Grandeur Immersion Cruise Journal

[Nado44]

Wonderful review so far. Thoughtful and so very well written. We were on the repositioning from Colon to Miami too so I'm curious to know what you'll have to say about that part of your trip.

 

Looking forward to reading more.

[emeraldcity]

I hate to interrupt, but I just want to say I'm loving your review. It is so well written. I have to confess, I rarely read the reviews without pictures (shame on me, lol) but yours has inspired me to try to write a similar review for my cruise and using it to create a Blurb book. I even googled tips on writing a travel journal.

 

Have you considered plopping your review into one of these online book makers? Our local art store does classes on creating one of the Blurb books; they seem to be excellent quality and they do not limit the amount of text.

 

Thank you for the compliment.

 

I never heard of a blurb book ... I guess I just don't get out much.

 

I tried to post some pictures, but I guess my pix are too big. I just got errors.

[emeraldcity]

Wonderful review so far. Thoughtful and so very well written. We were on the repositioning from Colon to Miami too so I'm curious to know what you'll have to say about that part of your trip.

 

Looking forward to reading more.

 

Thank you.

 

I plan to do some comparisons between the two cruises, because they were considerably different ... you should have seen then scrambling to change signage to English first, Spanish second during changeover.

[ausofte]

I actually think I'm going to use mixbook to create my travel photo book. It also allows for unlimited text, so it can be a real book and not just a photo album. It seems very easy to use and has good ratings on this website: http://photo-book-review.toptenreviews.com/

[emeraldcity]

I was up early enough to step onto the porch and see the Carnival Freedom off the port bow. Both ships were angling toward the same point, forming a “V”, with the destination being at the point. The Freedom was headed to dock at the mega pier, while we would be docking between the floating bridge and the high level bridge.

 

As we approached, I kept snapping pictures of the colorful, picturesque town. Just as we entered the canal, I was intrigued by the hotel we passed that had created a sea wall of some 8-12 feet high, then replicated a faux beach for its guests with a controlled ocean experience that included sand that couldn’t wash away. I’m sure it all works when actually in the environment, but from my lofty vantage point it looked rather confining. When you fly to a Caribbean island for some sun and sand, I think the phrase “vast stretches” needs to appear before the word “beach”.

 

As we approached the water taxi dock, I began to hear the repeated blasts of a loud horn. I scanned the area trying to pinpoint the source of the warning horn. Frankly, I anticipated it was something to warn cars that a bridge would soon be opening. But it wasn’t. Instead, I spotted a chunky fellow on the dock with an air horn … one of those long plastic things that drunks smuggle into football games since they’re worried that their voices alone aren’t obnoxious enough to get them noticed. This self-appointed Curacao rooster alternated between blowing his horn and then waving his arms while yelling, “Wake up.” I was not amused. I ramped up my camera to maximum zoom and got a good shot of his flabby face, resolving to be on the look-out for this character behind every sales counter today. He’d get no American dollars from me.

 

In short order, lines were tossed to shore and the ship was eased up to the dock. Before 7:30, a few vans had pulled into the modest plaza below and one of the drivers decided to take up where his obnoxious countryman had left off. We were bombarded by loud music – Latin, of course. I’m not really sure if it was good music or bad music, but it clearly at odds with the “charming” and “quaint” adjectives that had been rolling around in my head as we had entered the canal. I retreated to the room and closed the glass door to muffle the sound. Pulling out my embroidery, I settled into the chair with my back to the porch. Shortly after 8:00, I was startled by a clattering and dragging sound that sounded almost as though someone was walking across my porch. Imagine my surprise when I turned and found out that is exactly what was happening. Apparently it was window washing day on deck 8. They opened the partitions between porches and stretched a hose up to the forward-most porch. While I applaud the rigorous attention to on-going maintenance, it seems like a little advance warning would have been a nice touch. I remember a tablemate on the Sovereign back in ’93 telling me how she’d inadvertently given a startled window washer of her oceanview cabin a free show because she’d forgotten about the notice her cabin steward had left that day. I’m not sure if the notice had gone astray, or if RCI no longer issues them. It seems to me that this could make for a very interesting CC post … “Where were you when the window washer appeared unannounced on your balcony?”

 

The clatter of the window washer was the final piece to rouse DD. She’d been drifting in-and-out since our encounter with the air horn lout. We decided that our best bet for a peaceful breakfast was going to be buried deep in the ship, so we headed for the MDR. I had eggs benedict and she settled for scrambled eggs and toast. It was our first foray into a more laid-back way to get your morning meal and it was very pleasant.

 

When we returned to our cabin after breakfast, the plaza had cleared out. The noisy van was gone, as were most of the other small tour buses that had showed up early that morning. A few passengers who had disembarked were huddled against a terminal building waiting for the rain to end, while some others were heading off toward town under umbrellas. The initial plan for the day involved shopping, but we decided to postpone that until the rain let up. There was a ring toss game scheduled for the pool deck, but that got cancelled due to the rain as well. So we hung out and spent some quality time in our grand suite, because we hadn’t really done much of that up to this point.

 

The shipboard announcements that morning had promised that the rain would clear up by noon, and by 11:30 the prediction came true. We headed out to explore Curacao. We had a concept that this was a great shopping venue, which was a story spun by people who have a different grading criteria than we employ. When we go shopping, we are anticipating examining goods that cost considerably less than our cruise fare. Regrettably, that rules out emeralds and diamonds. It also eliminates stores that belong to the Gucci/Coach club. We were to discover that Curacao’s charm was funded by vendors operating at a rather high profit margin.

 

To be sure, there was the usual strip of dockside vendors conveniently located between the mega pier and the floating bridge. Of course, attempting to view their wares was a challenge. It seemed that all 3000 passengers from Carnival had paused en route to the floating bridge to figure out how to make a small contribution to the local economy. We went on to the fort to explore. It seems that RIF Fort was established in 1828 to guard the entrance to the canal. Today a little shopping mall is nestled in its stone walls. It was very picturesque, although it was filled with very pricey shops. We wandered through the mall and even passed through one of the clothing stores, but nothing had a huge appeal.

 

We squeezed our way back through the Carnival shoppers and crossed the floating bridge to reach the other side of the canal. The sun had emerged by this time and was busily transforming the wet streets into dry byways smothered in humidity. As the heat index rose I began regretting my failure to bring along my battery-operated mister bottle. We passed a perfume shop on the corner that could have foregone the cost of signage. The cloud of scents that surrounded the building left us holding our breath as we went by. Much of the rest of the street was dedicated to a plethora of diamond and emerald cruise-line-approved shopping establishments. We continued on down the street, looking for some shop that intrigued us. Maybe it was the heat, but nothing was registering on the intrigue-o-meter. I finally swung into a clothing shop in the vain hope that they offered cool air. What I got instead was a mild temperature drop of perhaps 7 degrees. Maybe air conditioning hasn’t been invented here yet, but it would seem that a fan or two might occur to these people. It is a fact of life that hot people don’t spend money on anything other than something that will relieve the heat. T-Shirts and flowing scarves have no appeal whatsoever. I managed to find a white top in light-weight cotton that I decided would be a nice replacement for the one I wore in Cartagena. Both that one and the one I was currently wearing had absorbed too much sweat to be of any further use on this trip. DD wasn’t wild about the top, but she didn’t veto the purchase either. As I paid for my purchase, I also managed to barter some local currency with the store owner, which included a square coin.

 

As shopping excursions go, this one was seriously losing momentum. Our Jamaican waitress would tell us later in the evening that it had even gotten too hot for her. So we felt no sense of failure that we called it quits at this point and headed back across the floating bridge. This was, after all, a vacation – not an episode of Survivor. DD was focused on getting a nap (can you believe it?) and I was picturing myself plunging into the Solarium pool. Once over the bridge, I decided to go back through the area with the street vendors, since the Carnival crowd had thinned out somewhat by this time. I was looking for something colorful that had the island’s name on it. In about the third or fourth booth, I found a shot glass that hit on both criteria, but the woman said $4 (with a straight face, I might add). Are you kidding me? I didn’t like it $4 worth, so I moved on. Two booths later another woman was selling the same thing. She quoted a price of $4 as well. I made that “ouch” face and she immediately welcomed me into her special circle of friends that was entitled to a 25% discount. I suppose I could have done some additional wincing, but at my age it’s unwise to risk the chance that those wrinkles will stick. I forked over $3 and then turned to fight my way back downstream through the Carnival crowd that was apparently heading upstream to spawn.

 

All told, we were ashore less than two hours. By 1:30, DD was drifting off to sleep and I was enjoying the Solarium pool. As a matter of fact, I was the only person in the pool. I paddled around enjoying my private domain, intensely relieved that the roof was closed, so the air wasn’t as oppressive as it was on the main pool deck. However, had I wanted to move to the other pool, it would have been my very own pool as well. There’s an enormous amount of pleasure to being on board when everyone else has gone ashore. I spared a few moments of sympathy for the folks who must have boarded the open air buses I’d seen in the lower plaza this morning. They were being treated to the same kind of heat that had done me in during our tour of Cartagena.

 

All good things must come to an end and I was driven by hunger to leave the pool and go get a quick shower before heading to the Windjammer for a wonderful salad. By this time in the cruise, we were getting to know one of the Windjammer waiters rather well (although not by name … his nametag had a name that started with “O” and continued on for another 15 characters, at least). He saw me heading for the back of the Windjammer (which is at the bow, paradoxically), while juggling two plates and a drink. He came to my rescue and carried some of it while I led the way to a table that I’m sure wasn’t in his station. Then he noted that I didn’t have any lemon for my ice tea, so he disappeared to get it – before I even realized I’d forgotten it. I believe this qualifies as a “wow” moment.

 

After rubbing elbows with the entire passenger complement of the Carnival Freedom, I was enjoying my view upriver (I should probably say “up-canal”, but I really don’t think that word has been invented yet). The view was very peaceful and wonderfully devoid of crowds. The occasional car passed over on the high level bridge, but there wasn’t much else going on in front of the ship. Once I’d polished off my salad I decided to try those chocolate sponge cake rolls that appear every day in the dessert section. What an awesome discovery. It was like eating a great big slice of a giant Ho-Ho, without the distraction of the waxy chocolate covering. This was a marvelous discovery that needed some additional data. So I tested out the goodness theory with a scientifically controlled experiment … when I went for a second piece I selected it off a different plate. Yes, indeed … this was a stellar find. And the beauty of it was that I would be on the next cruise as well, so I could be assured of keeping the pastry chef gainfully employed for quite some time.

 

After lunch I wandered out to the shuffleboard court to see if this deserted ship possessed enough people for the shuffleboard tournament. I wasn’t surprised to find that I was alone. The court was situated in a wonderfully sunny spot, which may have appeal when the ship was underway and a gale is blowing across the deck. At that point in time, however, the environment can best be described as “Brutal”. I practiced a bit, but the heat forced an early end to this effort. So I retreated to the Viking Crown Lounge to bask in the air conditioning, catch up on my notes, and enjoy the view of the incredibly colorful port. This really doesn’t look like a place where people actually live. It looks totally contrived to provide eye candy to tourists. Frankly, the only other place that Curacao would fit in would be if they plucked it out of the Caribbean Sea and set it down somewhere between Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. I can see why people fall in love with this place and come here over and over again. But I’ll wager that it loses its charm real fast when the women hit menopause.

 

The quiet and the inactivity soon lulled me into a state of stupor and I decided I should head below and join DD in her more sensible pursuit. She says she woke up briefly when I stretched out on the bed, but it would be 4:00 before we both woke up and were ready to move on. We spiffed up before heading up to the Viking Crown Lounge were there was free champagne daily for suite passengers between 5:00 and 8:00. FM and FF were there with one of their girls. We sat and shared our respective cruise experiences a bit. Then they invited us to join them for a movie theme trivia game scheduled in the Schooner Bar. Only two other teams showed up and they were both late (but not by Latin standards). The game host went through all the questions and then repeated questions 1-6 for the late arrivals. It would be a common theme throughout the rest of the trivia games we attended that week. FM noted that this would never happen on a cruise out of a U.S. port. Late arrivals often don’t get permitted to play at all. The wide mix of ages in our team was instrumental in achieving a decisive win; and I have to note that three of the correct answers came from the 5-year-old.

 

When it came time for dinner we went in search of PF in the dining room. We knew that she and her husband had early seating like us and were on the upper floor. We found them holding court at an otherwise empty table of 8. It seems that their tablemates had never shown up. They didn’t want to stiff their waiter, so they declined our offer to come and join us below. We told PF we were checking to make sure she was going to come through for us. She tried to say she’d be too tired and we assured her that “tired“ was not something that anyone experienced at the Quest. “You simply can’t imagine how much fun this will be!” She gave us a hesitant maybe.

 

We headed downstairs to our table and joined TM1 and TM2. TM2 was bubbling with excitement as she anticipated the Quest that was scheduled for later that evening. We advised that we didn’t have a firm commitment from PF, but we certainly had her intrigued. The menus arrived and we all focused on the cranberry mango soup. It was a big hit, but I hadn’t limited myself to one appetizer. They also served the shrimp crabmeat cocktail that evening and I had to have one of those as well. Both DD and I got the beef shoulder and the triple chocolate dessert, which we both enjoyed. The head waiter stopped by our table during the meal to confirm that DD and I would be on the next cruise. When we said we would he told us to be sure and let him know if we had any particular preferences for table seating. We chatted with Debra a bit to determine what the staff would be doing on the 3-day cruise, since the last data we’d heard put the passenger count at 640. She said they would be closing one of the dining room floors, since they didn’t need it. I scanned the nearly empty dining room and thought they could have done so on this cruise as well. I will never know if the other Spanish immersion cruises were like this one, but the dining room contained more empty chairs than filled ones.

