: Second formal
night
Day 5: Mischel and
Edna
Day 5: Mischel at our
cabin
Our cabin was starboard, next to
the forward elevators on the left, stairs on the right.
Day 6, Thursday, November 18
Panama.
Day 6: Daybreak in Panama
Day 6: Approaching the
first lock
The picture shows Mischel in the
deck 12 forward observation lounge. The ship is moving at 1 or 2 mph.
Day 6: In the second
lock
Day 6: In the third
lock
It only took an hour to get
through the three locks between the Caribbean and Lake
Gatun.
Day 6: Excursion
groups
Mischel’s on the left.
This time the excursion groups
assembled in the theater (forward). This theater is the showroom and holds
about 800 people; there’s also a smaller movie theater for maybe 200 people.
Day 6: Theater, from
row 1
Another view of the theater,
about 100 ft. wide.
Day 6: Tenders to
shore
Then we tendered to shore across
Lake Gatun.
Day 6: Ships on Lake Gatun
A Holland America cruise ship
and an empty freighter on Lake Gatun.
Day 6: Our ship, from
shore
From the dock, we walked to the
train.
Panama was the only stop where you
couldn’t get off the ship on your own. Everyone had to be part of a tour group.
The Canal Zone still has a security perimeter.
Day 6: On the Panama
Train
Our guide, in the true Panama
hat, and the train attendants about to sing us a song. They served drinks;
their English was marginal.
The train goes along Lake Gatun
from Colon, on the Caribbean
side, for about 40 miles, almost to the Pacific end of the canal. To do that in
an hour, the train must have been doing 60.
In the morning and evening, the
train carries commuters from the better homes on the Pacific side to their jobs
in Colon. It
also carries freight containers both directions.
Then we took a tour bus to the
Pacific end of the canal… actually to the end of a chain of islands connected
by a causeway built with debris from the canal construction.
Day 6: Panama City
Mischel, with Panama City in the background.
Footnote: they use the term
"Panama" the way
we use "New York",
implying the city.
After a stop for souvenir
shopping, the tour bus took us back to the ship, docked in Colon.
Day 6: The greeters
But first, more souvenir
shopping, at the dock in Colon.
Day 6: Celebrity
(Galaxy) at Colon
Then, back on the ship.
Day 7, Friday, November 19
Costa Rica.
Day 7: Costa Rican
rain forest
We took a bus to a private rain
forest adjacent to a national park. The bus ride was over an hour.
Day 7: Getting on the
tram
You take a tram through the rain
forest.
The tram cars are welded to the
cable, so whenever people get on or off, the whole system stops. But it lets
you view things while stopped.
Day 7: View from the
tram
The tram runs out and back
through a vertical slice of the rain forest about 8 or 10 feet wide, with a
service walkway on the ground, so it's not exactly non-intrusive.
Day 7: Spider #2,
about actual size
We saw lots of weird plants:
tree ferns, etc., but nothing on four legs. Supposedly they're nocturnal.
We saw some leaf cutter ants at
work, just like in the documentaries, but that was about it for insects.
Strange. No mosquitos, centipedes, nada. No cobwebs in the rain forest. No
spiders except one on a tram pole and another by the tourist buildings. Photo
of spider #2 above; (s)he's 2 1/2 or 3 inches across. Bottom side, I think.
They said there were no termites because of the altitude, all of 1400 feet.
Heard one parrot, saw some
little birds. One butterfly, blue.
Day 7: Waiting for the
bus back
Day 7: Souvenir
hunting
Day 7: Returning to
the ship
Day 7: Breakers in the
pool
This is the midships pool, with
water down to the bottom on the left, and water splashing out on the right. The
size of the pool made for a harmonic with the ship’s pitching.
That was a rough night,
apparently because of a storm near Venezuela. I guess that was the
night I skipped dinner.
Day 8, Saturday, November 20
At sea.
Day 7: At sea
Played Men vs. Women trivia. Saw
a freighter. Lost money in the casino. Ate too much.
An aside: The British member of the Mens trivia team, who
didn’t know that people from Oxford
are called Oxians, sang “Wild Thing” rather convincingly at Karaoke one night.
Day 9, Sunday, November 21
Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Day 9: Mischel in our
cabin (1)
Docked at Montego Bay, the rich
end of Jamaica.
No cruise ships stop at Kingston.
Day 9: Mischel in our
cabin (2)
Day 9: Mischel in our
cabin (3)
Right is forward. She’s in the middle,
three decks above the stern of the second lifeboat.
Our shore excursion was to see
the Green House, one of the few mansions not burned down during the slave
revolt. The other one restored is Rose Hall, the center of a huge development
with a hotel, golf, shopping and residences.
Day 9: Jamaica:
Green House tour (1)
Jerry, checking out a metal disk
music box, with Edna, Mischel and our guide.
Day 9: Jamaica:
Green House tour (2)
Jerry, checking out a metal
cylinder music box.
