"Live" from Serenade of the Seas - December 1st

[BuyReallyLow]

:) Greetings everyone! After what has felt like F O R E V E R, we are sitting in our hotel in the great white north waiting to catch an early flight tomorrow AM to head to San Juan. We will arrive tomorrow afternoon, spend the night at the Mariott Miramar, then board the ship sometime around noon (hopefully!) on Saturday. We plan to post often, hopefully with our observations, Photos, Videos, and hopefully Sound!!

 

We are traveling with 4 other people, all of us from Western Wisconsin. As my signature line notes, this will be our 2nd trip on Serenade, and 3rd from San Juan. We love the Southern Caribbean, and are looking forward to a fantastic week.

 

We are happy to answer your questions as we go. We know how much we have enjoyed the work of Radio and many others over these past years - we only hope to do half as well as those that came before us.

 

Our first post? Tomorrow AM - with an Introduction. Then its off on Continental Airlines (at 5:30 AM!!)

 

Good Night all,

 

BRL

[Echo Queen]

Have a great trip, I will be tuned in.:D

[BuyReallyLow]

It's 3:06 AM central time - the alarm has gone off, getting my DW and myself up and getting ready for our 5:30 AM flight from MPLS into Houston, and then on to San Juan. We are excited to have everyone along with us - we hope to answer any questions we can. It was not a good nights sleep - excitement is not quite the right word for the reason - maybe anticipation is a better term.

 

"With the roads to the exalted places we all want to visit more crowded than ever, we look more and more, but see less and less. But we'd don't need more gimmicks and gadgets; all we need do is reimagine the way we travel. If we truly want to know the secret of soulful travel, we need to believe that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey."

- Phil Cousineau – The Art of Pilgrimage

There are as many forms of travel as there are proverbial roads to Rome. The tourism business offers comfort, predictability, and entertainment. The Cruise Business has tapped these three keys to almost a fault – various cruise lines cater to different social economic interests. The predictability of our experiences are something that these critic boards are full of – was the food "good"?. How was the entertainment? Is this cabin a "good" cabin or not? The centuries-old tradition of touring to add to social status endures – and taking a cruise fits this drive for many of us.

For our drive for travel, there are more resources than ever. Bookstore shelves groan under the weight of guidebooks that cover major sightseeing – there are guidebooks available for virtually every stop on our cruise itineraries, covering regional restaurants, architecture, gardens, homes of famous artists/authors, guides for safe travel – there is even a guide on how to find "the most dangerous places" during each of our stops.

All of these roads to Rome are legitimate for different travelers, at different stages of life. But what if we are at the crossroads, as the blues singers moan, longing for something else, neither diversion nor distraction, escape nor mere entertainment? What if we have finally wearied of the paladins of progress who promise worry-free travel, and long for a form of travel that responds to a genuine cri du coeur, a longing for a taste of mystery, of something different, within the norms and crowds of cruise travels?

That is our quest. Of course it is to inform, to educate, to answer those details which are so essentially cruise-specific – the ship, the food, the staff, the ports – but also to attempt to answer the cry in the heart of any traveler that has existed for millennia – to have a meaningful journey, a pilgrimage, that satisfies the need for relax – rather escape – from the worlds from which we traveled. We will post often – to travel with one thru one's eyes is a decent substitute for those who still yearn towards pilgrimage but have not yet the means or more commonly the time necessary to complete a pilgrimage at this time and are looking ahead to their time to travel. We will answer all specific questions that we can. With words, pictures, and even sounds, we will attempt to bring you all along with us. Like our heros before us, such as Radio, these tomes will be full of our opinion – we hope you find them useful but do not expect you to necessarily always agree. Always, a journey done properly is a journey of risk and renewal. For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul. Our purpose is to bring you along.

For the complete experience, with sounds and pictures, visit our travel website: www. ProsapiaEo.net. It is a basic website - we are not website developers. But it will allow us to share our thoughts, and importantly pictures and sounds, with all who are interested.

Next up - our flight into San Juan and the airport.

BRL

[CruiserTK]

For the complete experience, with sounds and pictures, visit our travel website: www. ProsapiaEo.net. It is a basic website - we are not website developers. But it will allow us to share our thoughts, and importantly pictures and sounds, with all who are interested.

 

Next up - our flight into San Juan and the airport.

 

BRL

 

Thanks for allowing us to cruise vicariously through you. The website address you posted came up like this on CC. I cannot access it. Could you please post the site address again? Have a great time, and I look forward to your commentaries, pics, and videos.

