Puerto Vallarta

At home, Dave generally doesn’t let me take care of him when he’s sick – “can I bring you some ___” is usually met with, “no, I’m going to get up soon.” So an upside to his being confined to the cabin is that I can do a little waiting on him. The room service menu is extremely limited so it works better for me to just bring him things from the lido, which I do. He wasn’t feeling very well all day, so we decided to start the process to get him some Paxlovid. We were in port starting around 10, so he could call his doctor and also call our insurance to find out if they would cover the Paxlovid on the ship. The original answer was “probably not”, but Sara M, the person he was talking to, said she’d check.

Meanwhile I had a shore excursion scheduled – whale watching on a zodiac-style boat (open air). I’d talked to the shore excursion office and they’d suggested that I test before the excursion and go if it was negative, so that’s what I did. Funnily enough I wasn’t originally going to go on this excursion – Dave and I were going to go on a spirits tasting tour. But earlier in the cruise I’d decided I’d rather go whale watching and had changed my tour, which worked out well.

So I went to the medical center and persuaded them to do a test, which they did, and it was still negative. So after a quick lunch on the lido for me and a quick trip to the lido to bring food to Dave I headed ashore. The boat was parked pretty close to the ship, so once we’d all signed waivers we headed over there. The tour was run by Puerto Vallarta Adventure company, who ran a most excellent zipline tour that Tim, Dave and I went on when we were here for the Christmas cruise long ago.

They loaded everybody on to the boat by simply having two people standing there pulling people in, and then we all put on life jackets and headed out to sea. The boat was pretty full but I managed to be sitting up at the very front. We’d only been going for 10 minutes or so when someone called out, and I was able to see the blow. We raced over and saw a mom and baby cruising through the water, so they cut the engines and we watched for a while. Eventually the whales dove down and went elsewhere, and so did we.

Here's the problem: this past summer on Cape Cod we went whale watching, and we saw a lot of whales – I mean, a lot. And they were bubble feeding really close to the boats, so it was very, very cool. On this whale watch we saw several whales, but mostly all they did was surface and blow a couple times, then wave their flukes and dive. Everyone else on board was very excited but I was just a little let down. Still, seeing whales is cool, even if it’s just blows and flukes in the distance.

There was one part of the trip that was very cool and wonderful. We went closer to shore and then they turned off the engines so we weren’t making any noise. They had an underwater mic and a speaker, and they turned it on and we could hear the whales. Sometimes they were singing and other times they were communicating (our guide could tell the difference). We all thought maybe it was just a recording but then a boat came by and we could hear its engine from the speaker. We stayed there listening for a while and had a snack of fruit and a cookie and it was pretty magical.

Eventually we got going again, and it became clear that there was a problem with the engine. We ended up heading into their staging area and swapping boats, then zooming back to our pier. We got splashed a lot as the boat crashed through the waves, which was also very fun.

I grabbed some drinks on my way up to the room and we had a quiet afternoon and evening in the cabin. Two good things happened: Sara M managed to get Dave's need for Paxlovid classified as an emergency, which means it will be covered by insurance, and the ship's doctor finally called and checked that Dave could safely take the Paxlovid, which arrived shortly after the phone call. 

Dave took this of me. I'm in the very front.

I took this picture of Dave. He's in the middle.

Valentine's Day at Sea - with a twist

I started my morning off doing Tai Chi with Stefi. Sadly, this was the last Tai Chi class she is teaching on this cruise. They’re down a host and so things are having to be cancelled. Dave had his usual breakfast on the Lido, and I went down to the dining room for the steel cut oats. I ended up at a table with some complainers, but they also had many interesting stories so I hung around. As I was making my way back to the room, I got a message from Dave asking where I was and suggesting I come back quickly to the cabin. I hustled. He’d woken up not feeling great and done a Covid test and it showed positive.

I tested negative. We went down to the medical center to start the process. He’s restricted to the cabin; I have to test every other day, but still have the freedom of the ship and ports. We don’t get our room cleaned any more but room service is free – sadly, a very limited menu.

So far he's only mildly ill; we're monitoring it and in touch with his doctor's office in Oregon about paxlovid. As of Wednesday morning I'm still feeling fine and testing negative, but we go to different activities onboard and he may have picked it up at a wine tasting. The ship has a fully equipped medical center down on deck 1 and we won't be out of helicopter range for the remainder of the cruise.