 

TM1 and TM2 were commenting on the crowd they squeezed through to get to dinner. It seems that the ship was having its famous $10 sale in the center of the shop area. You only have to do one or two cruises to realize that they are not offering fabulous buys on end-of-season goods at these sales. They are simply pulling the same things out of vast warehouses that they have been selling since my DD was 8 years old. But this cruise not only contained plenty of first-time cruisers, it also held people who truly love to shop. We would discuss the matter on the repo cruise with a lovely young woman who worked the sales and she said it was crazy every week when they sailed from the Latin ports. TM2 related that she saw people grabbing as many as a dozen watches and stacking them up against their chest and then retreating to a nearby corner to examine the potential merits of the selection. It sounded like squirrels hoarding a cache of nuts before selecting which one had the most appeal. Once they had whittled the choices down, they would return the unneeded ones to the table and someone else would grab them for a similar examination process. So after dinner, DD had I headed off to the Centrum shops to see if the feeding frenzy was still on. It was. And they hadn’t exaggerated at all. The key piece I noted, however, was that there wasn’t a lot of pushing and shoving. We Americanos tend to get the impression that this sort of behavior is aggressive. But from my perspective, it wasn’t like that at all. People press forward and edge their way into the position they are interested in being. Nobody gets nasty. The person who is edged out, simply presses in another direction and edges someone else aside to take a new position.

 

We headed on to the South Pacific Lounge to take part in the Survey Says game show. When Jerry arrived to MC the event he spotted us in a prime location near the dance floor and called out “Hey, Ohio!” We ended up on a bi-lingual team, but we really didn’t do very well in the competition. It was fun anyway. After the game, the lounge emptied out, but we didn’t empty along with everyone else. It was our assignment to hold this prime spot for the Quest, so we stayed put and spent the next hour chatting. When the main show ended, the entire population of the theater must have headed for this venue, because when people started to arrive it was like watching what happens when they fire off the starting gun at an Easter Egg Hunt (or do they just drop the rope holding the kids back? It’s been awhile since I went to one of those). In short order people flooded the room filling every available chair and lining the walls. TM1 and TM2 showed up, delighted with our prime location. We all burst into applause when PF showed up as well. When they started passing out team numbers, we got number 5. At some point as more people squeezed into the room, there was a young Spanish couple that was looking for a team to join, so we added them to the mix.

 

There were a surprising number of children at the Quest. Unlike cruises out of a U.S. port where they’re very clear about the age limit, the Cruise Compass had printed that the event was “not recommended for anyone under the age of 18”. This nomenclature ranked right up there with the approach used by the National Park Service in 1968 in Yellowstone – “Please don’t feed the bears.” This resulted in predictable mile-long traffic jams at the same spot every day where savvy bears had not only learned to show up for easy chow, they were busily passing on the lesson to their offspring. Conversely, there were no traffic jams when I returned in 1985, because the message had shifted to “It is against the law to …” complete with legal consequences.

 

We scanned the room in amazement at the number of kids and the ages of them. Is this really an activity that parents want their kids to see them participating in?

 

Despite the detailed approach I’ve taken to this missive up to this point, I have no intention of breaking the code. What happens at Quest, stays at Quest. I will simply report that our team was awarded the silver medal and a great time was had by all. PF spent the rest of the cruise thanking me for insisting she attend, every time we ran into her. She kept telling us how much fun it was. Her husband, meanwhile always had a glazed look of shock and disbelief as the encounter would then unearth some visions he apparently would rather not recall. Although he hadn’t attended that night, he apparently had gotten a detailed retelling of the event. And he repeated the phrase every time we ran into him “I can’t believe she actually did –“

 

With all that adrenaline pumping, the next event for the evening was a no-brainer. We went up to the Viking Crown for some dancing. It was an interesting mix of music that evening. They blended one song into the next with no change of beat, American disco style. But it didn’t stay that way … several songs later (again, with no change in the basic beat) the songs would be Latin in flavor. DD and I stepped onto the floor and worked off a little of the food we’d been indulging in. In relatively short order, two Latin Lover Wannabees slipped into our personal space and tried to make small talk. Seriously? … small talk on the floor of a dance club with the music pumping at maximum decibel level. My responses were of the “Huh?” and “What?” nature. But in retrospect I have to ask if that wasn’t just a gambit to attempt the liberty of moving in closer to facilitate conversation. In any event, we left the dance floor to put some distance between us and them. I’m harboring no illusions here about having retained any feminine appeal at my age. I figure they flipped for it and the loser was assigned to try to distract mama. I’m not distractable. They became part our past rather quickly.

 

We watched the dancers for a bit and then moved over to the windows to sit and look out over the pool deck, while listening to the music. Although this is one of my favorite viewpoints on the ship, it wasn’t long before lethargy set in. It was time to call it a night.

Edited May 2, 2012 by emeraldcity

[karen s]

Fabulous review...subscribing to get the rest of the story....

[emeraldcity]

During the pre-cruise planning, we had put a great deal of emphasis on the need to schedule a full day for the beach. This was, surprisingly, something we had never done on a cruise (unless you count the Labadee stop on our first cruise, where DD spent much of the time with the Adventure Ocean staff). Since the beaches of Aruba are reportedly among the best in the Caribbean, we decided early that this would be the day. It would have been a terrible disappointment if the rain of the previous day had happened on our beach day, so we considered it great good fortune that we had a beautiful sunny day on Friday … perfect for the beach. From the looks of things, there would be a bit of a crowd, since upon arrival in Aruba the Captain parallel-parked us right behind the Caribbean Princess and just a bit ahead of the Freewinds. As we approached the pier and pulled past the Freewinds, I saw the dozen or so passengers on her taking pictures of the Grandeur. There are, of course plenty of others who sign on in a passenger capacity, but they’re really just part of the crew. We had watched the drill they put them through when we docked next to the Freewinds in St. Kitts two years earlier and had to google the ship when we got home from that trip. Consequently, we were armed with plenty of info about the ship to answer the questions the others had when we met up with them later that day.

 

You have a choice when you do a beach day – you can be a sprinter or a laggard. The sprinters bolt their breakfast, queue up for disembarkation and get to the beach soon enough to score a shaded structure with some loungers to go with them. Given the size of the Caribbean Princess, there was going to be a considerable amount of competition even among the sprinters for the prized beach environment. We have long ago decided that we like the ship … we paid a great deal to cruise on the ship … we also came a very long way to relax – so we don’t join the sprinters. We wandered down to the MDR for a leisurely breakfast (I finally got one of those omelets) while our room was made up and then we went back to get ready to head for the beach. It was at this point I realized that in all my careful packing, I had forgotten to include one of those flannel-backed tablecloths I bring along for any sort of activity that involves sand. They are great to use as a disposable beach blanket. Fortunately we had brought our own beach towels, so we took those to dry off with and the ship beach towels to spread on the sand. Now firmly branded as laggards, we strolled off the ship about 10:30.

 

Passengers leaving the ships were funneled through a terminal building that housed a few shops. We planned on checking out the shops later, but there was one vendor that caught my eye. Situated near the exit was a booth that advertised watersports packages. I hadn't been successful in getting much information about watersports during my pre-cruise planning. The only website that I found on the subject offered a display that touted all the things you could do, but stopped short of providing any pricing. I tried emailing them (with plenty of lead time, I might add), but they never responded. Consequently, I had guessed how much money I needed to bring to rent waverunners and added another $30 to it, which would allow for some drinks. So I headed directly for the booth with the hope that we could make arrangements for a watersports package that involved a go-fast boat. Something was lost in the translation. My expectation of a "watersports package" involved several pricey options (like parasailing and waverunners) being bundled together with a slight savings for doing multiple activities; along with round trip transportation to the beach in question. All they offered was a chance to view the price list you would receive on the beach, directions to where to catch the local bus that would get you to the beach and a little card that you could use to get 10% off food or beverage at the beach. Why did they even bother paying for a booth in the terminal? The price list made it clear that if we each wanted our own waverunner, I'd better go back on board and get some additional travelers checks cashed. I hadn't brought enough for drinks and entertainment.

 

We tucked the 10% card in our bag, resolving not to even bother looking up this place. They clearly weren't providing enough of a service to make it worth our while. We left the building and walked across the main drag to get to the lot where the buses load up. For $5 we received two round-trip passes and a few local coins in change (bonus!). We really weren’t sure what beach we were going to … either Eagle Beach or Palm Beach. I wanted to go to whichever one it was that had the hotels, because that’s where the watersports would be. So we eavesdropped on the bus as the Princess passengers chatted with a crewmember who was on the bus and assured them he would tell them which stop was theirs. Awesome! Someone who’ll tell us where to go and how to get there!

 

About 10-15 minutes into the ride he identified the appropriate stop, and from our seat the looming hotels were clearly visible. So we joined the departing beach-goers and made the trek along the walkway to the beach. When we reached the sand, we veered over to the hut that was renting loungers and shade structures, just in case … but it was a waste of time. They had nothing available. But as I scanned the available beach shelters, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hunker down under that rustic bit of shade. What some folks undoubtedly describe as a charming shelter of thatch and sticks, struck me as probably a teeming community of spiders and other creepy local species of insects. DD meanwhile declared she was going to get some sun and had no intention of hiding under any shade.

 

We found an unoccupied spot, spread our RCI towels out, dumped our stuff, and headed for the water. Oh my! The water was definitely cooler than we had expected it to be, but the sandy bottom was wonderfully pebble-free and the overall experience was fulfilling our expectations.

 

After paddling around in the water for nearly an hour, I was ready to kick the activity level up a notch. With the waverunners off our list, we'd been reviewing our options while swimming. The banana boat was my personal preference, because I'd done that years before on Labadee and it was a blast. A close runner-up was the ski couch … at least that is what they called that thing when we saw a boat towing one two years earlier in Barbados. This one was round, whereas the one in Barbados had been rectangular. We went to check on the pricing and found that they weren't terribly inclined to put that banana boat in the water. The price was the same I believe, for the ski couch, and there was a nearby tourist who advised us that she'd done both of them and she felt the couch was even more fun. Meanwhile, the guy handling the paperwork was advising us that they needed 4 people to even put the banana boat into the water. So we paid $20/ea. for the couch and headed for the water's edge. They were just bringing in the latest riders, so we handed our belongings to the guy driving the boat and strapped on the life jackets. The big inflatable that we climbed on boasted a back to keep you from falling off backwards and arm-like extensions to keep from being bounced off the sides. There were three sets of handholds in the base and we were directed to sit against the back straddling the handholds and hang on. We gave the driver the thumbs up and off we went. The faster he went, the more we bounced … we laughed and giggled through the entire ride. As we bounced up and down, the inflatable consistently emitted terribly rude noises and we dubbed it the Giant Whoopee Cushion. The driver swerved from time to time so that we'd cross the wake, and when he'd reach a spot toward the end of the long beach, he'd put the boat into a couple of tight turns and we'd swing around it (think Crack the Whip), bouncing toward the right. At the other end of the beach, he'd repeat the maneuver, bouncing us to the left. All told, the ride lasted between 15-20 minutes and it was well worth the $40. Without that experience, it would have been a really nice day, but the Whoopee Cushion put the rating over the top and Aruba rates as our best port-of-call for the trip.

 

When we returned to the beach, the driver gave us our stuff back and we slid off our ride into the shallow water. The next set of passengers was already standing at the water’s edge waiting for their turn. The beach had begun to fill up and the spot we plunked our stuff down at was now surrounded by a number of other encampments. I’ve heard it said that this beach gets crowded and I guess it depends on your point of reference. Were there a lot of people? Most certainly, but my point of reference was Soak City at Cedar Point in Ohio. When towels are spread on loungers and bits of available ground, it’s hard to tell where one towel ends and the other one begins. Here in Aruba there was still plenty of space around each encampment. It was more like a matted picture in a frame … at Soak City, they don’t even have the frame.

 

At this point, it was time for a little refreshment, so I offered to buy DD a drink. We were busy setting precedents on this trip. I had never even let her have charge privileges before on our cruises. This time I simply told her before we left home she could get what she wanted, but she was responsible for her own purchases. She had bartered with me during our planning phase to get me to agree to pay for the all-important sail-away drink, but that was the only one I bought. I’d noted up to this point, she was careful about using that privilege and had probably only bought a total of 2 drinks herself. The process of severing the strings and letting your fledgling adult fend for themselves has to be done in stages; mostly because they’re focused only on the privileges. They claim they want to be responsible for themselves, but they’d really like to figure out how to do that without being expected to pay their own bills.

 

We went over to the bar that sat on the pier, and felt we were pretty lucky to have scored prime seating, since there was a couple just leaving the stools right near the cash register just as we slipped through the crowd and arrived at the bar. We snagged a menu and began to review the drink options. It had to be fun and fruity, but beyond that our criteria differed considerably. I was focused on the components that went into the drink and I chose the Frozen Peach Daiquiri, because it sounded like a mix I’d enjoy. DD wanted something with a fun name … can you imagine a serious drinker using that sort of criteria – they’d be laughed out of the bar. She had narrowed the selection down to two drinks and was debating the merits of both, when she realized there were two sides to the menu. The other side offered the drink that would guarantee maximum shock value when she returned home … she couldn’t wait to tell everyone she had Sex on the Beach in Aruba. In fact, she began to plan how soon she would be able to start texting friends (7 a.m. the morning we got to Miami was the decision). Having chosen our drinks, we figured it would be an easy matter to have someone make them. The two bartenders were hustling and incredibly harried in appearance, but since they conclude each sale at the cash register, I reasoned that it should be a snap to catch their eye and put in our order. It should be … but it wasn’t. I dunno … maybe I was cloaked in invisibility. We waited about 20 minutes before I asked while one of them was ringing up an order if we could put in our orders. He snapped back at me something about how busy they were. OK. That was rude. He had just finished filling an order for a couple who had just stepped up to the bar … and I thought I’d really been very patient up to then. He filled another order and then came back for our orders. We ordered our drinks and some chips. When I finally got the drinks, he said they were out of chips, but they’d make us some fries instead. That was fine. I paid for the drinks and told him to keep the change. It’s amazing what a 20% tip will do for an attitude problem. DD thought I shouldn’t have tipped well since he was so unpleasant earlier, but I honestly can’t think of a single instance where a miserly tip made me feel any better … and it certainly doesn’t send any message to a server who is having a bad day (except maybe a personal validation that they didn’t want to serve you in the first place because they somehow had you pegged at the onset as a lousy tipper). The server looked a bit less harried and made the effort to check back with us several times to find out if we needed anything else. The fries, by the way were fabulous … and just the thing for a suitable filler till we could get back to the ship for a late lunch. It was a pleasant interlude in our favorite shore day and plays highly in DD’s telling of the day to all, because, of course, she had Sex on the Beach.

