Trip preparations
The bucket list movie really
started an awareness for people. Life doesn't go on
forever so you need to prioritize what you want to do in life and just do it. A
cruise through the
While we were in
We have done this enough
times that we have a huge travel list to guide our trip preparations. We
haven't yet got it totally right though as we keep adding to it. We closed up
the Ilwaco house and did our best to collect all of
our travel items.
In
April 17 – Flying from
Our flight took us from
This was an older plane with
1970s style TV monitors hanging over the aisles. In addition we overheard one
of the mechanics discussing a faulty fuel light as we got on the plane. Not far
into the flight the flight attendant announced the rear bathrooms were out of
order (probably something to do with the faulty fuel light). The flight attendants offered complimentary
water but we replied “no, not without functioning restrooms”.
We found the luggage carousel
and knew we had the right one as we saw Carrot Top collecting his bags. After
waiting about 15 minutes they announced that they were not able to open our cargo
hold door and the ground crew was working on it. Uncle Jim and his friend Ruth
were waiting for a call to come collect us. Apparently they enjoyed each
other's company because they didn't complain about the 45 minutes it took to
collect our luggage. We stopped and they bought us a nice dinner.
April 18 –
April 19 – Driving to Ft Lauderdale
With
April 20 - Boarding the Zeiderdam
Rosalie signed us up for the
11 AM shuttle to the ship. We had just completed our checkout at 10:30 AM when
the shuttle bus driver arrived and announced he was the 11 AM shuttle for the
cruise so load up! It was a work of art how he packed in 10 people plus luggage
in the van.
After an efficient processing
and boarding we made a beeline for our first of many feedings. The Zeiderdam was
built in 2002 and is filled with approximately 2000 passengers and 800 crew. On this voyage there were only four children! We
figured out the average age to be around 65 or so with plenty of walkers and
the occasional wheelchair. Our room is great! The outside balcony really is
nice.
We went to the departure
party on the
We went to the welcome aboard
show and part of the warm-up was a $300 Bingo game. In this game you needed a
square off each side of the free space. Cathy got off to a great start getting
three of the four numbers. Unfortunately she didn't get the fourth number and
somebody else got her $300. Close just doesn't count in Bingo. Before the show
started they selected some passengers for their version of a game show. The
game show host was caught off guard when he asked one of the contestants why he
volunteered. He answered: “My wife
wanted to win a free lunch on a cruise with unlimited food”.
Our expectations of crashing
after a long day were dashed when we saw that we still had the beds apart. We
knew they were done as they had left the chocolate. Apparently the two bed
arrangement was presumed with the elderly crowd. A phone call and a half hour
later and our room was rearranged for the rest of the
trip.
April 21, Saturday, Half Moon Cay
After the morning feeding we
boarded a tender to the beautiful white sandy beach island. When we made the
reservations there was only one jet ski spot open. So
for Cathy's excursion she chose to pet stingrays. The jet ski
ride turned out to be a good fit for Butch who was still feeling some
withdrawal from selling his motorcycle. The jet ski
satisfied his need for speed with the wind and saltwater spray in his hair.
This left his hair in a state his stylist would have envied (he even had Cathy
take a picture of the style).
Cathy's excursion took her
face to face with a dangerous sea animal. This involved snorkeling with
stingrays in a small fenced off lagoon. She was the lucky one that was bit
during the feeding. Though the stingrays have no teeth, they do have calcium growths
in their mouth that can be painful. They call it a sting ray “hickey” if you
are left with a bruise after being bitten.
Butch finally needed to get
on long pants for dinner and this was a delicious steak. Cathy had a delicious
fish for dinner. Then off to the show to watch a great singer, impersonator and
comedian. Quite entertaining! He called our meals “feeding times” - a term that
we have adopted throughout the cruise.
April 22, Sunday:
Grand Turk (
Cathy and Rosalie started out
with their first Tai Chi lesson with a young Australian instructor. She pointed
out to her older students that it was quite normal to hear pops and snaps
during the routine.
We got off the boat, checked
out the shops and hung out at a very large nice pool area near the Margaritaville bar. We also checked out the beautiful white
sand beach before heading back to the ship.
The ship's crew had turned
off the air conditioning to do some type of maintenance. With the temperature
and humidity both in the high 80's they turned the ship into a great big sauna
prompting record beer sales. Our plan to cool off in the shower failed because
the tap water was more than lukewarm.
