Some Final Cruise Thoughts

The last day at sea was Halloween Tuesday. Once again, we wandered around the ship and had time to really sum up the trip.

The Good
New friends
In addition to our great dining companions at dinner, at the one lunch we at in the dining room, we met Mike and Liz Hashem (alas! no picture), who happen live across the river from us in Oregon City.

Frank and Lorita Eagle introduced themselves to us as we people watched on the Lido deck. "You must be newlyweds because you're always holding hands." No. We've been married for 24 years.

Ship's crew





Hariyanto was our cabin steward who worked hard to keep our cabin immaculate.











Jonathan worked on the Lido deck, when he wasn't assisting passengers as they disembarked and other tasks.








Staci who managed the library was very helpful and friendly.

Our AAA escorts, Jeryl and Jocey.

Topolobampo, Loreto and La Paz

Pinnacle Grill

The So-So
We found the dining room food to be good, but not exceptional as we experienced on previous cruises. The good news is that we didn't gain any weight.

The bad and the ugly
Better management and communications could have prevented the two events from going bad. Fortunately, there was enough of the good to overcome the bad.

Would we do it again? Probably.

But it is good to be home.

Just Two More Ports

La Paz
The trip to the port of Pichilingue was short, so the late departure didn't affect our scheduled arrival. La Paz is a thirty minute bus ride from the port. It was fairly quiet on a Sunday morning, even with the busloads of tourists descending on the town.

After wandering the short main street with the Lake Oswegians, who we met after making our first purchase of the day, we had ice cream, then a cool drink before heading to find the Mercado.

Tom wanted to find some tequilas that we can't find at home (which would be a lot since Oregon is ah alcohol-controlled state). There was a really pretty bottle in a locked case, but for even for Tom 1512 pesos (US$137) is a lot for "sight unseen" so we found some interesting bottles as considerably less.

Back on the ship
The Master Chefs Dinner was billed as "dinner theater," with the dining stewards dancing and singing with an "amazing dessert" to finish. The entertainment consisted of less than enthusiastic dining stewards marching around with trays of food. The amazing dessert was a white chocolate mold with chocolate mousse. Good, but like most of the food on the ship, nothing exceptional.

Our regular dining partners had reservations at the Pinnacle Grill so missed wearing the chef's hats, but ate far better than we. Apparently main seating guests can get seated early if they wait till serving is ready to begin, so six others were brought to the table. The most interesting were Nelson and Dottie, who have been married for 62 years. Dottie told us a story about a young couple that approached them because Dottie and Nelson were holding hands. "We hope we're holding hands still when we've been married as long as you." Dottie's response, "We just hold hands because Nelson is holding me up."

The best show of the cruise was comedian Chris Pendleton. In addition to the stand-up, we were treated to music in the form of an electric fiddle. She was excellent at both.

A turtle was waiting for us on the bed.


Cabo San Lucas

The second badly handled event occurred Monday morning when I awoke to a waste back up in the bathroom.

"Mr. Hudson, it's not your fault. There was a block in the port side aft plumbing and the engineers are working on it now." That's what Tom heard at 6:30 am on Monday. The question was, couldn't they have told me that at 5am when I went BACK to the front office after reporting the problem an hour earlier. Why I hadn't seen a plumber to fix the toilet that wouldn't flush and the sewer back up in our bathroom? I waited for over two hours for a plumber or some information and nothing. I do understand that these things happen but a little communication of the situation would have been under the circumstances.

The Day
It was a brief visit into town. We had hoped to get to the glass factory but it didn't open till noon, and we'd tendered in before nine. Even at that hour it was already heating up with high humidity. The souvenir for the port was something with Cabo Wabo, so we found the bar and Tom got his third bottle of tequila.

We got dressed up for the last time. The red carpet dress made an encore appearance. And Tom was once again very handsome in his tuxedo. He also was the only person who got the AAA trivia question right.

We passed on the show and got back to a very cool monkey.

Loreto

The town
Loreto was our favorite town. It was a pretty, quiet little town, and we had a "personal" tour guide. Russ and Jean have spent time in Loreto, so Russ invited us to join them in a tour.

After tendering in, we wandered to the main street, where there was music and dancers. The music was more reminiscent of native American music than typical Mexican music we hear. And I loved the dancers' skirts.

We did a little shopping and took a look at the mission, which was the first mission built on Baja.