 

I’m going to take a tiny detour here (of course, I take them all the time, so you’re probably wondering why I even bother to announce it this time) to travel back in time to those miserly tips I gave to the porter at the terminal and the band on the bus. The porter was a shake-down artist in a very intimidating situation. Had I handed him a $20 it would have only raised his expectation of what others should pay up. The band meanwhile was fun and festive, but 3 hours of the same rhythm was a little over-the-top. I probably would have given them a $5 if the pleasant woman had passed me the bag, but that old crone glaring at me automatically assured I would feel like I was being placed in a shaken-down position again, and that’s a fixed $2 fee in my book.

 

When we left the bar we decided that 3 hours was probably enough sun for us, so we headed back to the ship. It was only a short wait for the bus and we were soon cleaning up in our cabin. Then we had a quick lunch and headed back out to the pier to do some shopping. Nothing appealed to us in the terminal building, so we went back across the main drag to where the usual assortment of dockside vendors had their colorful wares spread out. The array of beach bags and various over-the-shoulder bags were pretty enticing (and very reasonably priced), but I really do have more than my share of that sort of thing at home, so I passed. I ended up with a silver flip-flop keychain that is going to get turned into a Christmas ornament. DD meanwhile went into serious purchase mode and made several purchases for herself, as well as for a few friends back home.

 

We got back to the cabin and discovered that an attractive covered plate of chocolate delicacies had appeared on the counter. There was no card to tell us if it came from Crown and Anchor, Suite Perks Anonymous or a secret admirer. But I suspect it was an appeasement offering from our cabin steward for the missing Ghirardelli chocolates. We only received those chocolates two nights out of the seven and DD had been pretty clear about how important they were to her.

 

After shopping, I returned to the cabin and stretched out on the bed to relax. I wasn’t planning on a nap – really, I wasn’t. DD left me sawing logs and went off to wander the ship and take some pictures with hardly anyone aboard. She finally got caught in that lethargy cloud that apparently descends on the Grandeur in the middle of the afternoon and she ended up coming back to the cabin to nap, too.

 

I woke up shortly before the next trivia contest was scheduled so I left DD sleeping and headed down to the Schooner Bar. Despite her growing belief that I was incapable of navigating the ship without her by my side, I found the venue without a guide dog.

 

FM and FF had already settled into a spot by the window with two of their kids, so I joined them for another round of trivia. I believe this one was the television theme trivia. I was pretty worthless here, as I don’t watch TV {gasp!} but my team loyally overlooked my deficiency. We won this event and then headed off in separate directions. I went back to the cabin to get ready with DD for the Crown and Anchor Platinum and Above Reception. This was the second formal night, so we both put on something terribly dressy.

 

Our event was held in the library, which easily held the small group of maybe 20 people total. They had a very nice layout of horse doo-vers and sweets, with a few circulating hotel staff to chat with. As far as making the standard speech about how valued we were, I guess there wasn’t a senior official who could be spared at that time. It doesn’t matter. People don’t go to these things for the speech. They go for the giant chocolate-covered strawberries … and we each snagged two of them before we left.

 

There is rarely much of a line for formal pictures on the second formal night and this evening was no exception. So we stopped at one of the backdrops and got a few more pictures of DD. TM1 and TM2 were getting pictures taken nearby so we stood and chatted a bit while DD was finishing her photo shoot. TM1 then invited us to the champagne bar to buy us each a DOD. The bar had run out of the souvenir glasses, which was a bit disappointing, but the drink was still very good. Then we went on to dinner, where we had another wonderful meal. I had asparagus soup, prime rib and then the berry tart, while DD had the peach soup, the prime rib and the trilogy dessert. We chatted about our day and they commented on the other ships in port. The Freewinds made for very interesting conversation, since it’s small size inevitably makes it a target of conversation on these big cruise ships.

 

All that remained at this point in the cruise was a series of sea days and DD noted that we had never used our match play coupons in our Emerald book. So we decided that we would head to the casino after dinner. As it turned out, she decided she wanted to get into something a bit more comfortable before we went, since the cute little dress she was wearing had a sequined top … very pretty – and very itchy. We grabbed 6 5-dollar bills and went down to the casino to try some roulette. I decided I would pick one option and play it three times … don’t chase the money .. let it come to you. Could one option possibly lose three times in a row? Actually, yes. Yes it can … and it did. I lost $15. DD picked something different every time and she won … every time. She happily headed over to the cage to cash out her chips and claim her $30. This was not good. The objective was to teach her that gambling does not pay. That is definitely not the lesson she learned that night. Next we turned in our coupons for the free slot machine and we each received 3 very big impressive golden metal RCI coins. This looks like a souvenir to me! We each played only two of them and kept the third. On the second pull, I won a key chain! It was all I could do to contain my excitement and act with decorum. I took the ticket the machine printed out and gave it to the guy in the cage. His eyebrows shot up, “Should I have security escort you back to your cabin?” he asked. “No that’s OK. I think I’m good.” I stuffed my $15 key chain into my pocket and we left the casino.

 

There was another game show on the schedule at 11:00 that evening so we headed down to the South Pacific Lounge to watch the fun. I’m all about variety so I selected seats in about the middle of the room. DD was not pleased, since she figured that cut down on her ability to be one of the first ones on the floor when they called for volunteers. Jerry walked by and spotted us “Hey, Ohio! You’re supposed to be in seats by the floor aren’t you?” And as it turned out, most people had to move anyway. They called for all the guys to go to one side of the room and all the gals to head for the other. Some of the couples seemed rather disconcerted over the ensuing separation, but it led to a great sense of camaraderie as the game progressed. The first event was rather tame and involved putting five team members in a row and then giving them each a number. The host then read off a 5-digit number and each team was to scramble into the appropriate position to represent the number. After several rounds of this the men had achieved more wins that the women, so they took the event. (We go now to our color commentator to give us some valued insight: “This was an event that favors the gender that has the scrimmage gene. The women were too busy discussing who should move first.”) For the second event 2 hula hoops were laid on the floor and they announced that they needed lots of volunteers, since the object was to see how many people each team could get into area encompassed by the hula hoop, which included any air space above it. DD leaped out of her seat for this one, since they needed a large number. I lost sight of her as women squeezed together, some of them sitting onto the floor reaching into the circle to be in the required air space. The men were much more entertaining, since they initially clustered together like a football huddle, but then began leaping over the top of each other to land on the top. When it came time to count, they counted the guys first and the count was something like 28. The women still had about ten more huddled in the circle when the count reached 28. We began applauding long before they announced we had won. (We go now to our color commentator for an evaluation: “Women don’t have a problem squeezing close together, because as everyone knows, that’s the best way to share secrets. Men however, do not have a comfort level with getting that close to the same gender, unless of course they are tackling the wide receiver.”) Next, the game host announced that they were looking for four people for each team. The four volunteers were each handed a piece of paper and told to make a paper airplane. No one was a stand-out success in this area, but one guy was a stand-out failure. He never really got beyond the first fold. Each couple was paired off and the men easily won every flight, except for the last guy. He good-naturedly named his creation Kamikaze and tossed a crumpled wad of paper into the air. (We go now to our color commentator: “This is clear case of gender discrimination that is slanted in the guys favor. Women learn during the school days that a piece of paper is for writing notes on that you pass to your friends. Guys learn that a piece of paper can entertain an entire classroom if it flies a considerable distance and the teacher can’t catch the launcher.”) The next event saw the return of the hula hoops. They were looking for two members for each team and the objective was to see who could keep the hoop around their waist the longest. “Go!” I said to DD. She launched out of her seat and rushed up the dance floor to try and beat out anyone else who wanted to try this. She snagged her hula hoop, assumed the starting position and turned to survey her competition. There was no competition to survey. It was a case of ‘the cheese stands alone’. Nobody else moved from their seats. She stood there alone for some time while the announcers kept exhorting the crowd to cough up another victim or two. The woman who finally stepped forward knew her stuff. And finally, two men agreed to attempt to defend the honor of the male population on board. I could only guess that they had consumed a suitable enough quantity of spirits to dull their judgment. Hula hooping is not the sort of activity a man should attempt for the first time in front of a crowd of hundreds of people (did I mention this event was Standing Room Only?) Suffice it to say the men were up there just to provide entertainment, as they broke world records in how fast that circle hit the floor. There was a period of time where both women were spinning the hula hoops around their waists, but soon it was DD only and she was accorded a huge round of cheers and applause. (We go now to our color commentator: “There is no question that this event is slanted to favor women. I have a great deal of admiration for the guys that were comfortable enough with themselves to get up in front of such a huge crowd and avoid the ignominy of giving the women the event by default.”) The last contest was hysterical. Frankly it amazes me the number of inventive ways that a cruise line can employ a balloon and a relay team to get a crowd-pleasing spectacle with sexual overtones. The host was the consummate showman with some well-practiced sexual moves as he demonstrated the object of the game. The demo was awesome … maybe even funnier than the game itself. The men won this one, but it was closer than I expected. Since the final event carried the most points, the men took the contest. For their efforts all they gained was bragging rights … not even one of the fabled RCI key chains. (And back to our color commentator for a wrap-up: “The women held their own when it came to speed in blowing up the balloon, they even did some credible running, but the fact remains that men have no fear of either the noise or potential sting of a popping balloon, whereas the women were wincing and shying away from the likely consequences of putting too much force on that poor little balloon.”)

 

Entertainment over, there was a mass exodus, with all the ladies intent on getting to the Viking Crown Lounge for the Male Review. The two Latin ladies we’d been sitting with urged us to come with them, although frankly we had intended to go anyway. DD was terribly excited about being old enough to attend the event, and I figured it was going to be pretty entertaining just watching her reactions. We got up to the Lounge early enough to claim a spot along the railing that surrounded the dance floor. Our prime location was likely instrumental in DD being selected as one of the five ladies that would be seated on the dance floor and get the full treatment. We weren’t there too terribly long before the five entertainers entered. They did a nicely choreographed routine and then positioned themselves one each in front of one of the ladies. Enrique recognized DD and quickly switched places with his compadre so he could see how effectively he could embarrass “the Pro”. The other ladies played up to the crowd by rubbing the guys’ chests. DD sat there with her hands upraised, pressing back into the chair and trying to avoid actually making any contact. She was laughing and having fun, but not brazen enough to do anything her boyfriend would object to if it ended up on the Cruise in Review video (which it did … and he got a big laugh out of the look on her face that evening). The staff moved in and removed the chairs and then all the ladies were encouraged to get on the dance floor. Our new Latin friends from the previous event pulled me onto the floor and we all danced to the pulsing music. The male entertainers posed with the ladies for plenty of pictures that night, as they mingled, dancing with every lady they could. I hope they pay Enrique really well, because, (bless his heart) he even danced with me.

Edited May 6, 2012 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

There was a special delicious feeling to the day from the moment I got up and stepped out onto the porch. For most of the passengers on board, this would be the last day of their cruise. This was the first time I had ever been part of that tiny group that stays on for the next cruise. Yes, it would be the last day in a grand suite, but we wouldn’t be packing suitcases and setting them outside the cabin tonight like nearly everyone else. It gave the entire day a special sparkle.

 

Happily enveloped in this special aura, I failed to take the usual systems check when leaving the cabin for my breakfast. As soon as I got to the stairwell, I remembered I hadn’t put the Do Not Disturb tag in the slot so DD could continue to sleep in. I turned to go back to the cabin and that’s when I realized I had my puzzle book and my notes, but not my key card. I tore a piece of paper out of the notebook and folded it to make a substitute note to slip into the slot for our cabin steward. Then I went off to the MDR for breakfast. I ended up with a single table because I said “English-speaking” when I entered the dining room. That’s OK. It gave me a chance to work on my notes.

 

After breakfast, I went back up to Deck 8 and sat on the stairs within sight of my cabin waiting to catch my cabin steward so I could have him open my door for me. PF and PM paused on the way past to thank me again for all the fun she’d had at Quest. They were already beginning to start thinking about the logistics of disembarkation that they would be going through the next day, which would be followed by a drive of several hours to reach home. We got onto the subject of books and PF asked me if I’d ever read “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. She had borrowed it from the ship’s library and wasn’t going to able to finish it before the next morning, so she wondered if I’d like to have it for the next cruise. Anticipating that 3 days at sea would give me time to finally do some reading, I agreed. And of course, they wanted to know why I was camped on the stairway like one of those teenagers who trigger all those virulent posts about kids blocking the stairwells, so I had to own up to my bonehead move. Our cabin steward showed up about that time and his first concern was about the note stuck in the slot. I suppose missing slot tags are pretty common. I assured him that no one had made off with the tag, I just locked myself out and the tag was still in the cabin. He let me in and I found that DD was thinking about getting up.

 

Given that I’d gotten a fair amount of sun the previous day, I opted to stay out of it on Saturday. DD went off for breakfast and I settled down with my embroidery. When she came back, we cleared out of the cabin to allow our cabin steward time to make it up for the day. There was a Soduku challenge in the Schooner Bar at 10:00, so we headed down there to give it a shot. There were only 2 others who showed up for it, and it was more than enough competition to beat me. I made a wrong move fairly early and never was able to recover. Fortunately, I’d brought my embroidery with me, so I had an alternate way of occupying my time. When DD realized I’d given up she glanced at my uncompleted puzzle and sagely pointed out a number in one of the squares and advised me it was the wrong number, as if she had identified the single source of my issue. Anyone who has ever worked the simplest Soduku puzzle knows that there aren’t many certainties about any spot on the puzzle until you’ve successfully completed the entire puzzle – which she had not. Instead of pointing that out, I thanked her for the sage advice. She would not have appreciated my point of view and would have spent a good part of the day (and likely a number of months to come) in pointing out how wrong I was. As it turned out, one of the other ladies completed the puzzle first, and I’m not sure if DD ever finished her puzzle – so we’ll never know if she was on the right track herself.