[vermonter16]

Thanks for allowing us to cruise vicariously through you. The website address you posted came up like this on CC. I cannot access it. Could you please post the site address again? Have a great time, and I look forward to your commentaries, pics, and videos.

 

 

Just take the spaces out of it http://www.prosapiaeo.net

[prc]

Have a great time Bill !!!

[njmelis24]

We are sailing on Serenade next December and are really looking forward to your review although we are leaving in a few minutes for our cruise to the eastern caribbean. At least I will have something to read when we get back and to help with those post-cruise blues!! :)

 

Have a wonderful trip!! :D :D

[sha88]

Looking forward to your live reports. We are sailing on the Serenade in September and can't wait to hear all about the ship! Thanks.

 

Shoo

[CLQ]

Thanks for taking us all along with you. Will watch for updates. Will also be thinking of questions. Have a great time.

[Cassandra]

You are going to LOVE this ship! My co-worker is on this ship right now heading back to PR.

 

Apparently, the earthquake was felt in Barbados, a few homes damaged, one slide off a mountainside. I'm waiting to hear from him if they felt it or not since they were docked in Barbados. :eek:

 

We were on this ship back in 2005. I hope to go on it again at some point! :D

[w8ing2cruz]

Oh I am SO going to love this!! Thanks so much for including us in your fun. I'll be sure to ask our group if they want to know any specific information. Have a great time!!

[finz2u]

I loved the Serenade to Alaska and would even love it more in the Caribbean.

 

Have a great cruise!

[Pomperaugrr]

Thanks for the updates. We'll be on the Serenade in January. We are looking forward to any info you can provide.

[01Sweetpea]

Looking forward to reading this. Thinking about booking this cruise for April 2009 when the kids are on Easter break!

[danp]

We will be on the Serenade on the 26 jan cruise.Haveing never been on the Serenade[We are diamond members.]we are getting excited to board her soon.Cant wait you your reports.

[silver03]

I look forward to following this thread. We will be on her next week!

[BuyReallyLow]

"Will Airline Customer Service Ever get better?" – USA Today – October 17, 2007

"Some of the thrill manages to survive the insults of flying." – Michael Shapiro – SFGate.com

Flights: Minneapolis, MN to Houston TX – Departing 5:30 AM arriving at 8:23 AM

Departing Houston at 10:00 AM arriving in San Juan at 4:16 PM

It seems that people have grown to loath flying.

What's not to like? J Getting to a hermetically sealed unimaginative airport at before dawn in order to catch a 5:30 AM flight, probably having at least one if not more than one layovers in equally unimpressive structures during your trip. Not to mention spending the hours while in the air in the middle of a cramped, poorly ventilated, germ-circulating metal cylinder. What do you mean there is no meal provided, at least one that's included in the cost? ($5 bucks for a meal box!!! Are you kidding?!?)

But as we mentioned in our opening statements, in order to travel differently, we need to reimagine the way we travel. And the perfect place to start is your travel to your cruise departure point.

On a Clear Day I Can Hear Forever.

Pilgrimage is the kind of journeying that marks just this move mindless to mindful, soulless to soulful. The difference may be subtle or dramatic; by definition it is life-changing. It means being alert to the times when all that's needed is a trip to a place to simply lose yourself, and to the times when what's needed is a journey to a place, in all its glorious and fearsome masks, to find yourself. Since the earliest human peregrinations, the nettlesome question has been: How to travel more fruitfully, more wisely, more soulfully? How can we mobilize the imagination and enliven the heart so that we might, on our special journeys, "see everything in the world the inevitable expression of the concept of infinity," in the words of Louis Pasteur, or notice, along with Thoreau, "the divine energy everywhere?" Or recall when Evan Connell the advice to medieval travelers: Pass by that which you do not love.

Next to the traditional laundermat, early morning flight is one of the best people watching experience one can muster – if one is willing to observe. What do laundermats and early morning flights have in common? No one wants to be there. You have that rare opportunity to observe people as the human elements beneath the polish and appliqué. As we sit waiting to board our Continental Airlines flight, you see individuals – barely awake, having been forced out of normal routine to arrive at the airport up to 2 hours early (that's 3:30 AM), to go thru security. They are not property "put together" yet, and that makes them real. Observe the "love degree" you see between two obviously married individuals as they move through the airport towards their various gates. Do you see the connection between the two? Is there a conscious effort towards kindness and gentleness, or other than that they are walking together, are they living separate existences? One can spend hours just observing this around you, making you appreciate, or wish, for the relationships you have with others – be them mates or friends.