Butch (as it turns out the
smart one) skipped dinner in the hot dining room. The air-conditioning finally
restarted but even on maximum all night in our room it took a long time to cool
down. It was 75° still in the morning - our balcony was cooler!
April 23, Monday:
Day at Sea
Tai Chi lesson number two. We
were slightly more coordinated. Then we went to water aerobics in a pool packed
like sardines! Finally Cathy finished her exercise routine with a mile walk on
the promenade deck (three laps) while Butch went to a computer photo class.
When he got there early he found there was a class already in session. Butch
happened to be at the front of the line when it was time for the class to
start. He walked into the room and got the teachers attention. She asked “can I
help you?” Butch replied “what time does the 11:30 AM class start?” She looked
at her watch and said “in about a minute. Find a seat.” No one in the previous class left leaving the
newcomers without computers and scrounging for places to sit.
After lunch we went to a talk
about our next ports Curaçao and
The captain gave a little
talk over the loudspeaker about the flying fish going in the air because of the
perceived danger from the boat. This of course attracted their predators the
booby birds. They would soar motionless right by our
balcony and dive headfirst into the water.
It was time to take the good
clothes out of mothballs for the first formal dinner. It seemed pretty much
like the casual dinners except that Buddy looked like an
an FBI agent and Carl looked like he was in the
British secret service. Butch on the other hand looked more like Alfred
Hitchcock. Then to the show (after a quick change of clothes
into something more comfortable) and off to sleep in our very comfortable bed.
April 24, Monday:
Curaçao is part of the Dutch kingdom and has very colorful
buildings. Their official language is papiamento
but most of the residents also speak Dutch, English and Spanish. When we were
getting off of the ship we were held up and told to face the wall. Unfortunately for someone a body was removed
from the ship. One guy wondered if a cabin upgrade might be available for him
much to his wife's embarassment. We crossed over to
the other side of town once we were off the ship on the ferry. The floating bridge was swung into its open
position. The ferry is free when the black flag is raised indicating at least a
20 minute or so wait for the bridge to close again. We walked around town a
bit. There were lots of shops and a
local floating market of produce from
On our second trip out from
the ship we did not cross the river but explored the shopping on the boat side
of the river. Cathy found a nifty T-shirt with Curaçao
on it and she wore it that evening and it generated a lot of compliments. After
dinner it was party time on the
April 25th, Wednesday: Arruba
There was tai chi for the
girls at 8 AM. Cari
had researched and found us two excursions for the day. The first was a three
hour
Sonny dropped us off at a
resort where we had lunch and met up with our next guide. We went to a beach
where we got our snorkel gear and propellers. It was a great way to scoot
around and cover a lot of the reef and overcome some of the strong currents. We
saw a lot of pretty coral and colorful fish. The water was very clean and warm.
We saw a cliff wall underwater and a buried boat. We all made it back with the
exception of one of Rosalie's pink fins. It was a good thing she had her
propeller otherwise she would've been swimming in circles. On the way back to
the ship we discovered that even a small
We tried a new approach with
the dining room as the reservations usually only gave early or late times. We
just showed up at 6:30 and they found us a table! The dinners are always four
courses with an appetizer and then a salad or soup which always included a
sweet chilled fruit soup, entrée and dessert.
April 26th, Thursday: Day at Sea
Tai chi and
then water aerobics. The pool was
less crowded and so the routine was a lot more fun. We had singing and partners high-fiving as we crossed across the pool. Then onto a lecture about possible life in the universe followed by
the
April 27th, Friday: Transiting the
Fortunately the time had
fallen back an hour as we needed to get up early! Cathy was up to grab one of
the comfortable chairs in the crows nest for a great view. It turns out that
our ship had to reserve our transit time two years in advance for a $36,000
fee! The total cost of transiting the canal was somewhere around $360,000!