 

The next item on the schedule was team trivia in this same location, so there was no point in leaving. I continued working on my embroidery and DD headed over to the Wii to try some of the games. They had the sports game in the machine, and there apparently weren’t any other options. We mentioned to Jerry that it was a shame there was no Mario Cart. I can see that as a great mixer, even on a cruise where the opponents might not speak the same language. He told us that they used to have it, but it might have ended up in Adventure Ocean. He also noted that they used to stock four controllers as well, but they keep getting stolen. I’m not sure why that should surprise me, but it is a sad commentary on people in general. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they embedded those devices used by stores to set off alarms if you try to leave with something that isn’t desensitized? Then we’ll see those posts about people being sent to the dockside naughty room and asked to open their luggage to see what they might have hidden in things that have false bottoms.

 

Shortly before trivia was due to start FF and FM showed up to play. Only one other team was in place when the game started. Of course, two more teams had joined us by question number 6, so we got to hear questions 1-6 again after the game ended to allow them to catch up. We won again, which added to the impressive collection of luggage tags we’d amassed at this point. Luggage tags, which I have to note, that bear the curious message “I [heart} baggage handlers”. Seriously? Who would use those? The only place I ever hearted baggage handlers was Galveston. They’re so damn gracious in Texas that you almost feel like they’ve removed their virtual Stetson and are holding it to their chest as they approach you and say things like “Excuse me, Ma’am” and “Thank you, Ma’am”.

 

Still on our bucket list for this cruise was trying the salad bar in the MDR for lunch. We headed down to lunch after the game ended. It turned out to be another of those experiences we might never have tried if it hadn’t been for Cruise Critic … and it was fabulous. They make the salad for you as you point out the different components that you want in it. Once the dressing is added, they mix it for you and plate it before asking if they should add any extra toppings like croutons or grated cheese. In comparison to the Windjammer, there wasn’t a vast array of additional elements, but the ones that were on hand turned a salad from “Good” to “Excellent”. Special star power is assigned to chunks of chicken or shrimp. It’s a shame this kind of venue isn’t available in the Food Court at Tower City in downtown Cleveland. I guess I’m just going to have to book another cruise.

 

When they make the salad, they are thinking that it is one course to a lunch that will include an entrée. For me, this was the entrée, so on subsequent visits I had to make sure they added more lettuce when they started making it at the very beginning. Once the entrée was out of the way, we took a look at the menu and ordered the Raspberry Chocolate Tart. Oh my! This was the winner for the week in the dessert category. Of course, a true evaluation can only be made if you line up all the contenders on a given day and taste test them all at the same time. Here again, it seems to me that this concept needs to be dropped in the suggestion box. RCI could make some serious change on dessert tasting parties. I’m not sure if they still have wine-tasting parties, but the fact remains that dessert fans far outnumber wine fans. Just look at Cruise Critic -- the number of posts debating the merits of one food item over another food item far outweigh the posts that lead off “Should I get the red or the white …?”

 

After lunch, DD headed up to the sun deck to work on the tan she was determined would be necessary to properly advertise “Where I spent my Spring Break”. I finally gave up on my quest to determine a time when there was no line at the purser’s desk. On this cruise there was always a line. So I went and joined the line with a book in hand to occupy me during the wait. It took about 15 minutes before my turn came. I cashed the necessary number of traveler's checks to cover my gratuities and asked about the procedures that would be necessary for those that were on the next cruise. They told me that I would be getting a packet in my cabin, so I returned to the cabin to relax with my embroidery until mid-afternoon. When it was time for the World’s Sexiest Man competition, I grabbed my camera and joined DD on the sun deck. She had a nice spot overlooking the pool area and had just recently finished watching the pool volleyball games. The cruise director’s staff had collected a group of unsuspecting male contestants that probably labored under the impression that the winner would be selected on stud value. The guy that would be the crowd favorite was instantly recognizable. He was an aged fellow who was fully dressed in nautical white, complete with a captain’s hat and he announced his name was Captain Oscar. The outfit had done nothing to hide the amount of belly fat that was hanging over his belt. As each contestant was called in turn, they strutted their stuff, gyrated their hips, and did their utmost to display their best assets to advantage. When his turn came, Captain Oscar stepped forward in a lame attempt to mimic some of those suggestive moves, but the guy was a showman and didn’t need to try to compete in the same class as his competition. This was truly a case of being in a class all his very own. The young ladies who were the judges selected two of the young men as their favorites, but when it came time for the crowd to vote, Captain Oscar took the prize.

 

Standing in the hot sun had done me in, so when DD went down to shower, I headed for the Solarium pool to plunge in and cool off. It felt absolutely wonderful. This was the place on board ship that I often thought about when I was planning a cruise, and yet, I had spent so little time here. There was always something that I wanted to do that seemed to interfere. I resolved that I would make more time for the Solarium on the following week.

 

I swung past the café before heading down to shower and picked up some pizza and fries. It’s a good thing I was usually too busy to stop by here for fries during the cruise, since there are far too a many fat calories in these things, and they taste so wonderful that you don’t really care about all that goody-deprivation you are going to have to endure when you get home as penance.

 

After the shower, I started to go through the paperwork left on the bed for end of cruise. I had seen the clipboard on the cabin steward’s cart earlier that day. Every cabin had a listing for what luggage tags to use … except us. Ours said “Consecutive cruiser”! But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a certain amount of end-of-cruise paperwork. DD and I began to step through the survey together. I don’t know how much attention others pay to this piece, but anyone who has stuck with this journal to this point will have no problem pegging me as a person who is going to take it very seriously when someone wants my opinion. Actually my favorite part is at the end where they ask you if you have any additional comments. Of course I do! Can I have a couple additional sheets of paper please?

 

Well, we got so engrossed in the survey, we ended up being just a bit late for Trivia. Of course, FF and FM got some serious mileage out of the fact that we were getting too “immersed” in the culture. We did find out while we chatted during the game that they had already received their new boarding cards for the next week in their cabin. Granted, they were not changing cabins, like we were, but it still seemed frustrating that I couldn’t get any answers on where our boarding cards were. We resolved to give them until after dinner and then go make another trip to the Purser’s Desk if nothing showed up in the cabin.

 

Every time we cruise, we especially enjoy the opportunity to spend a week getting to know our tablemates every evening as we share the respective experiences we had that day. Sometimes by the end of the week, the folks at the table are beginning to wear on us and we’re ready to go our separate ways. That was certainly not the case this time. We were going to miss our evenings with TM1 and TM2. I often wonder what their initial reaction was when they found that they didn’t end up at a table with other young couples. They were both such easy-going people who delighted in trying new experiences. I suspect they would fit in at any dinner table they were assigned to. It was our tremendous luck that they were assigned to ours. At this last dinner, we exchanged email addresses and took a few pictures. The menu had one of my classic favorites tonight, but TM2 urged me to try one of hers. I’ve never heard of Gnocci. Ask a ship-full of Midwesterners whether they want turkey or gnocci and the kitchen will be plating an awful lot of turkey. Debra heard our discussion on the issue and she offered to bring me a side plate of gnocci, which nicely avoided the dilemma of having to make a choice. It’s also one of the great reasons why cruises are so instrumental in helping people to broaden their experiences. My DD has discovered so many wonderful things because she didn’t have to worry about selecting something she ended up not liking … and having to eat it anyway because we paid for it. In this case it was a great call. I loved the new dish and ate every bit of it. The turkey was awesome too, but I didn’t manage to finish that because I preferred the gnocci. PF stopped by our table to drop off the book she had mentioned earlier. We chatted for awhile and she thanked all of us again for the fun she’d had at the quest.

 

As dinner ended, it was time to hug Debra and pass out our gratuity envelopes and we had the added bonus of being able to tell each of the staff that we’d see them next week!

 

After dinner, DD and I went to the photo gallery with our coupons to make our picture selections. As it turned out, we ended up getting the package that included the Cruise in Review DVD, so the coupons were rather superfluous. The preview that was running had several clips from the quest and Number 5 figured prominently in several of them. We then headed back up to the room.

 

Noticeably missing from our cabin were the boarding cards we would need for the next day. We spotted our cabin steward in the hall and asked him about them. He didn’t have any information and told us we’d have to go to the Purser’s Desk. He asked us which cabin we’d be moving to and I told him we’d be down a deck unless we’d get lucky enough to get a complimentary upgrade. He urged us to ask for the upgrade tonight, saying that it would better our chances of getting it. So I went back downstairs while DD started putting things into suitcases for the cabin change.

 

There was, of course a long line. When I finally got my turn at the desk I asked about our boarding cards for the next cruise. The first person I worked with looked it up and said that we didn’t get any because they had us in the same cabin. (This makes no sense, since FF and FM wouldn’t be changing cabins and they had gotten new cards that afternoon.) I told them that we weren’t in the same cabin, since someone else had booked it at least 2 weeks earlier. (Yes, I’d been keeping track, with a teeny hope that they would just let us have it for the second cruise.) So he took my cabin number and the new cabin number and then went to check it out. Pretty soon, he returned to say they’d make up the cards right away and I could just wait for them. I asked about the possibility of a complimentary upgrade to a JS and was advised that the ship was sailing full and there were no upgrades. This piece of misinformation was so far off the mark it was laughable. “I’m sorry, but I am well aware that this ship is not sailing full next week. There are less than 700 passengers on a ship that holds 2000. You’ve got plenty of availability.” At this point Ruth was called into the conversation. I told her that I was hoping that there might be complimentary upgrades available for diamond status, as we would be achieving diamond C&A status on this cruise and I would be seeing the loyalty ambassador right after we sailed tomorrow to update our status. She took the information about which cabin we were in and which cabin we were supposed to move to. She said they couldn’t do anything until mid afternoon the next day but she assured me that if something was available I would get a JS, “which will, of course, be complimentary.” I was told to return the next day at 3:30 to check. A few moments later, they gave me the new boarding cards for the balcony cabin on deck 7 and I headed back up to help DD pack.

 

We loaded up the suitcases in the sloppiest packing process I’d ever done. Since we were only going down one deck, it wasn’t like it was a big deal. We checked and rechecked every drawer and shelf to be sure that nothing was being left behind. I figured DD would then announce that she wanted to go party one more night in the disco, but she opted to have a quiet evening in the cabin. She settled down with her iPod and I stepped out onto the porch for one last chance to enjoy this private retreat. The sky was ablaze with stars. There was an especially good view of the Southern Cross again. I could pick out so many other bright stars around it that I regretted not having thought to bring a star chart with me. It would have been incredible to be able to identify constellations that I would never be able to see in Ohio. I looked down at the water being thrust away from the ship as she cut through the waves. This had been an incredibly smooth sailing. One always wonders if it will get a bit rough on a smaller ship like this, but there hadn’t been any rough sea days at all. It had been an awesome cruise. Of course, it was continuing for several more days for us, but it would be a different chapter, with different people, and a smaller cabin. The same ship and crew, but a vastly different experience – as we would soon find out.

Edited May 8, 2012 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

I’m working on my review of boarding day for the second cruise and I’d be interested in hearing from others who were on that cruise regarding the air conditioning in your cabin. Was it working at all that day? And where was your cabin … port, starboard or inside?

[co2stay]

Oh my Emeraldcity! I so enjoy your Chronicles of your trip. Even without pictures, this has got to be one of my favorite reviews! I can't wait to read about your next adventure. Thank you for taking the time to do all this.

[frommichigan]

What an amazing review!!! Can't wait to hear about the second leg of your trip.

 

Amanda

[emeraldcity]

Oh my Emeraldcity! I so enjoy your Chronicles of your trip. Even without pictures, this has got to be one of my favorite reviews! I can't wait to read about your next adventure. Thank you for taking the time to do all this.

 

Glad you're enjoying it. Sorry it's taking so long to get the next day completed. I'm up to my eyeballs in the senior whirlwind. I'm involved with several committees for prom, graduation and wrapping up the marching band program. I knew I was over-committing, but I'm really having a lot of fun with it all.

 

I should have the next post ready by tomorrow evening.

[Anton]

Great reading. A question - since this cruise started and ended in Panama did they allow 18 year olds to drink alcohol?

[OklaCruiserMom]

Realizing there's still more to come, I have to say... oh my holy LORD, I love this review! So many funny bits, so much information, such a beautiful and touching telling of a wonderful memory for a mother and young daughter. I am taking my two (yes, two) 18 year old daughters (and their little brother) on our very first cruise together in two weeks (:D) and I hope that I can find/make/demand time to enjoy them as it sounds like you enjoyed these moments with your daughter. We'll be in the Carribean on the Allure, but hopefully we can find a few slow times to just be. And also, I hope that maybe someday I can take a trip like this with my own mother. Even at this later stage in our lives, or perhaps especially so, it would be such a great experience to share with her.

 

Looking forward to reading the rest! Hoping you can find a way to include a few pictures at the end or something. Congrats to your daughter on her graduation. Mine graduate a week from today. :(

[emeraldcity]

Dogs barking. Big dogs barking. Why were there dogs barking? I opened my eyes and looked around the cabin to assure myself that were we still aboard ship. I reached forward and pulled a corner of the drape aside to look out the window. My ocean view had been replaced by a view of the rooftop of the terminal building in Colon. I sat up to use a wider expanse of window in order to figure out where the barking was coming from. I anticipated I'd spot some of those stray dogs I'd seen wandering about as we toured various parts of Panama the previous weekend, but instead I spotted a kennel at our end of the terminal building. Four large dogs were clearly very happy to see the ship in port. It is unwise to expect rational output from your brain when it's still booting up, but I started asking it questions anyway. Did the passengers board their dogs at the terminal (which is of course a service provided to Disney World guests … for a fat fee)? No, not likely … especially given that this was an outdoor facility in that part of the world where the words "hot" and "humid" were invented. So, do they allow the port employees to bring their dogs to work? Not a chance, given the previously mentioned environment.

