The Big Booper

I've always felt that the Centrums on the Radiance Class ships are extremely impressive as they stretch from Deck 4 all the way up to 12 and 13.

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn't get a good shot on the top level where the critters hang out. Too many support beams block the angles.

The little machine in the background makes a whole lot of rolls with just one press, sort of like a drill press. So eat up.

 

 

Push

 

 

 

Big rolls ready to roll.

 

Our next activity was a tour of the galley which we did before the Tutti Salad lunch, offered in the MDR on sea days. Our group was taken to the level where cakes and bread are baked, which revved us up for lunch.

 

 

 

The Executive Chef led our group.

 

 

Photos have disappeared from several posts. Hopefully limiting to 4 per post will work.

This was the only day at sea on the trip so a lot of stuff got shoe horned in.

 

First up was the back stage tour with the Dance Captain as our tour guide. He spent much of the time explaining activities behind the curtain and entertaining us with show-biz slang. "Park and Bark" anyone. I never knew that his position had so much power.

 

 

After his talk we ran up to catch the end of the M & M.

 

Then I went up to say farewell to the Seaview Cafe. Best burgers on the ship.

 

 

 

 

I'll miss it. Somewhat out of the way.

Most of them say "click to view photos" then when clicked they say not available. Most showed on the first couple of posts but the last post or two only 1 or 2 show.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Same with me.

 

I sent support a query.

 

Until then I'll limit links to 3 per post and see what happens.

Big Booper,

 

Not sure what the problem is but your pictures are not showing up. Looking forward to following along.

 

Cindy

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

I see them and am using IE.

 

None of them????

 

Logged in with Mozilla now, some of the pics are not showing.

 

They are on Photobucket and appear to be large sized.

 

I pay the yearly fee to avoid bandwidth issues. Maybe I can shrink them.

I saw this boat tied up and immediately thought...where's Tink and Peter? Probably back in Vancouver acting in TV.

 

 

I have no idea what these buildings are or were but they looked stately.

 

 

 

Eventually we made our way back to the ship on one of the shuttles and decided to hit the theater for the RCS&D show for the Evening, West End to Broadway. Obviously not up to the caliber of the shows on the big ships and most of the cast seemed youngish.

 

On the following day we went on the back stage tour, given by the dance captain, and were told that for some in the cast, it was their first professional performing job. Makes sense, this ship lives in the backwaters of Alaska, the PC and San Juan and is a good place to learn the business.

 

 

 

 

We then took the shuttle downtown to check the town out. Since it was Sunday the flea market was open and people and their dogs were all over the place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woof woof to you!

The next day dawned...cloudy and gray and slightly chilly. Nothing new here. Since we were re-entering the US to stay the passengers had to go thru customs and with no facilities on shore the ICE folks set up shop on board. Every deck was assigned a time frame to head down to the dining room to file past the officials and present passports and have our seapass card clipped. The process was fairly fast and efficient.

 

Once complete the ship cleared and we were allowed to disembark.

 

Astoria was once a major lumbering area and even though much smaller, there is still a forestry presence here. The city lies next to the mighty Columbia River.

 

 

 

 

The Astoria-Megler Bridge, opened in 1962, connects Oregon to the State of Washington. Once a toll bridge, after the bonds were paid off, the 21,500 foot span was converted to a free bridge. On a cloudy day like today the span disappears into the fog and haze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quality of these photos was not as good as I was looking for but these two waterproofs are 3.5 and 7 years old and the lighting was dreary.

 

We went back to the ship and the bus driver did give us a short tour of other parts of Victoria. I was still not feeling great and didn't lug cameras to dinner .

We did have a flying thingee when we went back to our cabin later that night.

 

And more photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The carousel

 

 

More flower gardens

 

Some more photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first scheduled stop was in Victoria. Not being an early bird you won't be seeing any sailing-into-the-harbor-pictures out of any camera I am using.:)

 

Since we had 4 adults in our group I wanted to rent a car and drive to Butchart Gardens but was outvoted 3 to 1. So we took the expensive ship's tour instead. The place was about 40 minutes away and was an easy drive on the bus. The day was overcast with threats of drizzles and rains, what else, so we took our two waterproof cameras and left the bigger higher quality cameras back on the ship.