We're not saying they greased the wheels but we did jump to the front of the
line of a whole bunch of ships waiting out there. Several tugs greeted us and
delivered the canal captain to escort us through the canal. We went through
three locks to rise up to the level of
While Cathy relaxed in her
lounge chair Butch ran around taking pictures. The ship had a narrator whose
first language was not English. He discussed history and items of interest as
we went along. We could see where they were clearing land for the new and
larger locks expected to be completed by the hundred year anniversary of the
original locks in 2014. After we went through Lake Gatun we passed through some
more locks to get back down to sea level and by late afternoon made it through
to the
April 28, Saturday:
Day at Sea, Golfo Dulce
scenic cruising Puerto Rico
We found several activities
to do today. We took the Tai Chi class, water aerobics and attended lectures
about the Mayans, Central American ports, and for Butch a lecture on increasing
his metabolism. Napping was also an activity for Butch. We toured Golfo Dulce - a pristine
beautiful Costa Rican coast line.
Dinner was formal and we had
lobster! Butch took advantage of some confusion about the timing of dinner to
avoid wearing his suit on a hot night. Cathy was just sorry she couldn't figure
out how to have his lobster too!
April 29th, Sunday:
We started the third world
countries in a sauna atmosphere. Cathy presented herself in the morning with
her shirt inside out. Butch didn't want to say anything about her taste in
clothes but Buddy pointed out with a straight face that her shirt was
“interesting”. Now she knew why the lady on the deck gave her a funny look.
We were off to our first of
four days of bus tours. We drove through the countryside on a dirt road while
being informed about
We were then off on a hot and
noisy train ride going through small communities with shacks only a few feet
from the tracks. We saw howler monkeys and white faced monkeys. We were told to
watch out because they sometimes throw poop at you. We also saw a large
anteater in a tree. The train ride ended after passing through a long dark
tunnel. We then came back to our air-conditioned floating hotel. Cathy noticed
that there were speedboats pulling canoes out from the shoreline filled with 6
to 7 people. They quite often tipped all the people over into the water and so
this was quite amusing to watch.
April 30th, Monday:
Today was a very hot and
humid day.
May 1st, Tuesday:
Today we took a bus ride to
We went to a local restaurant
and had one of their local beers called Gallo and a nacho plate which consisted
of about four chips per person. We made our way back to catch our bus. They
called our bus number and then we waited and waited in a line. It turns out our
guide couldn't raise the bus driver and we ended up being the last ones to
leave.
May 2nd, Wednesday:
Today we stopped at our first
Mexican port. There was a large hut set
up for the entry of cruise passengers. There were shops and dancing Mexicans
putting on a show. A couple of the dancers did not seem to know the routine as
they would spin off doing something different from the others. The first bus we
got on for our tour did not have good air-conditioning (which of course was a
necessity in this climate). The guide talked about the area as we drove to Tapachula. We toured a Museum showing Mayan artifacts, a
cultural center and a church before being turned loose at the town square. We
wandered around the town which was really quite a large city. We boarded our
new “cool” bus and headed to the Mayan ruins at Ixtapa.
Just a
quick note about our poor luck with Central American and Mexican buses. The first one lost a large piece of molding from the
overhead area inside. The second one had water dripping onto some of the
passengers. The third bus we lined up to board and didn't show up until late.
The last issue was as noted above a defective air conditioner.
May 3rd, Thursday: Day at Sea
Cathy received an offer she
couldn't pass up from the spa which included a facial, foot massage, shoulder and scalp massage and hair conditioner treatment.
It was wonderful! Butch tried his luck at the blackjack tournament. For a $20
buy-in you could play until seven hands were done or your money ran out. They
had a leader board which showed the top six that would play for the final $500
game. It turns out the tournament ran for more than one day and people were
already on the leader board with their winnings. The other thing that was
different was that you could enter multiple times and the second $20 got you the third
round for free. This turned into a $40 learning experience for Butch on how the
casino profits from a blackjack tournament.
Cathy (looking beautiful
after her spa treatment) and Butch (looking wiser after his blackjack
tournament) got all gussied up for the formal dinner of steak and shrimp. This
was followed by a show with a Latin music trio and then another nights sleep on our very comfortable beds.
May 4th, Friday:
It is still fairly hot and humid
today especially in the sun. We arrived very early in the morning and noted
that there was a mass exodus of boats from the harbor. Was this a fishing derby
or did they know something we did not? At the small port we needed to tender
into shore. We were told to report to the Queen's lounge for our number for
loading the tender. We were told there was a 45 minute delay or so to get on
the tender. When our number was called we headed downstairs. Getting on the
boat was tricky. The boat and tender were both rocking and made it difficult to
cross over from one to the other. Once on the tender we found it quite hot and
stuffy. We arrived and walked into the small and cute town with cobbled
streets. We walked around and checked out the shops. When we arrived back to
the pier we found long lines waiting to be tendered back to the ship. They seem
to have gotten some of the kinks worked out though as the line moved faster.