 

A man strode over to one of the cages, put a leash on one of the dogs and led it toward the terminal. Ah-ha, my brain finally engaged … drug dogs. I went and got the camera, ramped up the zoom and shot a few pictures I could then blow up in the view-finder … the letters K-9 were clearly visible on the back of his jacket. Does that mean that the Spanish word for dog starts with "k"? Inquiring minds want to know. I stepped out on the porch and looked down as the first forklift of luggage was removed from the ship and trundled toward the terminal. Soon three of the four dogs were inside the terminal and the one left behind continued to announce his interest in joining his buddies.

 

DD claims she woke to the sound of the barking dogs and her hazy mind instantly said “drug dogs … we must be in port”, and then turned over and went back to sleep. Should I be wondering why she’s an expert on this topic? In any event, she didn’t sleep long. It was really too noisy.

 

We headed down to the MDR for a nice laid back breakfast. Plenty of people had arrived at the venue with their suitcases, so negotiating the aisles was a bit challenging. Actually, all the public rooms were clogged with people and luggage. We felt wonderfully unencumbered. When we returned to our cabin, the cart had arrived to load our stuff onto, but we were told that the balcony cabin wasn’t ready yet, so we told our cabin steward to go ahead and make up the room for the next passenger.

 

Although I was expecting having to disembark and deal with Panamanian Customs for a re-boarding process, it wasn't necessary. The ship personnel just ignored our little band of passengers and went about their duties getting ready for the on-coming passengers. This lack of process was terribly nice, although it left me with that little pink piece of paper they had stuck in my passport when we went through the initial boarding process. I was told we would need it when we got back to Colon. So that begs the question, “Do the Panamanian authorities think I’m still there. If so, I just exceeded the 30 days that seemed to be the length of a short stay. I have to wonder if they have put out an APB on DD and me.

 

Long after everyone was supposed to be off, there were announcements trying to find the last 2 or 3 passengers that hadn't left the ship. One of the announcements was for a passenger on Deck 7 … and as luck would have it, I knew exactly what cabin they had ... It was the one we were trying to move into. Their cabin steward finally put their luggage out in the hall and moved us in. We rummaged through our luggage to get the things we wanted, but we didn't unpack, pending a possible upgrade. I changed into my swimsuit and headed off to find a quiet place to work on my embroidery. DD figured she'd change later. It was not a good call.

 

I wandered through the Solarium and stopped to talk to a couple who was relaxing looking out over the water. They had been on the previous cruise and would be staying on until the ship got to Spain. I asked if they’d checked into an upgrade and they said they hadn’t even considered it. They were in an inside and were diamond C&A. I told them there was plenty of availability and they might want to check it out. Then the thought dawned on me that I might be cluing someone in on the last available cabin. Horrors! What if they got it before me? So very smoothly I added a half hour to the time I was supposed to go check at the desk for my upgrade and advised them that 4:00 p.m. would be a great time to go see if they could move up in the world. Do I feel guilty for being deceptive? No … not at all. Besides, I’ve just confessed, so that cleanses my soul.

 

The Solarium was too stuffy to stay there, so I went down a couple decks, thinking I would settle in one of the Centrum lounges. I paused to watch a couple stepping into the glass elevator and head down, pulling a suitcase that looked suspiciously like the one that had been pulled out of that balcony cabin. Again, the culture is all about being laid back, but I really think this was pushing the bubble. I decided it seemed a bit stuffy in the Centrum too, so I headed up to the breezy pool deck to embroider. FF and FM were there taking advantage of the private domain we now commanded.

 

Once they finally got the last couple of passengers off, they closed the doors to the hallways and announced they wouldn’t open till 1:00. DD was bummed, because this timing coincided with her sudden interest in getting into her swimsuit. She ended up sitting at the pool’s edge chatting and playing with FF and FM’s kids. I finally settled into a deck chair on the pool deck and chatted a bit with FF and FM. Apparently, they had been at the purser’s desk when the announcement was being made about the last three cruisers who should be disembarking. One of them was a woman who had intended to pay her bill in cash … and the cash had been in her wallet which she set down on a table the night before in the disco … for just a minute. Fortunately, her passport wasn’t in it, but all her funds were gone. She ended up signing a promissory note for the balance of her bill. Meanwhile, the bus had left for the airport, so there was no clear answer about how she was going to get to the airport without credit cards or cash. There was also a young couple who owed $20 and they didn’t have it. None of their credit cards seemed capable of handling this sum either, so they were calling all their friends and relations to try and find someone who would float them a loan sizeable enough to cover it. They went through quite a few friends before somebody finally bailed them out and the ship allowed them to leave.

 

The other thing that was being attended to was the signage ... whether electronic or physical – all signage was being changed to read English first and Spanish second.

 

But all the passengers from the previous sailing had now left the ship. Our contented little group surveyed our domain. This private yacht was ours for a couple of hours, until they allowed the next group of folks to board. That two hours rates among the most relaxing periods of my life. No cares, no worries … Just a nice spot in the shade, a good breeze and the sounds of four kids playing in the pool. Time slipped away while I worked on my embroidery. We had our first warning that we were about to have company when the announcement was made that boarding would begin in 15 minutes and all personnel needed to be at their boarding position. About 20 minutes later the first passengers were walking across the pool deck towing their luggage behind them. I grinned as they went by, thinking that I wasn’t the only one who makes the pool deck one of the first places I have to cross once I get on board that first day.

 

As soon as noon arrived, DD and I went to the Windjammer for lunch. She’d been waiting a whole week for another crack at that honey stung chicken. I just wanted a salad. Our favorite Windjammer waiter greeted us and an iced tea with lemon appeared at my elbow as soon as we sat down. People kept trickling in and we had our first adjustment to the new state of affairs aboard ship … everyone seemed to be speaking English.

 

After lunch we treated ourselves to soft-serve and then DD went downstairs to change into her swimsuit. The corridor doors were still closed and people were sitting on the steps waiting for 1:00. DD walked past them and opened the door. As she headed down the hall to the cabin she heard people asking each other if they were allowed to do that. I guess it’s just one of those things that points up the difference behind those who just boarded and those who have been at home on the ship for a week already. DD wasn’t interested in factoring in what she was allowed to do, she was only focused on what she wanted to do – and besides, we’d already moved into the cabin (sort of).

 

By the time she got back to the pool deck, I was already in the pool. We splashed around for almost an hour, but kept an eye on the clock. The ship would be sailing relatively early this time (3:00 p.m.) and I wanted to allow enough time for a shower before muster drill. Shortly before 2:00, DD and I headed down to the cabin for quick showers. I felt a bit guilty using the showers and the towels, especially since we had a good feeling about getting an upgrade. If that happened, we would have made work for the cabin steward and I hadn’t decided how to handle tipping, if that transpired. But we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. We reported to muster on time and had to wait for most of the others. We had the same muster station, so we had the same entertainer to clown his way through the life jacket demo. The only difference this time was that we could chat with the folks around us.

 

Once muster ended, we scrambled up to the pool deck. DD didn’t feel that she needed a sail-away drink this time, so we found a spot on the rail to watch them cast off. This time the pool band showed up on time and was playing by the time the ship’s horn blew and we cast off. The entertainment staff was on hand to encourage dancing and they had an uphill climb in front of them. Only a few people could be coaxed into dancing, but it was still fun. There was that wonderful moment when you could feel the gentle swaying of the ship as she began the turn toward the mouth of the harbor; we were heading out to sea again! We counted several times to try and determine how many ships were waiting to get through the Panama Canal and we counted over 30 inside the breakwall and over 30 more clustered in the area around the harbor beyond the breakwall. This time I was armed with a bit more information about the whole process of gaining passage, and I wondered how many of those ships had their scheduled passage time assigned. We’d been told that they don’t get put on the schedule until their passage fee is paid upfront … either in cash or by wire transfer. We had several different sources assure us that they actually send a boat out to the cargo ships to collect the funds. DD immediately drew a parallel between that and the Hollywood depiction of the courier flipping open the briefcase to display tidy stacks of bills for some underworld payoff. For a country that views itself as progressive -- positioning itself as a worldly, thriving economy, the concept is so seedy. My gut feeling is that there’s more wire transfers than people seemed to indicate – it just doesn’t make as good a story, so folks play up the cash angle. Tolls are based on how much cargo the ship could carry if fully loaded. A partially loaded ship gets no discount. The only discounts are for completely empty cargo ships.

 

We stayed on deck until we’d gotten a good bit out to sea, but by then, it was nearing 3:30, so we could go down to the purser’s desk and check on the upgrade. Well, here’s something that hadn’t changed – the perpetual line was still there. And we weren’t the only ones trying to upgrade. By the time I got my turn, I’d seen several people being turned away, in addition to hearing others being offered an upsell, if they really wanted to move up in the world. The word was that the only thing available for complimentary upgrades was balconies. I came away empty-handed in my quest for a JS.

 

DD did not take this well. We’d been cruising in balcony cabins since she was 10 and they had always seemed big enough, but after a week in a Grand Suite, it seemed so terribly confining. I tried reminding DD that we’d promised ourselves from the beginning (at which time we were booked in an inside cabin) that we were allowed to comment on our reduced circumstances, but not complain about it. She shot back that the promise was made before she realized just what a come-down it was going to be. I told her it was time to accept our lot and go unpack. She finally agreed, but her heart wasn’t in it.

 

The loyalty ambassador would be open for business at 5:00, so I arrived in their lounge area 20 minutes early. There was one other woman there and I asked her if she had ever gotten a Next Cruise Certificate. She told me she always gets one. She said the only real drawback was if you cancelled the cruise after you eventually booked it. She said she once had booked a cruise that was cancelled by RCI and they refunded her money, rather than allow her to rebook something else and keep the OBC. As we waited, I kept fanning myself because the room just seemed so stuffy. The vigorous fanning caught the eye of a woman walking by and she laughed, “Never put a menopausal woman into a hot room.” The other woman waiting for the Loyalty Ambassador then commented that everywhere she went on the ship seemed awfully warm. It was getting to be a common theme. The temperature had never seemed too warm on the previous cruise. What was going on?

 

My musing was cut short by the arrival of the Loyalty Ambassadors, of which there were fortunately two of them who arrived together, so we each were waited on right at 5:00. I got upgrades to Diamond for DD and myself and then bought the Next Cruise Certificate. Meanwhile, DD was given her C&A pins for Platinum, Emerald, and Diamond. I already had the first two, so I was given the Diamond one.

 

At 5:30, we joined FF and FM in the Schooner Bar for the first trivia game of this cruise. The host for this one was the CD staff member with the heavy accent. He was the one from Venezuela that made his country’s name sound like Minnesota. If you’ve seen “Zorro, the Gay Blade”, then you need to add another 50% to the heavy accent and you’re getting close. We felt like Lauren Hutton repeatedly challenging individual words that didn’t make sense until he explained them several ways, “the leetle ships in the fields, the leetle baa baa baa’s.”

 

The accent became a source of concern for some of the teams when question number three was read. We looked at each other in puzzlement, trying to determine what word he’d just said. A couple other teams were a bit more vocal about their confusion. There were two teams that kept asking for him to repeat it. One was the Blood-Sports team who camped in one corner of the room, arms folded across their chests employing a permanent scowl that was either a team requirement or a family trait. At the opposite end of the lounge was another team who kept asking for clarification and then finally announced with emphasis, “We’re serious about our Trivia.” Whoa! Our team exchanged startled looks with each other. Did they hear what just fell out of their mouth? There’s a reason they don’t call this game Weighty Matters of the World. The game explores how much the contestants remember about useless bits of information that will never be conversation starters. I’ll bet those people don’t get invited to too many cocktail parties. Can you imagine getting stuck sitting next to someone who starts off with, “Guess how many muscles there are in an elephant’s trunk! {pause} I bet you don’t know! But I do. It’s a secret though. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!” {laughs uproariously}

 

In any event, the Blood-Sports team won the contest and as they accepted their prize they blurted out that they figured they’d be coming to all the trivia games since there wasn’t anything else to do on the ship. You gotta love grace under pressure.

 

We visited with our team mates a bit before heading to the dining room to find out who we would be having dinner with for the next three evenings. As we approached our table I recognized the people who were seated at the table right next to us … it was two-thirds of the Blood-Sports trivia team. Unfortunately, they had their back to us, or else we could have staged a trivia challenge. I waited all dinner to get a chance to find out if they knew how many ridges there are on the outside of a dime, but they never turned around.

 

Our server took our orders, since it looked like we were going to be dining solo. About the time that appetizers were delivered, we were joined by the first of our tablemates. I confess I never got her name. She was a lady who was traveling solo and she was very quiet. I kept trying to pull her into a conversation … any conversation, but she just wasn’t much of a talker. Then about the time our entrées were delivered and the woman was getter her appetizer, our second tablemate showed up. He was a contractor who loved to cruise repos to get from one place to another and I noticed his boarding card had him as a diamond cruiser. He worked a good bit in Panama and had some interesting information about the country. He said that the government was flush with cash because the canal tolls, but they really weren’t pumping much of it into social programs. The average education level was only fourth grade. Since the well-heeled folks were sending their kids to private schools, they didn’t see much value into investing in the country’s youth. As he talked, I hoped his evaluation was way off base, since I’m a big believer in providing affordable education. He happened to ask if we’d seen the shanty town that sits on the mud flats as you enter the city, and I related my impression of it being curiously at odds with the satellite dishes every roof seemed to sport. He said that at one time a developer had approached the inhabitants and offered them $40,000 each for their land, but a lawyer got involved, banding them together with promises of a more lucrative deal. In the end, the developer walked away and the lawyer moved on, leaving the disgruntled residents mired in their shantytown. How sad.