And we saw some dogs…
 

After shopping, Russ scouted out places to eat and found Sofia's. The menu was very simple because Sofia did all the cooking herself. We ate well and enjoyed the experience.
The rest of the day
We headed back to the ship, where we rested and headed to dinner. Still full from lunch, I had one of the best dining room meals – very tasty chilled strawberry soup and salad.

John D. Smitherman, billed as "Three Tenors in One" put on an excellent show. He sang opera in Italian, Andrew Lloyd Weber Broadway songs, pop music, and most impressively, "Ol' Man River."

The towel animal for the night was a butterfly.

Visit TheHudsons for more pictures.

Topolobampo

The reason ships visit Topolobampo is proximity to Los Mochris, the west end of the train to Copper Canyon. Although the idea of Copper Canyon was intriguing, spending sixteen hours of bus and train travel to stay for two hours just didn't fly with us. But it did with a lot of other passengers – including our dinner companions. In fact, many took the cruise just for the one excursion.

Instead, we ventured off the ship to take a small boat around the bay to see the birds and dolphins — and we did…but the battery on the camera died, (I did have spares…in the cabin) before we saw the good stuff. We did get a few good pictures of the area.

The rest of the day was spent knitting and people watching on the Lido deck and in the Explorations Lounge, followed by dinner on the Lido deck since we didn't want to sit at the big table by ourselves.

Back at the room, a bunny was waiting for us. He was a pensive bunny.
 

First Ports of Call

There were two events that were handled badly by the ship and tended to put a damper on the respective days. The first was associated with our first port of call.

Puerto Vallarta

The ship caught up with the last vestiges of Paul that first Tuesday night, and the ship was really rocking and rolling. We fully understood that any trip will be at the mercy of the weather, so our very late arrival into Puerto Vallarta wasn't a real issue, especially since the Captain had been very good about communicating his decisions and our progress. Nor was the fact that we had to tender in because the big ol' Dawn Princess got in before and the second pier was being refurbished. We were even optimistic when we headed to the Mondrian Lounge to get numbers for the tender boats. The cruise director, Eric, informed us that we were further delayed because the port authority had not come out with the pilot boat, so the ship had to fetch him. That was another 30 min. delay. No problem. But that was when the communication stopped.

We happened to be sitting at the window and watching the tenders go out. The first tender left an hour after we'd assembled to get our numbers. It was a tender full of excursion-goers a special overview excursion organized (and I use the word loosely) at the last minute. Ninety minutes later, the first group assembled were called down to the A deck. I wondered if this was the normal (inefficient) process for tendering since an additional fifteen minutes had passed and we were still waiting, so went to ask. I used to work Customer Service, so I do understand that Kelly had to answer to a lot of disgruntled passengers, but I was also a paying passenger and asked politely if this was the normal process. Instead of a simple answer to the question, I got the full recitation of what led to the delay (and a terse "Please let me finish!" when I tried to explain that I knew about hurricane, etc.), but did not get an answer to my simple question till I asked again. My point of this rant is some simple communication would have gone a long way to relieving the frustration. I'm stepping down from the soapbox now.

We did take the tender to shore, but the "bloom" of the port was gone and the humidity was up, so we wandered the shops at the pier and then headed back to the ship.

The entertainment for the evening was Paul Dabek, a young British magician. He knew his magic, but wasn't really clued into the audience. Tom and I are probably a little jaded when it comes to magic having seen live shows by the likes of Penn and Teller, Harry Anderson, and a lesser known but excellent magician, Ian Kendall.

We returned to the cabin and a cute little elephant.


Mazatlán
The night to Mazatlán was smooth sailing and we disembarked around 9am, wandered to the street and took a taxi to Old Town. We were glad we got taxi because, though all the literature said it was in walking distance from the pier, it would have been quite a walk. It was early, but the humidity was already up.

We made our first purchase on the trip at were two t-shirts Señor Frog's, but it was early so we didn't visit the bar.


Across the street I spied a fabric store! It was quite impressive. What really stood out were the beaded and embroidered cottons in some really lovely colors. I probably should have bought more, but I came out only with a wood beaded fabric to make a jacket for my mom and a pretty embroidered batik-y cotton to add to the stash &mdash all six meters for less than US$30.

We wandered the open market, then went into the Cathedral to admire the lovely stained glass.
 

The guide sheet I brought along touted Angela Peralta Theater, so we headed there. It was quite interesting, and located a few blocks away in a less frenzied part of Old Town.

As it heated up, we headed back to the ship for lunch and air-conditioning.