Day 9: Jamaica:
Green House tour (3)
The balcony. Inside there was a
lot of fancy furniture and decorations. The house was owned by the Bronte
family and used for entertainment.
Day 9: Jamaica:
lunch
Our driver picked The Pelican
for lunch. They don’t serve pelican. I had a local favorite: stewed goat.
If you look closely, you can see
our ship in the distance, between the tree and the blue sign:
Day 9: Jamaica:
Galaxy
Day 10, Monday, November 22
Cayman
Islands.
It’s not far from Montego Bay to
the Cayman Islands. The ship times stops so
they dock just after dawn and leave just before dusk. The time is adjusted by
cruise speed: 8 to 16 mph if they have lots of time, 24 mph if they’re in a
hurry.
I brought my hand-held GPS to
check on them. At one point, both the Belize
(replaced by Costa Maya) and Cayman Islands
(reinstated) stops were going to be days at sea, and I wanted to check if they
were just driving in circles. During the day, you can tell by the sun, and at
night you’re sleeping, so the GPS didn’t prove anything. However, near the
Equator it was easy to get 6 or 8 satellites, instead of 3 or 4 at home.
We tendered ashore for the “Swim
with the Sting Rays and Snorkel the Reef” shore excursion.
Day 10: Roof damage
Hurricane Ivan caused enough
damage that cruise ships couldn’t stop there for a while. Most buildings had
roof damage; some had no roofs; some were condemned.
Day 10: Sting Rays
from boat
This is Sting Ray City. The water is about 12 feet deep. Fishermen
used to clean their catches there. Now the rays are fed by tourist boats.
Day 10: Sting Rays
from water
The stinger is a couple inches
long, usually in a sheath about halfway along the tail. It’s used for
protection when the ray is hiding or sleeping under the sand.
Day 10: Sting Ray and
John
Mischel had the underwater
camera, so there are no pictures of her. I felt one held by a guide; it feels
like squid; that’s the bait to get them to the boat.
The guides apologized for the
sea being too rough. For one thing, only about 10 rays showed up, instead of
the usual 100. For another, we couldn’t snorkel the reef, for which they
refunded part of the money.
Day 10: Hell
Here’s Mischel with Satan. Hell
was named by some early explorer who hadn’t seen volcanic rock. It’s the
ultimate tourist trap, where you send “I’ve been to Hell and back” postcards.
Day 10: Carved
watermelon
Sometimes the cooks have ice or
fruit carving demonstrations.
The dinner of the last night they
have a parade through the dining room, when they serve a flaming dessert, like
Baked Alaska or Cherries Jubilee. However, the fire regulations must be
stricter now; we had cold Baked Alaska.
Day 10: Dining room
This is a view from the second
deck of the dining room, looking aft.
Day 11, Tuesday, November 23
At sea; third formal night.
Day 11: Flying fish
Saw flying fish avoiding our bow
wave. Usually one or a few, sometimes a group of 10 or 20. The larger ones were
about a foot long.
The fish come in different
sizes: the little ones could fly 10 or 20 feet, the adults could make it 100 or
200 feet by beating their fins like crazy and skipping across the tops of
waves.
Then I saw something brown
underwater, and soon saw something breaking the surface near the stern. I'm
guessing they were porpoises playing in the wake while not eating flying fish.
With about a half second delay
between pushing the button and the digital camera taking a picture, I couldn't
get a shot of a porpoise out of water.
Some guy said he saw the fish
all morning, so that would make the school be about 50 plus miles across.
Day 11: Mischel won!
Mischel won the blackjack
tournament, beating five obnoxious Texans at the final table. Luck.
Day 11: John won!
I hit a dollar slot. Skill.
Day 12, Wednesday, November 24
At sea; talent contest.
Day 12: Talent
contestants
Rather than offend anyone,
everyone won. Gerry and Edna are in red and white. Gerry accompanied himself,
Edna, our table-mate The Reverend Kay Studley, and some guy.
Day 12: Sunset over
the Gulf
Another cruise tradition, that
we skipped, is the fancy dessert buffet the night before getting off. That’s
done to placate people who just finished packing, put their luggage in the
hallway, and have only their shore clothes to wear.
Day 13, Thursday, November 25
Galveston; Thanksgiving.
Day 13: Luggage off,
supplies on
We took the bus back to Houston.
A weird problem was getting on
the right bus. We were renting a car, not taking a flight. The guy directing
people to busses asked “Which airline?” Mischel said “Hertz”. The guy gave a
blank stare and asked “Which airline?” Mischel said “Continental” and we got on
a bus.
Then, Hertz messed up the
reservation, so we got a Jaguar S-Type instead of a Lincoln LS. Later, they
tried to bill us for both of them.
The GPS system didn’t have the
O’Nan’s subdivision, so we called for directions when we got to Austin. We got there late
afternoon.
Tia had Thanksgiving dinner
Friday afternoon, with Ron’s parents and us.
Round Rock, TX: Chris
and us
We flew back from Austin (via Houston),
getting home late Monday night, November 29, tired.