 

Our server didn’t miss a beat as he continued to serve each diner the course of the meal they were ready for … but it was a very curious dining experience. We were ordering dessert at the same time as the newcomer was being served his entrée. DD and I made a marvelous discovery when we both ordered the strawberry pavlova. It was a huge hit. Our quiet female dinner companion excused herself as soon as she could and we were left with the contractor. I felt a bit awkward and didn’t want to walk out on him when he hadn’t finished his meal. DD however got tired of the way he completely ignored her and she excused herself, leaving me trying to decide when it would be polite to move on. I did ask him whether he’d managed to secure an upgrade and he said he’d had the oddest experience. He was given a boarding card for the inside he’d booked, and when he got to security it wouldn’t work, because he’d been unexpectedly moved to a balcony before he even got to board. So he had to go back to check-in and have them issue a new boarding card. It was his first balcony ever and he said he was already getting spoiled. Once he’d finished dessert, I excused myself and said that I should go join my DD.

 

I detoured to the cabin to find DD, but she’d already left for the next trivia game. On my way to join her I stopped in the Centrum when I realized that the Rosario Strings were playing my favorite piece. I stood at the railing between the two glass elevators and listened. Dick looked up and caught my eye and beamed with every inch of his body. He added a little more emphasis to his sway as the plaintive notes of “Time to Say Goodbye” rose in the air. I heard my name being called and I looked across to Deck Five to find that Ruth was waving her arms and trying to get my attention. That could only mean one thing. I rapidly headed in her direction. Sure enough! She had been saving a Junior Suite for us, but she simply hadn’t been at the desk when we stopped by to check at 3:30. Awesome! My adrenaline levels shot off the charts and all thoughts of joining my trivia team flew out of my head. She made the new boarding cards, which even reflected our new status of Diamond and told me to let her know how soon she should send someone up to help us move. I happily headed back up to 7042 and tossed everything back into suitcases. Within ten minutes, I called back down to the desk to advise her that we were ready for assistance. When DD returned triumphant from another trivia win, she had to edge her way past the suitcases waiting by the door. She looked puzzled at the obstacle course, until I held up the silver boarding cards. She squealed with excitement and grabbed hers to examine it and savor what it meant. Yes, we could have done three days in this cabin, but we really wanted more space. There was a little piece of me that envied her trivia prize and wished I’d waited to pack for the move. They’d awarded RCI pens this time, and I certainly could have actually used that. DD reported that the previous winners of trivia had been the only other team. They were not the sort of folks who tolerated loss very well, so it had been a particularly sweet victory. I mean -- seriously – I can understand how it can be difficult to lose with grace when there’s serious money on the line, but when you’re playing for blinkey rings and luggage tags you ought to be able to handle walking away empty handed, particularly when the prize at hand is the same one you got earlier in the day.

 

DD agreed, however, that my prize of a Junior Suite was even better and we happily devoted the next hour to the relocation and settling-in process. We found that this room was stuffy too, and any fiddling with the A/C controls didn’t seem to have any affect. I stepped out on the balcony after a bit, but it really wasn’t any cooler out there. I did spot Orion off the port side and I tried to determine where the Southern Cross would be if it was still visible, and I was thinking it would probably be a bit starboard now, but I wasn’t certain.

 

I went back inside and put a few ice cubes in a washcloth and laid down for a bit. The ship was rolling a lot, and the combination of the heat and the movement was rather unsettling. By this time, we had to conclude that there was a ship-wide problem with the air conditioning. There was no way that this was an issue of dozens of malfunctioning thermostats. DD played with her iPod for a bit, but eventually decided to call it a night. We hit the switch to turn out the light and it abruptly extinguished. OK, then. Only suite people get the gradual lighting … full suites that is. Just another adjustment to make.

[emeraldcity]

Great reading. A question - since this cruise started and ended in Panama did they allow 18 year olds to drink alcohol?

 

Yes, She loved being able to sit down at the bar and order a drink. I believe she was not permitted to buy one for someone else, but she never tried anyway. I guess last Sunday she went out with her boyfriend’s family and she picked up the drink menu at Longhorn and was trying to decide which one looked the most interesting … and then she remembered that she was back in Ohio and she couldn’t order that sort of thing anymore. LOL!

 

And she had the same privilege on the 3-day that started in Colon and ended in Miami, so I guess it really only matters whether the point of departure is US or not.

 

Realizing there's still more to come, I have to say... oh my holy LORD, I love this review! So many funny bits, so much information, such a beautiful and touching telling of a wonderful memory for a mother and young daughter. I am taking my two (yes, two) 18 year old daughters (and their little brother) on our very first cruise together in two weeks (:D) and I hope that I can find/make/demand time to enjoy them as it sounds like you enjoyed these moments with your daughter. We'll be in the Carribean on the Allure, but hopefully we can find a few slow times to just be. And also, I hope that maybe someday I can take a trip like this with my own mother. Even at this later stage in our lives, or perhaps especially so, it would be such a great experience to share with her.

 

Looking forward to reading the rest! Hoping you can find a way to include a few pictures at the end or something. Congrats to your daughter on her graduation. Mine graduate a week from today. :(

 

From time to time you have to force yourself to slow down and relax. The big piece is to find things to laugh about together. We manage to find so many things to laugh about!

 

I did a bit of traveling with my mom before she passed ... but never a cruise. That would have been interesting ... oh my, yes. Mom was a bit of a character in her later years.

 

I’m wondering if I crop the pictures would that make them smaller so I can post them?

[emeraldcity]

Some time during the night, the clocks were changed to match Eastern Daylight time. If you’re going to lose an hour, this is the way to do it. You can sleep in and have nothing pressing on your schedule. Of course, I didn’t sleep in … but I could have if I had wanted to. Having gone to bed early, I was up before sunrise and I wandered about the ship, enjoying the quiet. The ship was pleasantly cool, no matter where I went. The air conditioning issue had obviously been sorted out. We did hear from our new cabin steward that he had started off on boarding day with most of his port side cabins unoccupied, and ended up with a full house, since people were being moved from starboard JS cabins due to an air conditioning issue. It would take a lot of questions to different people to sort out what had probably occurred the previous day; but the most anyone would admit to knowing was that there had been some maintenance going on, so “some” of the cabins didn’t have any air conditioning on Sunday. I think the true story is more likely that they shut down the entire system for some maintenance issue, and the starboard cabins heated up first, since they faced East. We were on the port side, so it didn’t get uncomfortable till later in the day. Meanwhile the public rooms were larger spaces, so the effect of the sun coming in through the East windows was not as dramatic as it was in the cabins.

 

The ship was rolling just as much as it had the previous evening. They said the waves were 9-12 feet. However, the ship’s movement wasn’t bothering me at all that morning. So it had to have been the combination of the heat and the motion. I went up to the pool deck where I noted that they had nets stretched across the pools. It was intriguing watching the water sloshing back and forth and I wondered if they’d be opening the pools later that day. I chatted with a guy outside the Windjammer who was one of the contractors on board. He said that he was supervising a crew that was on board to wire the ship for wi-fi. I asked him if those were the guys that we’d seen in the Deck 7 hallway on ladders the previous afternoon (at least we saw the bottom half of them … the top half was lost somewhere above the ceiling panels), and he said I was right. They would be up on Deck 8 that day. He said that his company had the contract to wire every one of the RCI ships for wi-fi. It was a market they needed to service because all the other cruise lines were going to be doing so. He said that he understood it would be an upcharge initially, but he wondered if market pressure would force a change eventually for some cruise lines, the way it did in the hotel industry.

 

After breakfast, I decided to wander through the spa. I hadn’t been there yet and I was just curious as to what it looked like. One of the ladies at the desk gave me a brief tour and I took a few of the price lists. They would make interesting conversation pieces, but it’s not the prices that kept me away; I’m too busy relaxing in a deck chair to be bothered with scheduling a time so that somebody can perform some treatment designed to make me relax. But for the legions that keep this place in business, there would be plenty of opportunities in the schedule to find out about them. Seminars were scheduled for Hollywood Makeover, Acupuncture 101, Detox for Health and Weight Loss, How to Lose 8 Inches in 50 Minutes (this begs the question, are we talking height or girth), Beautiful Hands and Feet, Skin Care for the Next Generation (this is probably for us “mature” cruisers who’ve spent too many years relaxing in deck chairs instead of spending money in the spa), No More Bad Hair Days, Secrets to a Flatter Stomach, Teeth Whitening, Eliminating Puffy Eyes, Acupuncture for Pain Management. And Yes, that is the Monday schedule; on Tuesday there would be another list. If you’re keeping count, that’s 11 seminars for body beautiful between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. It just seems a bit excessive to me, but then I’m a Midwesterner and we just don’t have a grip on how our life could be improved if we had a flatter stomach or more beautiful hands and feet.

 

I walked across the pool deck before going below and there were people taking videos of the waves that were washing back and forth across the pool. The nets were still in place and I again wondered if we’d be able to go swimming that day.

 

I returned to the cabin to find that DD was just getting ready to go have breakfast. Once she left on her food quest, I spent some time on the balcony. It was interesting that these cabins toward the aft were getting salt spray way up here on Deck 8. I hadn’t run into that when I’d been in that forward cabin on the same deck. Of course, it could have been that the seas were much rougher on this particular day. In any event, there would be no embroidering out here … I’m not exposing my project to salt spray. There was nothing to stop me from pulling out my notes or my puzzle book, though. I’m never at a loss when it comes to finding a relaxing pastime.

 

After she returned from Breakfast, DD suggested we go head over in the Schooner Bar until the trivia game. I took my embroidery and she took her iPod. She ended up playing some Wii as well. As I sat there stitching, a group collected over by the piano and I found that I was about to be entertained. No, it wasn’t the pianist … it was the acupuncture technician (or whatever those folks label themselves). I hadn’t realized they used this venue for some of the seminars, but I should have realized the spa couldn’t handle the overlapping times. In any event, I watched the “seminar” from a distance and very quickly concluded that it was nothing more than a sales vehicle to fill up appointment slots. There is a gentle overview of the history of acupuncture, followed by stories of successful, happy results for people who failed to achieve some physical objective in some other way. Then the final step is a helpful offer to set you up with an appointment as early as 1:30 today. There is no mention of cost, but I remembered that item from the spa price list and it would set someone back $150 for the first visit. The second visit is slightly cheaper … but the cynic in me wants to know what the price is “out the door”. You don’t buy a car till they tell you what the final number is. The very fact that the price list gives a price for subsequent visits means that they aren’t going to solve your problem for $150.

 

The rest of our trivia team arrived as the acupuncture seminar participants carefully slipped away without committing to the 1:30 session. I found that FM had struggled with the heat and the ship’s motion last night as well. He ended up taking a Dramamine and going to bed early, and he was still suffering a Dramamine hangover. Since he was a key player, perhaps we can point to his impairment for our trivia loss that morning. This particular game was fairly well attended and the win went to two guys from Florida. We joined the rest of the teams in applauding the winners. The Blood-Sports team was in attendance and I was impressed that after a pause, one of their players actually clapped a little. Maybe there is hope for these folks yet. It was, however a great learning experience for DD. She had to be examining the very public testy comments she fired at me in our first shipboard trivia game and wondering if people had pegged her as being too intense about the game. Negative role models are often far more effective than positive ones.

 

We headed up to the pool after trivia, since the Belly Flop competition was scheduled for early afternoon. Frankly, we were worried that they wouldn’t be able to have it, since the pool had been closed the last we’d seen it. We arrived to find that the pool was open, but the competition was cancelled anyway. They had only been able to find two guys willing to undergo the pain necessary to produce the crowd pleasing spectacle, and they didn’t hold the contest with less than 6 guys. Too bad, but not really surprising. There were quite a number of middle-age couples using this cruise either to stick on the front of their TransAtlantic or to just get to Miami, where the airfare to points in the U.S. was much cheaper. They were focused on a few relaxing days at sea, not on partying and belly flopping.

 

So we slipped in a quick lunch and then got our bathing suits on to go swimming. We had our pick of deck chairs. The pictures I took of the pool deck at 1:40 on a sea day are amazing. You would never guess that it was a beautiful 83 degree day. Row after row of empty deck chairs. There were actually more crew on this ship for this sailing than passengers. Depending on who you talked to, we heard a passenger count of 640-690 … and apparently very few of them liked to hang out on the pool deck. I checked out the Solarium, and it wasn’t a popular venue either. Hey! Maybe they were all busy taking seminars in the spa. If so, we'd be treated to some intensely beautiful people for formal night.

 

The water was still sloshing back and forth in the pool. I sat on the submerged ledge that surrounds the pool and let the water wash back and forth across my legs. DD initially stretched out on that wood deck-type bench that surrounds the ledge, but then she decided it looked like I was having too much fun, so she ended up stretching out on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, laughing as the water pushed her back and forth with each wave. We spent a couple of hours there, just talking about the fun we’d had so far and the people we’d met. It was rather curious to think that some people were just getting into shipboard life, and yet by this time tomorrow, cabin stewards would be putting disembarkation paperwork in their cabins. I can’t imagine being satisfied with just doing a 3-day cruise, because it would just seem like it was over before it really got underway.

 

We eventually went down to our cabin and took turns showering and making ourselves presentable. Then it was off to the South Pacific Lounge for a game show. As it turned out, it was really a trivia game where everyone in the room was collected into teams and had to identify a series of images displayed on the video screen. The game started on time and we were on the third slide when a Latin fellow burst into the room calling for the host to back up since he wanted to play and was surprised to find the game underway. The host stood his ground and the exchange continued in Spanish for a bit until he was apparently assigned to a nearby Spanish team who assured him they had the game well in control and had handled the first 3 questions effectively. This was another example of how the staff was handling the culture on this cruise as opposed to the previous one. The game continued and when it came time to score the contest, we ended up switching sheets with the Spanish team that had included the newcomer. Scoring was an interesting event, because the host didn’t believe in shades of gray. Our Spanish friends were all about shades of gray. Again, I don’t get worked up about trivia, but there were some very lively exchanges going on as the answers were revealed. In the end, our team did very well except in one category – and that lost us the game. The Spanish team was the winner – after more conversation about one of the answers. As people started to drift out of the room, the newcomer came over to chat with us. Despite his earlier aggressive stance, he was very congenial. I was a bit confused by the about-face, and I’ve puzzled about it a good deal since. I’ve come to the conclusion that we have a tendency to evaluate a heated discussion in another language and draw the conclusion that it is adversarial. What we watched was probably more on the order of an academic debate. We evaluate our interactions based on the culture we come from. Our American culture is similar to the Spanish one in so many ways, that we fail to make allowances at times for the ways in which it is different.