Once on the plane, everyone goes through the motions of boxing out fellow passengers to secure some carry-on space. Our flight takes us from Minneapolis, MN to Houston, TX, for layover, then off to San Juan, PR. Once we shoehorn ourselves into our seats, a sense of relaxation slides over me. No, its not the early hour, it’s the fact that for the better part of this day, no one can touch me. I can't be reached via cell phone (and thankfully no one else can either), nor can I be pinged by e-mail. I'm blissfully, hermetically out of reach. I can't worry about catching up on work, because it's tough to work on a plane. I'm free to watch the scenery below, catch up on magazines, enjoy bad movies or just daydream.

On this morning, scenery wins by a landslide. Once airborne, I marvel at the rising sun's impact on the land below. I marvel at how spreadout Minneapolis seems to be, but within minutes we are flying over fields and farms, over the sapphire-blue lakes that Minnesota is so famous for. Of course they can’t be seen, as the sun is still far from making its appearance. As the sun highlights the tops of clouds as we pass the Kansas City area, the formations they form are riveting. I'm amazed that most passengers ignore the spectacle below, burying their faces in newspapers or computer games.

Eventually I seek other diversions, reading the inflight magazine, snuggling closer to my beautiful wife as she concentrates on her various crossword puzzle and word finds, and after some catching up on the really important news in her People and US magazines.

Our flight settles into Houston – - or at least tries to. A heavy blanket of fog has enveloped almost all of southern Texas. Trouble begins to brew when it is noticed that the plane has begun to circle the beautiful layer beneath – layered like the intricate designs of toilet paper. After a ½ hour, our pilot alerts us that we will be diverted to Dallas to wait for the fog to lift. Since our flight from Houston to San Juan is still over 2 hours away, there is no need to shake or fear. Little did we know that this was to begin the worst single travel day of our entire lives (thus far!!)

Upon landing at Love Field in Dallas, we wait on the tarmac while we take on some fuel. After approximately ½ hour, the pilot announces that the weather has cleared enough to take off for Houston. The engines gun, the noise roars, and the plane rockets down the runway. Just as the nose begins to lift, s u d e n l y……

The brakes are thrown on hard. Everyone is thrown forward – thank goodness for the seatbelts that our flight attendant Denise has so diligently reminded us to wear. It will turn out that Denise is one of the few bright spots of this day of travel terror – she was by far the most competent flight attendant I have ever seen. I made a point of tracking her down later in the day to tell her such, and imagine my surprise when I found out that she had only been an attendant for six months!! But I digress from my story….

The plane comes literally squeling to a stop. After a few moments, we notice the six large fire engines barreling down the runway towards us. They brake some distance away, and one brave fellow inspects the outside of the plane for damage. After approximately 10 minutes, the pilot emerges from the cockpit (a nice touch to do this in person) and tells us there appears to be a problem with the braking system. Since we are at Love Field, they will need to have a mechanic flown in to check things out and fix it. Of course, the fog has backed all up all the flights, so it turns out that the mechanic will not show up until after 1:30 PM to look at the plane.

Now during this entire time, very little information is provided to the passengers. People begin to panic as connections are missed. Since the airport is so little used by anyone other than Southwest, no one is able to answer questions. And those that do work for the airline are unwilling to take any responsibility to find the answers. We call the 1-800 number for the airline and discover that they are not even aware of a problem – they believe we are still on our way to Houston. So since the delays, in their opinion, are weather related and not mechanical, there is really nothing anyone can do but wait….

But of course the problem is mechanical.. Of course we missed the 10 A.M. flight we were scheduled to take to San Juan. The 12 noon flight is also missed, as there is no other planes to fly out of Dallas on Continental. After calling the airline again, we now discover that they now know it is mechanical, and we are moved to a 4:20 flight out of Houston. But the Mechanic has yet to arrive (remember he did arrive after 1:30). If we missed the 4:20 out of Houston, the AM flights to San Juan for tomorrow are already booked. So we quickly sum up and after a bit of research, discover a flight on Delta on Saturday Morning at 5:50 AM that will get us to San Juan (via Atlanta) at around 2:30 P.M. We get on the horn again to Continental and after some hard bargaining Continental agreed to move the flight to Delta. No help for a hotel room or cab fare was offered (or requested). We just wanted to make sure we would get to San Juan and thus get to Serenade. The question became would the mechanic fix the plane in time to make the 1 hour flight down to Houston to catch the late 4:20 flight. But as the 3 PM hour approached with no repair finished, it became obvious that we were going to NOT spend the night in beautiful San Juan but instead in Dallas, Texas. No offense Dallas, but you ain’t what we were looking for tonight!