I mostly hung out in the cabin with Dave – actually, it was kind of nice to stay in. I took a huge nap and did some reading. Later in the afternoon I found a spot outside on deck 8 just in front of the pool cover that was shady and pretty good for Nia; people walked by occasionally but weren’t much of a problem. I was able to remember all of the moves to songs 1-6 and in most cases even had the transitions; I’m going to start focusing on songs 7-12 now.

We had dinner in our cabin and it was fine, we also sent out a bag of laundry. Blogs will decrease in frequency since Dave is confined to the cabin and I am limiting my activities.

Valentines Day dinner. Not what we'd planned.

Huatalco, Oaxaca, Mexico

In his talk from the bridge the Captain had told us that we’d be travelling a little faster to get to Huatalco; 19 knots instead of the 13 or so we’ve been doing, which gives a nice deep vibration to the ship. In addition we’d be travelling past a narrow portion of Southern Mexico where there’s a gap in the Continental Divide, so it’s often windy and rough for a section that lasts about 5 hours. Sure enough, from about 5 to 10 am it was very windy and the ship was rocking and rolling. Dave spent a lot of time outside; it was Suyash’s day off so I went and set up in the gym and did my Nia practice looking out the windows. Dave came up and one point and went out on the deck through the secret door that goes outside, which involved him battling the door and me fighting the curtains that can be pulled across it. I kept dancing but after a while started thinking he’d been out there for an awfully long time; I looked around the small area of the deck but didn’t see him. I had a short moment of panic until my brain registered the stairs that go down from the center. He’s fine.

I had breakfast in the dining room (steel cut oatmeal!) and then took my laptop up to our spot on the lido deck aft to do some blogging. There was a lot to write about. Dave came to join me around lunchtime, so we took turns going to get out lunches so we could hang on to our table. We went forward to watch us come into port, and then I went down and relaxed on our couch.

A word here about ports. Loraine from our 8:00 table said, back at the beginning of the cruise, “we hate Holland America but we love their itineraries”, and I didn’t really think about what she meant. But of the four cruise ports we’ve stopped at this trip, we were the only ship in port for 3, and one of two ships in the fourth. Two of our ports – Puntarenas in Costa Rica and here in Huatalco  - didn’t even have cruise ship terminals, just a long concrete pier sticking out into the ocean. It makes for a much nicer experience.

Our excursion today was a simple one. We were on a sailboat with 17 other people. We first went to a secluded beach and swam for 45 minutes or so, then climber back on the boat (well, ok, everyone but me was on the boat already) and ate papaya and watermelon and quesilla cheese and drank beer and margaritas, and then sailed around for a bit. The sailing part is always a little disappointing because they never seem to really do much with the sails, but we did see several big sea turtles and a couple of sea snakes. It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon.

We got back, showered and had dinner. The Ocean bar band had the night off. We went to the show, which was the dancers again. The show was called musicology and had a fun premise, which was highlighting and dancing to various instruments. It was good, but not as good as the first one.

Our BeReal for today was the best one; a picture of us in front of the ship. I tried all day, but BeReal refused to post or save it. Grrr.

Guatemala

Up early for Lido breakfast and a 7:00 call for our shore excursion to the Mayan ruins at Iximche. This was a big tour – two full sized busses – and through sheer luck we ended up with Hugo, a fabulous tour guide. His knowledge seemed unlimited and he imparted it in good sized chunks that made sense. And he didn’t make stupid sexist jokes about shopping or wives. Guatemala is full of volcanoes and Puerto Quetzal has quite a few; 2 of the closest ones are classified as active and one of those, Fuego, has been continuously erupting for something like 500 years. Quite often we’d look over and there would be puffs of gray ash coming out of the top, like volcano flatulence. We learned about the history of Guatemala and its exports and all sorts of other stuff; we learned about the Germans who came in 1871 after the liberals took over the country and offered land instead of money to repay debts. We were sitting right behind Hugo (the ‘H’ is silent) so I could ask him all kinds of questions like do the different central American countries have different accents  - yes, and everyone makes fun of how the people from East Guatemala talk.