 

In any event our new-found friend asked the usual question about what part of the U.S. we came from. When we said Ohio, he drew the rather startling conclusion that Ohio was made of mainly of farmland so we must be rednecks! How do you respond to that? I know we spent the next couple of days teasing each other about being rednecks. But as for being farmers, he couldn’t be farther off the mark … I won’t even attempt a vegetable garden. There really isn’t any point, since the grocery store has everything I need without having to pull weeds, deal with bugs and buy vast quantities of non-eco-friendly chemicals to assure favorable results.

 

When we left the lounge we decided it was a bit too soon to get into formal dresses for our last formal night, so we went to the Centrum shops to do our shopping. The window shopping phase was behind us. We’d had a week to determine what we wanted and it was time to make those purchases. I’d had my eye on a jeweled globe in the display window. The store didn’t have one on the shelves that appealed to me as much as that one in the window that I’d been getting attached to all week, and they didn’t hesitate a bit when I asked if I could just get that one for me. We added a few Royal Caribbean items, since you have to have something in the kitchen cupboard that makes you smile every time you open it.

 

Then we headed back to the cabin. We wanted extra time before dinner for formal photos so we got dressed a bit early. The prom dress she’d worn the first formal night was back in pristine condition and ready for photos. I thought we’d get some pictures taken and then she’d come back and change into formal number three. There I go – thinking again. Once she had the new dress on, wearing last year’s dress had no appeal. She swept down the hall and down the stairs, feeling terribly special. We arrived in the Centrum for pictures to find that there was no competition. The photographer took lots of time with her, because no line ever formed. This little three-day cruise wasn’t peopled with folks who were interested in formal pictures. We would find out later when scanning the completed photos in the photo gallery that the collection of them was terribly sparse.

 

When we went to the dining room we asked the head waiter if he could get us a different table. We told him there was nothing wrong with the waiter, but we just didn’t hit it off with our tablemates. He ended up giving us a table in the same section with the same waiter. Clearly our abandoned tablemates would be aware we ditched them if they showed up … but since they didn’t, it was a non-issue. They had apparently come to the same conclusion that we were not a match made in heaven. Then there is the issue of all those beautiful people who must have spent the day in the spa ... we looked for them at dinner and didn't spot any at all. I can only conclude that they were a tougher case than usual and the spa was still working on them.

 

After dinner the grand plan was to go to the casino with our match play certificates, but instead we got invited to see an Owner’s Suite and have appetizers with some newfound friends. Mind you, we’d just had dinner and we really didn’t need appetizers, but I’d never seen on Owner’s Suite in person, so I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. Our host was a flamboyant fellow from Los Angeles and he loved to gather a crowd together and make a party. Among those present was the woman who’d teased me the day before about being menopausal, but we refrained from exploring that particular topic further, to the relief of all. There were a couple girls about the same age as my DD, so the dress she was wearing became an instant focus. When the appetizers arrived, the steward couldn’t find enough space for all the covered dishes, so our host just waved him off as he handed him a tip and said to leave the rest on the cart. This undoubtedly created a conflict with standard procedure and the angst could clearly be read on the steward’s face; but you don’t argue with the guy who just tipped you, so he backed out of the suite and closed the door. Within minutes the phone rang and it was someone checking on that cart to determine how soon we would be done with it. Seriously?! Where exactly did they think we were going to go with it? This is a rather controlled environment. We teased our host about his apparent intent to stuff it into his suitcase.

 

But everyone’s favorite topic of conversation was “How I got my upgrade!” Apparently our host had arrived at the pier intending to upgrade his junior suite to something more spacious. He paid $500 to upgrade to a Grand Suite, but started leaning on them to bump him up another level, citing his tendency to include the ship’s casino as one of his favorite charities. Given his philanthropist status in the casino, they were very polite when expressing regrets, but the sad story was that the only unoccupied Owner’s Suite was undergoing maintenance. So he asked to just tour it, since his partner had never seen an Owner’s Suite and he wanted to show it to him. Low and behold, when they opened the door, there were no maintenance people to be seen. “Oh, it looks like they’re done!” he exclaimed. “And since the air conditioning isn’t working in my Grand Suite, we can just move right in here.” I love his style! He did explore their receptiveness to a further upgrade, but they said they would be awarding the Royal Suite to a Bingo winner.

 

The rest of the party had late seating, so the party broke up and they all headed off for dinner. We went back to our room to grab those Match Play Certificates and go try our luck in the casino. We didn’t make it before FF and FM caught sight of us in the hall. They’d been looking for us to come down to the aft end of the corridor and tour their Royal Family Suite. This seemed to be the cruise to check out all the cabins! Besides, they were sweetening the deal by insisting they had a bottle of wine and one of champagne they wanted us to help them finish off. The space they allot to this suite is well designed, complete with a master bedroom, a second bedroom with four bunks and a living room. Add the wrap-around balcony with table and chairs, plus four loungers and you’ve got an incredible space. We lingered on the balcony visiting until it was nearly time for the Battle of the Sexes game show. Our hosts said they’d join us if they could get the kids settled down soon, so off we went for an evening of entertainment. We made a quick stop at our cabin to change into something more casual and then headed for the South Pacific Lounge.

 

DD and I claimed a great spot near the dance floor so she wouldn’t be hindered in her determination to volunteer. She needn’t have worried – not only were we sailing with a small passenger roster, it was peopled with folks who weren’t the volunteer type. While we were waiting for the appointed hour, DD spent the time chatting with the cruise director’s staff and practicing with the hula hoop. When the game got underway, it quickly became apparent that the host who called for volunteers didn’t have to worry about being trampled in the stampede. The game was identical to the previous week, but the audience had come to watch, not to participate. When the first round was called (for the number sequence), he only needed 5 people each and it took repeated calls before volunteers reluctantly agreed to go up there. DD held back and finally joined them when it became obvious that we’d spend the whole evening just listening to casting calls. The second round where people stuffed themselves into the space of a hula hoop got a bit more lively as people decided that this particular event didn’t look to threatening. DD and I both joined the 30+ women who joined in to win this round. The third round was the paper airplane and the folks that went up there seemed to know what they were doing, except for one woman … and DD ended up helping her since she was working on the table next to us. Next was the hula hoop competition and all the women in the room pointed to DD and called for her to handle this piece. They’d already seen her practicing and it promised to be an easy win. It really took a very long time to get a couple of men to even consider it. The host kept calling “I’m dying up here!” Of course the women took this event again. Then finally it was time for the balloon event. The host kept calling for volunteers and getting so few to respond that he finally looked at DD and told her he needed her up there, and she happily jumped up to get into the fun, because she knew what was coming, and it would make such a great story back home. Most of the contestants who finally responded to the casting calls were relatively young. There was one woman who was middle aged (although I’d lay odds that I was in school long before she was born). I was having a hard time picturing her as being an enthusiastic participant once she saw what was expected. The demo this week was every bit as funny as last week, and the carefully choreographed moves were like watching one of your favorite shows during summer reruns. The host hadn’t gotten through the whole demo before the older woman’s husband jumped up and kept vigorously motioning to his wife to vacate her position on the stage. She looked a bit concerned, but remained where she was, although she was definitely processing her options. The host got a bit farther in the demo and the husband jumped up again and motioned to her. I think she tried to ignore him, because she made no move. Then the final balloon-busting technique was demo’d and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She waved her arms and said something in Spanish to the host and headed back to the security of that empty seat next to her husband. The host called for another volunteer and the show went on. And it was every bit as funny as last time, even though the men didn’t throw themselves into it with quite as much enthusiasm as the guys had the previous week. In fact, the women were leading until the very end. But once again, women are so afraid of that possible sting when a balloon pops. I have a great shot of the women failing to pop the balloon because the one woman is wincing and looking over her shoulder to avoid seeing the disaster that is about to occur to this poor balloon. Unfortunately our friends had apparently not been successful in settling the kids down, since they never made it.

 

The game over, the room emptied out rather quickly. We finally managed to make it to the casino on this final try. We went through all our match play certificates and I had a bit more luck this time. We played a few extra games, but I decided to quit when I was up $5, so I could say that I walked away a winner at least once. DD meanwhile walked out with $35 more than she walked in with. OK … I recognize this doesn’t exactly qualify her as a high roller, but she’s supposed to be learning that gambling doesn’t pay, and she’s up $65 over the length of the cruise. This is not good.

[emeraldcity]

I left my DD sleeping (this is a recurrent theme, isn’t it) and went to the MDR for breakfast. Now that it was no longer a predominately Spanish-speaking population on board, I was able to have my first opportunity to be seated with other passengers. I ended up sitting at a table with 3 couples, each of whom lived somewhere in Panama, but traveled a good bit as well. There was an English couple heading back to England, which they do every year for six months. They lived in a very remote area of Panama and she commented that she missed the monkeys already. There was an American from Illinois with his Panamanian wife. They live six months in Panama every year and six months in the states. The third couple was also Americans who lived in Panama and they were en route to Europe for a month. It was an intriguing encounter as they all shared their individual stories of Panamanian life from the different communities in which they lived. They all spoke of the various challenges of living in an emerging economy, where roads to remote areas are unreliable, but real estate is incredibly inexpensive. One couple spoke of buying an island with three hills on it. The highest hilltop had a lovely home on it that was very traditional in nature, completely furnished with exquisite handmade furniture. They returned to the U.S. and had an architect produce plans for an extension to the home that encompassed the original structure – complementing it, while incorporating a layout and features that met their lifestyle requirements. But when they returned to the island to execute the plan, the house was gone. I thought they meant it had been lost to a tropical storm system until they added that they had never heard of a house being stolen before. Apparently, it is common in that area for locals to take extreme advantage of absentee owners. If their own home needs a roof, they simply go and take one from a nearby vacant home. In fact, another nearby absentee owner lost his roof in that fashion. But in their case, the entire home had been completely disassembled, and all furnishings and materials had been carted off the island. They advised that many areas of Panama are operating like the Wild West. Those who brave the uncertain conditions stand to make long term gains, but developers are rushing in and taking advantage of the chance to make a quick buck where governmental agencies have no structure to regulate activities as yet. They spoke of one woman who sold a particular property to seven different Americans, and although she was now facing criminal charges for fraud, it would take years for the courts to sort out. One of the other factors they noted that people fail to account for in the quest to locate in a reasonably priced, lovely tropical area is that medical care in Panama City is outstanding and amazingly cheap, but in outlying areas it is very poor. They spoke of the contrast of the remote areas where the retirement home is next to the hospital, which is next to the cemetery, because once you’re taken from the home to the hospital, the next step is a foregone conclusion. They had high praise for Panama City, however, and related the story of her aging mother who had a hip replacement within 4 hours of taking a fall. She made a full recovery and the total bill was $12,000.

 

After breakfast, I whiled away some time embroidering in one of the lounge areas of the Centrum. The seas seemed a bit calmer, but as I sat there in the relatively deserted Centrum I could hear the aluminum facings about me creak and crack as they flexed with the movement of the ship. I sat there going over my previous cruises in memory and had to come to the conclusion that I’d never had a chance to do consecutive days at sea before, but it really suited me. The chance to wander about with no pressing items on my schedule was one of the most relaxing experiences I’d ever encountered. The closest I could come to it was staying at one of those ocean-front beach houses north of Corolla, North Carolina where you have to drive for miles on the beach to get to the house you rented. And once you get there, you don’t go back until your week is up.

 

DD eventually found me after she got up and we set off to check out our formal pictures. They had all turned out very well and it was apparent I’d have to drop some more money on photos. We’d be able to get 2 with our Diamond coupons, but I figured I wanted at least 2 more, so I decided to wait till I could touch base with FM and FF to see if they had an extra coupon we could use to get the fourth one at a discount. There were a couple of photos where the stairs behind us were not backlit and the photographer told us that he wasn’t happy about that error and those photos complimentary, since they weren’t up to standard. Awesome … free is good – free is very good.

 

The Cruise Compass noted that this was the day to “Enjoy your final Destination Afloat Grandeur of the Seas”. And we planned to do just that, as we relaxed and laid back as much as possible. The weather was absolutely perfect – low 80’s, slightly breezy, and the seas were running 3-6 feet. Very smooth sailing. The schedule for spa seminars was rather skimpy, since there were only 9 today … Non-Surgical Facelift, Walking to Relieve Back Pain, Lose 8 inches in 50 Minutes, Beautiful Hands and Feet, Healing with Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture, 5-Minute Makeover, Burn Fat Faster, Whiten Your Smile, and the ever popular Eliminate Puffy Eyes. We checked out the logo trivia, but it was the same as the previous week and it’s no fun if you know the answers.

 

When lunch time rolled around we went to the MDR for those wonderful salads. As we ate we spotted a Celebrity ship headed in the opposite direction. I know Celebrity is supposed to be the upscale version of RCI, but I can’t get past that overpowering “X” on the smokestack. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when countless TV commercials always compared their brand to Brand X, so X was ingrained as being something to avoid.

 

After lunch, it was up to the pool deck for our last PD fix. I don’t know that we’ll every cruise again together, since DD is going in a new direction in life this fall. This final day ended up being filled with moments where we wanted to be sure we experienced wonderful memories that we could hoard, so that we could trot them out years later. Little vignettes that you revisit in the telling and the sharing when something you’re doing years later jogs a memory of a special shared experience.