Once we arrived back on ship we napped, went to happy hour, ate and went to the
show.
May 5th, Saturday:
We arrived at approximately
11 AM and found that two other cruise ships were already there. After the last
port’s bottleneck they decided to set up two gang planks for offloading. Cari had researched and arranged a water park visit which
included a dolphin encounter.
After arriving at the water
park we stored our gear and got our inner tubes. They had a perpetual circular
stream you could drift around on. Butch had been floating on the tube on his
stomach and found this uncomfortable after a while. Cathy suggested he sit on
top of the tube like she was doing. When he sat back on the tube he just kept
going and was dumped back into the water. Since he only can take short doses of
sunshine without burning he used that as an excuse to get out of the water.
Next he saw Buddy coming down
the large waterslide. He thought he would give that a try but he would have to
take off his T-shirt and he was over the weight and age limit. This is turning
into a typical Butch day. He went to the sea lion show with Carl and Cari. Since we were in
Things improved when we got
to the dolphin experience. The lady explained all of the do's and don'ts in
English. A fantastic and unique experience it was! It gave new meaning to
swimming with dolphins as we clung for dear life to its fins as we were propelled
across the pool. We petted her and she did tricks for us and even gave us a
kiss. The grand finale was being pushed by her nose on your foot on the boogie
board.
The trip back required two
cabs and some price negotiating. When we got back there was a barbecue dinner on
the ship with a mariachi band. Cathy saw the movie Warhorse while Butch watched
the shortest independence day fireworks he had ever
seen (only about 12 explosions). Remember - it was Cinco
de Mayo!
May 6th, Sunday: Day at Sea
It is a nice sunny day and we
are finally losing the heat and humidity. Cathy went to tai chi in the morning
and then for a walk on the promenade deck. Butch and Buddy had their usual
morning social gathering at the feeding station. Cari
played in the
It was the final formal
dinner and one of the items was filet mignon with lobster. Needless to say this
is the option that we chose. When the waiter asked Butch for his order he said
this he would like the steak with two lobster tails. He never figured he would
actually get them so you can imagine his surprise when his plate showed up with
two lobster tails. Cathy began scheming on how to get her fair share of the second
lobster tail. Seeing that he had the upper hand for a change he traded some of
the lobster tail for a massage he owed her.
We then went off to the show
to watch the Zeiderdam singers and dancers perform
again. We closed out the evening watching the ship's version of the marriage
game pitting a couple married one month against
another married 24 years and finally a couple married 61 years. The most
memorable response was when the emcee asked the lady married 61 years what size
bra her husband thought she wore. She replied “Oh, probably 38 long”.
May 7th, Monday: Last day at sea
It's cold today and Butch is
finally comfortable. We had our last tai chi class and we are getting pretty
good. Our pampered lifestyle was going to come to an end. There will be no more
frequent and massive feedings and no more throwing our towels on the floor and
having them magically disappear. No more chocolates on the bed at night either.
Cathy went to a magic show
where the magician revealed some of the secrets of his technique and Butch
traded pictures with Carl. We went to happy hour as Buddy was trying to use up
his drink card and we were certainly glad to help him out with that.
We had our last dinner in the
dining room. Apparently they had run out of steak and lobster as it wasn't on
the menu again. Butch had his favorite from the standing menu -steak with
mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. Then we were off for the last night of
live entertainment with a singer and comedian from
We had received a note that
all non-US citizens had to be cleared by customs before anyone could depart the
ship. This changed our departure from 7 AM to 11 AM so we got on the list of
passengers to be expedited off the ship (in order to catch our flight). We know
that customs has a hard and vital job to do but this just seems stupid. All the
non-US citizens had to have gone through customs coming into the country and
had to show passports to even get on the ship. Neither
clearing them or keeping us on the boat seemed to make any sense. Both
our friends from
May 8th, Tuesday: We leave the ship today
We pulled into
Swimming with the dolphins
Feeding time All
dressed up Darn formal
nights