The drive was long – about 2.5 hours – but it went by very quickly. We drove past coffee plantations and also sugar cane, and saw many roadside fruit stands, both of fresh fruit (cantaloupe and green beans being the primary fruit exports) and canned fruit, mostly peaches and apricots glowing in their glass mason jars. There was livestock everywhere; a horse here, a cow there. They all looked very thin. We drove past an area where Fuego had erupted and caused a mud slide that filled a river and destroyed a housing development. Our destination, Iximche, is at about 7,000 feet above sea level, just outside of the town of Tecpán, which is primarily populated by indigenous (Mayan) people. We had a 3^rd tour employee on the bus whose job it was to get off the bus in Tecpán and help Jose, the driver, navigate through the narrow streets and extraordinarily sharp turns.

The ruins at Iximche are in a large and beautiful park. Because of its altitude it’s much cooler than sea level – I was comfortable in my sweatshirt and lightweight down jacket. The ruins were created when the Spaniards came (by the way, the ‘d’ in Spaniard seems to be silent in central American Spanish – “espaniars”) and burnt them down as part of the conquest. We learned a whole lot of things. One of the things is that the Mayans were thought of as a peaceful people, but in fact they were just as involved in the human trait of conquest as other tribes. He told us about how they used game playing instead of fighting wars, and about the Mayan codices, and about the calendar and the three periods of history and how soldiers got promoted and a whole bunch of other stuff. You have to go to university for two years to get a tour guide degree and it’s clear Hugo was a star pupil.

The ceremonial portion of the ruins is still used by the indigenous people as a sacred site, and we walked over there and watched for a while. Hugo said that many of the people there were asking the gods’ favor for the journey to immigrate illegally to the US. It felt intrusive and weird to be there – and smoky, since fire is a major part of the ritual. Afterwards we talked about it and how odd it felt, and yet we have been in many European churches during services with priests and monks and congregants doing their things and not felt intrusive at all, and so maybe it was the unfamiliarity of the ritual and not the ritual itself? Or that unlike being in a historic cathedral, where there are other reasons to be there, it was pretty clear that we were there just to watch?

There is also a museum there, which we walked through. It had a good diorama of what the area looked like before it was burnt – the Spanish conquistadores kept records, so some of this is archaeologists reconstruction, and some of it is from the records and many displays about daily life. We have enough Spanish to be able to get the gist. Most of the indigenous women still wear traditional outfits in this heavily patriarchal society (and ride sitting sidesaddle on the back of the motorcycles), but the men don’t, because of discrimination. So it was interesting to see the men’s clothing in the museum. They also had a small example of the spheres made from volcanic stone that we saw in Cartagena. Dave thinks that learning to carve them ight be his next hobby.

The Iximche ruins are a big tourist destination, and we were the only tour ship in town, but the parking lot was very crowded. On Sunday afternoon people from Guatemala City go for a drive (in groups, in the case of the motorcycle clubs) out to Iximche, then stop at a restaurant for lunch before driving back home. And people come there from other central American nations as well. It was fun to be in the midst of a large group of what were essentially tourists, but still be in the middle of a foreign culture. The place we stopped for lunch, Pueblo Real, is clearly meant for tourists but again not foreign tourists. It has a central square with souvenirs, pony rides, hiking trails, greenhouses, and even a go-kart track with pedal powered go-karts. There was a waiting line to get in when we left. A drawback to cruising is that you rarely get to be part of the culture, and we enjoyed being part of the Sunday afternoon crowd. The drive home was good for napping, and was memorable for clear skies. The other active volcano was completely visible, no clouds, which was unusual enough for Hugo to have to take a picture with his phone, something I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a tour guide do.

We got back to the ship in time to get cleaned up for our dinner in the Canneletto restaurant, the other specialty restaurant on the ship. You might be wondering why a Dutch ship has an Italian restaurant, and it’s a nod to the ship’s heritage – all HAL ships are built by Fincantieri, an Italian company. So there you go. We sat next to each other so we both had a great view out the windows, and got to see the sun go down and the tropical night fall BOOM, it was light and now it’s dark. The dinner was good, but it wasn’t quite up to the quality of the food on the rest of the ship, which was surprising. The servers seemed a little unsure as well. We know that during the pandemic they had to let the crew go, and it feels a bit like they didn’t quite get the new folks fully trained before having to send them out on the ships. As we were finishing dinner the Chief Engineer in full uniform (and it was a full uniform; he’s one of the broadest men I’ve ever seen) came and sat downat a table across from us with two of the engineering crew, who were Indonesian or Filipino. It looked very much like an incredibly awkward employee of the month dinner that someone in HR thought would be a great idea and that both the manager and employees dreaded equally.