Now to get the luggage off the broken plane, so we would have our luggage to board Delta tomorrow morning. We gave them the luggage tags for 8 pieces (3 couples). They ended up finding only five. Panic ensued as couples frantically scrambled to get luggage before the plane was fixed and flew off to Houston, leaving them without. Finally, a hero emerged from the ranks at Continental. After asking 3 different people for help with finding the final 3 pieces, we were able to track them down in the “back room” somewhere at Love Field. Seems that they were never secured off the plane the first time. This took over 1 ½ hours……. Sooo our daily summary thus far:

Up at 3 A.M.

Plane Scare!

Plane Breaks!

Plane Sits!

Vacationers are NOT in San Juan the night before the cruise!!

Lessons learned? There are friendly people working for Continental. But most are not the most competent at their job. All assumed that everyone else was doing the job – it only takes one cog in the wheel to make a well oiled machine throw a gear.

No matter the time of year – MAKE SURE YOU GO DOWN A DAY EARLY!!!

Keep your head up. Just when you think things could not get worse – you could be proven wrong.

Just a century ago, flying ships resided in the canon of science fiction. Even after the Wright Brothers' first flight, large-scale commercial aviation seemed a distant dream. In the 1930s, when my grandparents embarked on an early coast-to-coast trip, they had to make 10 stops to cross the country. Back then, in the days before pressurized cabins, flying was so choppy that stewardesses were registered nurses trained to allay passengers' fears. Compared to those turbulent trips, the pressurized comfort of today's cramped coach cabin makes the skies seem pretty friendly.

Of course, flying is just the beginning of the journey. The true miracle of jet-age travel is that it can propel you thousands of miles in a few hours. I can wake up in cold, crisp Minneapolis and get to warm, tropical San Juan (oops, I mean Texas L in less than a day – hours actually. And that's really what it's all about – beginning the pilgrimage to the Southern Caribbean. But like all good pilgrimages, plans must and often change. So instead of having a wonderful dinner at Augustos tonight and being able to share the qualities of the Marriott Miramar, you would have to suffer with my description of the Marriott Dallas Fort Worth Airport. And I am just too tired to bore you any longer.

Next up…… Arrival in San Juan and Embarkation (hopefully)

[Bargeo]

Wow.......sure hope things get better for you!!!!!

[BuyReallyLow]

Wow.......sure hope things get better for you!!!!!

 

 

Thanks!

 

We just had a fantastic dinner at Boi Na Braza in Grapevine, TX. If you are a redblooded meat eater, you will absolutely flip over this place. Be prepared for a bit of a sticker shock, but it is worth it for a special occassion.

 

BRL

[CLQ]

[quote name='BuyReallyLow;12526447

Upon landing at Love Field in Dallas... like all good pilgrimages' date=' plans must and often change. So instead of having a wonderful dinner at Augustos tonight and being able to share the qualities of the Marriott Miramar, you would have to suffer with my description of the Marriott Dallas Fort Worth Airport. And I am just too tired to bore you any longer. [/font']

 

Next up…… Arrival in San Juan and Embarkation (hopefully)

You had to know that your luck had taken a turn when your plane got diverted to the airport that JFK flew into on the way to being assassinated. Glad you're safe. Hope the rest of your cruise is a LOT better. We look forward to hearing about the good stuff.

[Coralc]

Pins * Needles! Here's hoping they arrive safely for their Saturday departure:D

[Live Life]

Tagging this thread. I'm looking forward to your reports.:)

[BuyReallyLow]

We've never had a bad cruise - so things can't help but get better. We're up and at em at 3:30 AM today so we can get to the airport to make sure today goes better than yesterday. The Continental counter opens at 4:30 AM, and I will be there. But god willing, we'll be on the ship a bit after 3 PM - then the fun can begin!!:)

Centuries of travel lore suggest that when we no longer know where to turn, our real journey has just begun. We will see where our journey takes us!

BRL

[CLQ]

 

Centuries of travel lore suggest that when we no longer know where to turn, our real journey has just begun. We will see where our journey takes us!

 

BRL

Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, among others would readily concur!

[wolfcathorse]

BRL - please report the full name of your captain! There's been some confusion and I only guessed at who it is. Thanks!