 

 

The Gardens themselves were beautiful and lived up to expectations.

 

 

 

 

There were 44 P on the Nov 2014 Explorer repo from NJ to Florida; that is the highest I remember seeing. That record should be demolished when Harmony does it's TA Nov 2016.

Earlier in the thread you mentioned that this sailing had the highest number of Pinnacles. Did they quote a number?

This was our 40th cruise but the first time we had been to any of these ports with the exception of LA before our Panama Canal trip in 2006. Also this was our first time on the Jewel, completing the quartet of Radiance class ships for us.

 

We flew into Vancouver 2 days prior but because American pushed our departure from Florida back from 6 AM to 2 PM we didn't get into YVR until late at night so the first day was spent flying from FLL to Dallas and then up to YVR. It left us totally jet lagged and what with both of us being slightly under the weather to begin with there aren't a lot of pictures until the second day of the cruise in Victoria.

 

We stayed at the Comfort Inn in downtown Vancouver, booked by our friends who like cheaper hotels. Serviceable but not great. And the price was reasonable..

 

We did take the HoHo tour of the city but because it was gray and overcast and the bus bounced and had streaky windows we didn't get decent shots so no pictures of the city.

 

We did notice that the city is highly "green" .Most of the cabs were Prius' which is a problem when you have two people and two weeks worth of luggage covering multiple temperature zones. But the taxi dispatcher at the airport located a minivan cab for us.

 

Most of the busses drew their power from overhead electrical lines so there were very few diesels throwing up particulates, real pollution. And also the only pictures I have from Vancouver.

 

 

and

 

 

We took a cab into Chinatown for dinner but I can't locate any pictures so maybe we misplaced a memory card for that first day. Or used the smartphones??

..

 

...>>>SNIP<<<...

 

As for the two ships stopping in Victoria I think it was to satisfy the Jones Act prior to returning to their disembarkation port. I don't even know their itinerary but such a short stop in such a beautiful location makes me think that was the reason.

 

It was definitely a PVSA mandated stop. Ships leaving out of Seattle and going to Alaska must do the one foreign port and Victoria at night is that stop. All the other stops were in Alaska.

Keep it coming. Enjoying your thorough and well documented review. As I said during the other prior review, good to see pictures of the sights we missed.

Whenever we are on a ship with the Freestyle machines, the LED panel always shows the cups are good for 2 weeks... even on a one week cruise.

[quote=max'smom;48095298][FONT=Century Gothic][SIZE=3]Thanks, all!

I loved the 8 and 6 night sailings. I hate that Indy is going to 5 ~ 5 ~ 4 sailings and the crew is not too happy about it either.

We are going to try Oasis again in the Spring. I can only do the big, big ships once in a while. We'll see how it goes.[/SIZE][/FONT][/quote]

[quote name='ckrobyn']The 5 and 5 works perfect for those of us wanting a 10 night cruise :) I guess it would be harder on the crew with turnaround day coming more often. One thing I do when on a b2b is give my cabin attendant the day off on turnaround day and let my cabin go without being serviced. At least it is one less cabin for them to deal with :o[/quote]

Interesting that the Freedom class ships are now referenced as "smaller" ships.

Oasis class can be just as relaxing as the "smaller" classes once you've been on them prior and don't feel the need for speed:). On a b2b we just sit in Central Park and watch the new pax charge on board.

Thanks for the heads up on the new schedule for Indy. As PBC residents just 35 miles from FLL, short cruises work for us and we haven't been on a Freedom Class in a while.

Cameras are not allowed on Club Orient, the clothing optional section at the end of the bay. If security doesn't see a person holding a camera, rest assured, the people sitting in the loungers will scream at you. We did.

We enjoyed your photo write up, especially seeing places we didn't get to.

Double Post

Like your panorama shots.

 

The other two ships were probably doing their compliance PVSA stop on a RT from Seattle to Alaska. We did that years ago, six hours at night in Victoria from 6-Midnight also on the HAL Amsterdam. At that time, half the ship got off to eat dinner ashore.