After dinner we were able to go to the Ocean Bar for the band’s first set; it was pretty mellow and mostly full of slower couple dance songs. They did play two faster songs at the end, and there was one other of the ladies’ dance crew there, so we finished out the evening well. Of course I had to yell “Cumbia!” and the band had to laugh and say “…before the Cumbia…”

Afterwards the whole ship was watching the super bowl. Dave bitterly remarked how he hadn’t been able to find the world series games even in the sports bar and here they were showing the super bowl in the big theater. There had been a jewelry cleaning event at one of the shops and I took advantage of the shops being empty to see if they’d be willing to clean some of mine; they were. We watched the end of the game in our stateroom and then I debated about going down for more dancing, but decided on sleep instead.

Sea Day between Costa Rica and Guatemala

We’re halfway through the cruise, and I celebrated by finding more things I like to do. My plan was to go to stretch class and then to breakfast in the dining room (they have steel cut oats), but when I got there 15 minutes before class started it was already full. I headed down to the cabin (stopping for a hug and chat with Norma, who had also called it a night early) and we went to the Lido for breakfast. We ended up having a nice conversation with the couple at the next table, who’d lived on a seagoing boat for 7 years and were on their first cruise. They were fun and interesting. Dave took off for yoga and I stayed and chatted a little bit longer. As I walked through the lido I saw some of Aphreen’s family (she and her husband are on the cruise with her husband’s 3 brothers and their wives) but she wasn’t there. When I got to the forward end I saw her doing TaiChi with Stefi (Estephania, of dance class fame) so I joined in and it was excellent. Then it was time to go to bootcamp which has really gotten much harder, and then Suyash said I could turn off the music so I brought my laptop up and practiced the Nia routine Cure for an hour. It was a totally excellent morning for me. Dave went for his walk and sat on the deck and finished his book. He had to change sides of the ship because the wind has picked up and down on deck 3 where he was sitting he was getting covered with sea spray.

We ate lunch with two couples we’ve eaten with before and had a nice time. They were all long cruisers- out for many weeks or even months at a time – and had a lot of stories. After lunch we had some verandah time. We’re high enough up that the spray isn’t a problem and the temperature was just perfect for sitting. Dave headed off for a wine tasting and I did more blogging until it was time to go dance with Stefi.

Every cruise I find something or someone that lights me up; this cruise it is Stefi. Every time I take class with her I’m amazed at how much fun I have. This class – permission to dance – started with a reasonable sized group, and just keeps on growing. This time there were people dancing in the hallway and up in the bar part of the ocean bar, and everybody had a great time. Norma came in late and so of course we had to yell “Cumbia!” a lot. After class I went up to the pool, but it’s not much fun when the water is calm, so I headed down pretty soon to get cleaned up for my appointment in the salon to have a keratin treatment (whatever that is, I got upsold during my haircut). Fimi, the stylist, was running about half an hour late and the treatment was an hour, not the 20 minutes she’d told me, so we ended up later for dinner than usual. But there was no line and we got seated at a 10 top, which turns out to be a little large to hear everybody. I ended up sitting next to Tony and Mary, who met at Oxford and then married other people and lived their lives until about 9 years ago when both of their spouses had died and Tony wrote to Mary to see how she was. Seems to be a theme. Conversation was awkward at first, but eventually the dining room emptied out and we could hear each other.

After dinner I hung out in the ocean bar for some oldies, and Dave went to the show which he said was very good. Tom and Barbara from dinner the night before were there, and Tom surprised everyone (especially Barbara!) by getting up and getting down to one of the faster songs. Norma was dancing too, so of course after every song we had to yell “Cumbia!” and Anna the singer had to say, “…but before the Cumbia…” These are my peeps for sure. We went to bed shortly after they stopped playing and the show got out because we had another early morning shore excursion.