 

There were plenty of deck chairs to choose from again – you name it – poolside, shady spot, sun deck along the outer rail, sun deck overlooking the pool. The pool was closed, which makes no sense. The ship was steady and running with the waves, so there was virtually no wave action in the pool. Yesterday had been a different story and the pool was open that day. Well, no matter. I don’t have to get wet to enjoy being on the pool deck. The band was playing and it was a great reggae beat with a nice Caribbean feel. Yes, I enjoyed the salsa-type music we’ve had all cruise, but my favorite Caribbean music is Jamaican. I really don’t know that I ever paid that much attention before to the distinctive difference of Caribbean music. I always just thought of Caribbean and Steel Drums as if the were the salt and pepper of a cruise music experience. But that’s like expecting a hamburger to taste the same no matter where you go. The basics are there – a good beat, a festive feel – but the music experience is completely different depending on the part of the Caribbean that is visited.

 

We ran into FF and FM and asked if they had extra photo coupons and they said they were wallowing in them, so they would bring some to the late-afternoon trivia.

 

In the early afternoon, the Grandeur watermelon carver showed up to demo his skill. The man is a native of the Philippines and started out as a wood carver. He has been wowing RCI guests for five years with his fruit and vegetable carvings. They set up a table for him at the end of the pool and the crowd formed a nice wide semi-circle to allow everyone to see, but the family group on the left was apparently vision-impaired, so they kept edging in closer until they were the only ones with a vantage point. I have a number of amazing pictures of the parts the wind created in their hair on the back of the heads – but few pictures of the carving process. Fortunately, the carving chef remained to pose with his creations for pictures after the demo completed. I figured the brazen family would soon be part of my past and I lined up a shot of the bouquet of carved-fruit/vegetable flowers – only to have one of the family snatch it off the table so they could pose proudly with it for a series of family shots. This truly carries a vegetable fetish to new heights and I have to believe these folks raise vegetables back home. This cruise has opened their eyes to a whole new marketing opportunity, rather than just taking what price the Green Giant is offering. Patience pays off in the end and I got the photos I wanted once they returned their prize to the chef, including some close-up of the creations and some pictures that included the chef. I thanked the chef for sharing his craft before I moved off to settle back into my deck chair.

 

When it was time to head down to shower, DD announced it was my turn to trade in the towel. I think she’s been “immersed” too long in the culture of being a cruise passenger who is waited on hand and foot. She’s going to go through serious withdrawal tomorrow when they boot us off the ship and we have to deal with the hassles of airline travel. As I handled the towel return, I made the mental comparison between traveling in steerage, since the suite folks just dump towels in their cabin and they magically become folded up and dry by the time you want to use it again.

 

When we returned to our cabin to shower, the end-of-cruise paperwork was waiting for us. I had made arrangements this time to pre-pay tips, since I wasn’t sure how to handle tipping due to the mid-day cabin change on Sunday. I figured this way, they could apportion it appropriately. Naturally the vouchers hadn’t shown up. I had to go down to the purser’s desk to get reprints. We would later find out that they were sent to our balcony cabin. This was also the cabin that the C&A party invite went to, so we missed the C&A party on this cruise. In any event, I prepared the envelopes and we started packing.

 

Shortly before dinner, we went off to our final trivia game and FF handed me the C&A discount coupon we’d need to get the pictures. We did a fairly credible job at trivia, but another team won. The Blood-Sports team didn’t show, so apparently their earlier concerns were invalid and they had managed to find something else to do on this ship after all.

 

By this time they advised that seas were running 9-15 feet, but the ship seemed to be pretty steady. I can only guess that it was due to us heading straight into the waves, rather than the angle I had observed on Monday when it seemed to rocky. We had rounded the western edge of Cuba by this time and were headed into the Straits of Florida.

 

At dinner time, as we went downstairs I commented to DD that I hoped the Rosario Strings would be there for our last night at dinner, so it was a delight when I walked in the MDR and heard them playing. Dick smiled at me as soon as our eyes met and he began to sway a bit more to his music. It was a delightful dinner – I had the crabmeat, filet of sole and ended with an ice cream sundae. DD had the Cesar salad, chicken with mashed potatoes and the berryimasue (which turned out to be another highlight in her cruise experience). DD asked me if I was going to request my favorite song, and I said no. I sat there listening to the music and wondering if he would play Time to Say Goodbye. I wanted to hear it, but I knew it probably wasn’t a good idea. If I had to fight off tears when I watched the Bellagio fountains dance to the haunting tune, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I could make it though the song on the last evening of a fabulous 10-day cruise without needing to employ my napkin in a manner more appropriate to a discard-able Kleenex. Fortunately, he didn’t play it … but I have the CD and I can play it anytime I want to and recapture a little bit of magic from a very special vacation.

 

The meal ended as the Rosario Strings finished their set and put their instruments down as we got up to leave the MDR. We disbursed our gratuity envelopes and turned to walk out of the dining room. I found that I was fighting tears and it annoyed me. I don’t allow myself to do this. I’m one of those people who subscribes to the adage “Don’t cry because it over, smile because it happened.” It had been a wonderful, wonderful cruise and I really wasn’t ready for it to end. DD was of a different mindset. She had handled her severance from texting and Facebook for a week and a half, and I never noticed her visibly twitching at any point (which proves it can be done), but she was ready to get back to it. She may have even had a countdown going concerning how many hours until she could text her boyfriend from Miami the next morning, but she would never have admitted it.

 

DD announced that she wanted to take some her vast winnings and go play some more roulette. She was still basking in the belief that she had the golden touch and she could extend her winning streak. So we went to the casino and I watched her place a number of even money bets and come out on top – third time in a row. This was clearly getting out of hand. By this time, she was up nearly $100. We headed out of the casino and spotted our flamboyant host from the owner’s suite at the purser’s desk chatting with Ruth. We joined the conversation and I thanked Ruth again for the upgrade. Then we teased our host about invited us up to his suite to see his etchings and he got the biggest kick out of that. He ended up asking us to come shopping in the Centrum Shops with him to help him pick out some gifts for friends. He went with us first to go get those pictures and I selected all expect the one of the two of us. In my mind, I had a nice shot from the first cruise, so I didn’t need this one, despite both the photographer and Mr. Owner’s Suite felt that it was a really good photo. After I paid for my photos, Mr. Owner’s Suite turned on his charm and urged the photographer to just slip that picture into the folder with the rest of them, since he felt it was so silly to just throw it away. To my amazement, he did – and it has turned out to be the one photo that everyone at home likes the best. After the shopping, we went up to his suite to join the evening party with more appetizers to be consumed. He was a wonderful gregarious person, filled with fun stories of peddling real estate to the wealthy and using his influence as a high roller to coax upgrades out of RCI. He said he once put together a group of 24 folks to cruise on Celebrity in butler suites and his group spent over $100,000 in on-board charges. Hard to imagine ... but somebody must be buying that art and those pricey jewels in the Centrum, or else they wouldn’t be taking up shopping space. So we had to ask what a butler suite was and apparently it involves someone who sits in the suite to be available whenever you want them, white gloves optional (and of course he wanted them to wear the white gloves). I can’t picture it … it just seems creepy to me to have somebody sitting there watching you and waiting for you to announce that you want them to do something for you that you’re perfectly capable of doing for yourself. But then … I’m from Ohio …

 

In any event, he offered DD his match play certificates, since she was so convinced that she was Princess Midas. So when the rest of the group went off to dinner, we returned to the casino and DD headed for the roulette table. As everyone knows, sooner or later, the house wins. It came later … but it finally came. She lost $15 playing those 3 certificates and decided to quit while she was still in possession of enough funds to buy her prom ticket. (Prom is tonight, by the way, and she is probably the only one going to her senior prom who has purchased her ticket with gambling funds that she legally won on her very own.)

 

We returned to our cabin to finish our packing. The moment when you have finally zipped up the big suitcases, slipped the locks on and set them out in the hall is when you know it’s really over. It had been an awesome vacation. DD rated it as potentially her very favorite, although she notes that a big piece of that was the fact that she got such a high out of cruising as an adult. We’d met such great people and visited some truly unique places. We’d enjoyed the food, shared some drinks together, cruised in our first suite (and had SO much fun with the “sweet suite surprise”), danced to some fun music, partied till late at night and won a number of the games. We’d gotten to know a number of the cruise director’s staff and we’re heading home after having medaled in the Quest. This cruise will always stand out in our memories because of the immersion factor – and although that piece caused me some concern during the planning, it turned out to have made it a richer experience. I had every bit as much fun as I would on any other cruise and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

[emeraldcity]

I was up before dawn, but it wasn’t early enough … we’d already docked in Miami. I stepped out onto the balcony and looked across the familiar bay to the Marriott, where we had stayed prior to our last cruise from Miami, wondering if there was anyone at that hotel peeking out the windows to see if their ship had docked on schedule prior to their transatlantic. If so, I envied them. I would have gladly stayed on the ship for the crossing.

 

DD was ready to head home, however. She was already looking forward to the whirlwind excitement that would be waiting for her as the final weeks of her high school career played out.

 

I glanced toward the ocean and was startled to see a cruise ship headed toward the turn-around with a prim little smile painted across the bow. It turned out to be the NCL Dawn. I’m a big fan of the gaily painted scenes on the sides of the NCL ships. They combine flowers and flowing ribbons in wonderfully colorful displays that are so very festive. But stretching one of those ribbons across the bow to create a smile is really too much like Thomas the Train.

 

It is amazing how elegant a cruise ship is as it slowly slides past in the early morning hours, lights ablaze. I could see a few people walking about or standing at their balcony rail squeezing the last few minutes out of their cruise. As it passed I could see more of the festive flowers painted on the bulkheads along the promenade deck … exactly like the Pride of America. Although they set a nice tone, I still remember how disappointed I became in the 2-dimensional art after a week on the POA. Royal Caribbean ships offer such a wealth of 3-dimensional art at every turn. I had pointed that out to my DD before we took this cruise and she announced she wasn’t that much of an art fan so it was no big deal. But by three or four days into the cruise, she had admitted that she was really impressed with the art, In fact she would plan routes from one part of the ship to the other that included the aft stairwell, since she loved those 3-D murals the most.

 

Once DD was ready to face the day, we headed for the MDR for breakfast towing our luggage. We could have left it in the room, but I didn’t see any point in coming back to the room after breakfast, so this just seemed to work better for us. We both decided on a relatively light breakfast of fruit and yogurt, I added some French toast to my plate just to try it, but I really wasn’t in the mood for anything very heavy. After we finished breakfast, they had announced that group 1 and 2 could begin disembarkation. We figured that with only 600+ passengers on the ship, being reunited with our luggage was going to be pretty easy. We walked off the ship and joined a handful of people at the first turn of the luggage carousel and watched the first bags trundle by. Then a few dozen more went by. More people joined us and more bags went by, but nobody was pulling anything off the carousel, because we needed bags that had a one or a two on the tag and there weren’t any. The customs people were twiddling their thumbs, the Royal Caribbean staffers were trying to look helpful and the porters were getting vocal “Where’s the ones and twos?” I actually had hours to kill before my flight, but the porters had a vested interest in getting their current customer connected to his or her bags and deposited curbside. The luggage carousel became choked with bags bearing numbers 3 and up, and as they made the turn in front of us, bags started falling off. It was really pretty funny. Maybe it was one of those situations that management figured was going to go easy since it was such a small group compared to what they usually handled. Or maybe the baggage handlers loading the carousel were rookies. In any event the Royal Caribbean staffers eventually headed out to the dock to determine what was going on. Another ten minutes went by and we kept catching falling bags on the turn and trying to find a gap to put them in. Finally some twos showed up to the relief of all. Half of the twos were on their way before we started seeing ones. Our bags showed up shortly after that and we collected our stuff and headed for customs. Our customs agent was very pleasant – huge difference from the woman we’d had on entering Panama. And we were soon in a taxi en route to the airport. I glanced back once at the ship but decided it wasn’t a good idea. It was time to look forward. The cruise was wonderful and packed with great times. If we never get to cruise together again, we certainly ended our string with a flourish!

[Artemis]

Well done, loved reading every word. You are a gifted storyteller! So happy you and your daughter created this memory together and that you have this journal to cherish forever. Thanks for sharing it!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[missbogota]

This is one of the sweetest reviews I have ever read! I hope you keep a copy of it for you, DD and future grandchildren to enjoy one day!

[emeraldcity]

Thank you for your comments ... I have this in a Word doc that I am still adding a few edits to ... I'm at 72 pages. I need to get it copied off in case the hard drive ever crashes. I actually have a couple other journals of other cruises I'd better off-load as well. I never printed them off and I want my DD to have them so she can re-read them some day.

[TxnAquarian]

Thanks very much for posting such an excellent review. My partner and I just booked this cruise for next February, and initially we were concerned about the "Spanish immersion" factor, but now we are really excited to go. I'm thrilled about the unique itinerary and am already starting to research the ports. Your trip report got me even more excited now!

 

 

 

Michael

[Darkwolfe]

Well done emeraldcity. Well done indeed.

 

I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but finishing up the story was more interesting.

[emeraldcity]

Well done emeraldcity. Well done indeed.

 

I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but finishing up the story was more interesting.

 

You're welcome!

 

Thanks very much for posting such an excellent review. My partner and I just booked this cruise for next February, and initially we were concerned about the "Spanish immersion" factor, but now we are really excited to go. I'm thrilled about the unique itinerary and am already starting to research the ports. Your trip report got me even more excited now!

 

Michael

 

That's the very reason I posted this. I wrote it basically for my DD to review in future years, but I posted it so that others could overcome their concerns about the nature of an immersion cruise. We had a wonderful time, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

The Grandeur just finished her refit and you should have an even more sparkling experience on your February cruise. Have a wonderful time ... and don't sweat the small stuff.

 

P.S. Wouldn't it be funny to bring along a water soaker to ward off those pushy porters in Colon?