We decided to forego the show put on by the ship's singers and dancers and instead listened to Harmony Strings over tea and coffee.

The towel animal for the night was a peacock.


Check out more pictures
There are more pictures of our brief stay in Puerto Vallarta and day in Mazatlán on TheHudsons.

All Dressed Up

I forgot to link to the rest of the dress up pictures.

Sea Days

Monday and Tuesday we were at sea.

When we travel, Tom actually gets up early (for him) and both days we headed for the dining room for breakfast. We dined with seasoned cruisers. For one couple the cruise was the third of four for the year. The omelets were a little salty and service was marginal.

Every day is chock full of activities, but most didn't really interest us, so we walked around the Promenade deck, wandered around the ship and settled in on the Lido deck to people-watch – and I knit. And the tank top started taking shape.

In our wanderings, we found the Hudson room and dropped in on the bingo game, only to be chased out by really bad jokes on the part of the "Bingo Brit."

Monday was the first formal dress night. It's so rare we really get dressed up it was quite an event.
 

After the Broadway revue show with the young Zaandam singers and dancers (better than an amateur, but not quite professional in quality), we arrived back to the room to a snake and a note to move the clocks forward one hour.

Tuesday we got regular updates on tropical storm Paul, that was fading, but was in our path, so the captain slowed our progress so we didn't sail smack into him, but that meant that our 7am arrival in Puerto Vallarta would be delayed to 2pm.

It was a lazy day around the ship and that evening we had the best dinner at the Pinnacle Grill, a steak and seafood restaurant on board. The atmosphere was very relaxed, the service excellent and the food was fabulous.

Back at the room was an ray and another note to move the clocks forward an hour.
 

Cruise report

My original intent was to provide one review of the trip, but I seem to be too verbose and it would end up being pages (or screens) long, so in the interest of time, I've decided to break it in to segments. Here's the first installment.

Travel Day
We arrived in San Diego, where we had reservations at the Residence Inn. I picked the hotel because 1) it was "inexpensive" (It's all relative…), 2) they offered a free shuttle from the airport (except we had to wait about 40 minutes) and 3) on the map, it looked within walking distance of the pier. Technically it is, but the map doesn't show the traffic on Harbor Blvd. Nice room, friendly staff. The only issue was proximity to the train tracks (with trains) and a room in the back.

We walked to Horton Plaza. It's just like any other mall in the US, with the exception of the layout which is so confusing that we couldn't even read the directory – not someplace we'll flock back to. On the way back we stopped at Caparell's Itallia and brought back a pizza for dinner (and breakfast because we ordered a medium and they gave us a large instead). Along the way, we wandered into Little Italy, which looked interesting, but we were just too tired to explore. Maybe next visit.


Knitting
I started the tank for the Helen Hamann twinset – at least three times. There was the obligatory, twisting the stitches; then I knit up six inches even and wondered when the shaping began; and then counted incorrectly. But I finally did make some progress. Since I wasn't clever enough to document my progress, here's where I am right now.





Cruise Day 0
It was quite a traffic fiasco getting to the pier, but the hotel shuttle driver maneuvered it well and we headed in. There were a lot of people sitting around (waiting for the late arriving Carnival Spirit), but we were ushered through without a hitch. Apparently our affinity to arriving early paid off because the check-in process went remarkably well. Everyone we talked to who arrived later had different stories.

When I finally retrieved the camera from the baggage I'd "checked" we took a few pictures.

Dining
The sought after dining is early seating, and we were among over 100 other people who were waitlisted. But we lucked out and were assigned the second-early-seating. And we found out the reason was that two of a group of eight travelers had to cancel at the last minute. Here again we lucked out because our tablemates were three couples from Lake Oswego, who turned out to be a lot of fun – Jim and Dianne Sather, Russ and Jean Pearce, and Warren and Sharon Howard.

As it turned out, the dining room, though good, wasn't quite up to expectations. There were some good flavors, but nothing exceptional and the dining staff were solicitous, but very hurried and not entirely attentive.

Entertainment
The first show of the cruise was a revue with performances by all the ship's entertainers. With the exception of the Harmony Strings, a violin, bass and piano trio from the Ukraine, none stood out.

Cabin
We booked a verandah suite, which turned out to be a very nice cabin with a large deck on the port side of the ship. When we arrived back in our room Hariyanto, our cabin steward extraordinaire, had turned down the sheets and left chocolates on a towel frog.

Thus we ended day "zero" of the cruise.