Costa Rica - San Jose & Silvestre

I slept badly after overeating, so I was up well before my alarm for our 7:15 departure. We were already docked, although it’s a very stripped down port and I didn’t even see the dock when I went outside. We did a quick Lido breakfast, got our stuff, and were at the World Stage by 7:13. We were just about to sit down when they said, “for those of you who are just arriving, we just called the San Jose and Silvestre tour. So we headed right out and got on the bus. This was a larger group than our Cartagena tour – 25 people – so we had a short bus rather than a van, with unusually narrow seats and vicious air conditioning. Our guide, Geovanny, (I’m 100% home grown Costa Rican, he said, but he does love pasta and pizza) was funny and informative. Our port, Puntarenas, is in a big inlet on the Pacific side, and San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, is about two hours inland, in the central valley. So we rode in the bus and Geo told us about the history and geography and we watched the gorgeous scenery go by as we climbed up to about 3,000 feet above sea level. It was partly cloudy, dry, and cool in San Jose and I fell in love with the city. 

We spent about an hour in the National museum looking at various exhibits, including pre-Columbian artifacts, including both ornamental and functional metates, and then it was time for lunch. The main point of this tour is to visit Silvestre restaurant, and at several points along the way Geo had done his best to get a headcount of who was eating what. The choices didn’t sound very exciting – ceviche or beef tartare for the appetizer; lamb or mackerel for the main; and sorbeto or pudding for dessert.

We got to the restaurant and it’s in an old colonial-era home, with a beautiful garden in the middle. We had a room to ourselves and the food was stunning in every way – how it looked, the textures, the flavors. Dave and I had opted to get one of each and swap plates halfway through, so we had a most wonderful meal. They were also pouring a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc (our third this trip) and a tempranillo of unknown provenance, and they were both very good as well. I am prepared to move to San Jose immediately. (Notice in the right hand picture below the delicious beef tartare served on a metate)

After lunch we got on the bus and stopped at a chocolate shop, where they had small servings of hot chocolate for us to try, and we also bought a couple taster size bars. We got back on the bus and started back towards the ship. There was supposed to be a stop at a souvenir store, but fortunately the traffic was bad and we had to skip it. As it was we got back to the ship about 5 minutes after we were supposed to be on board. We weren’t worried, since it was a HAL tour – if we’d missed the boat they would be responsible for getting us back on, and maybe we could have gone back to Silvestre for dinner.

I took a quick shower and then came out to the verandah with Dave to watch us depart, and then we went to dinner (because we hadn’t eaten enough today).  We had an interesting table; the couple closest to us had a sweet story of being childhood friends who kept in touch and are now together, but she was very hyper and a little exhausting. Beyond her was Jean, who I have danced with before, but we didn’t get to talk much since she was on the other side of talkative Barbara.

After dinner we spend some time on 6 forward looking at the stars. I think I’ve mentioned before how cool it is to have a place on the ship that’s actually dark and we like to take advantage of it. For the first time there was another couple out there. Then we went to the show, a compilation from the BBC’s show 7 worlds one planet, with music augmented by the ship’s classical duo. It was very beautiful and the music was very pretty, but overall just fluff. I fell asleep for part of it.

It was Orange night, and many people were out wearing orange. My plan was to go to the Ocean Bar after the show and dance up a storm, but we ended up going back to our cabin and I fell right to sleep. I didn’t bring anything orange anyway so it was just as well.

After Canal and Cruising to Costa Rica (No photos)

 Sorry about the lack of photos, folks - the internet is just flaky.

After Canal

Bootcamp, just Jo and I, and then a very quick change into one of my Cape Cod dresses for dinner. The luck of the draw says sometimes you lose one, and we had a terrible tablemate. He attempted to monopolize the conversation, tried to show off his knowledge of cruising in a very condescending manner, and aggressively brought up politics. Fortunately the other folks at the table were very good companions (Joy and Pat; Mr McClennan and his just friend Caroline, who I had breakfast with earlier) and everybody just talked around him. Mr McClennan worked for Exxon and told a story about an escapade on the Red Sea; in it he is given a letter which says to people he meets “help him in every way you can to succeed in his endeavors”, and I would like a letter like that.

After dinner we spent some time on the decks looking at stars – we were at about 8 degrees north latitude, which is about as south as we get, and it’s very fun to see the stars, and we also saw the beautiful just-past-full moon rising through the mist. We tried Nestor the guitarist again, but his show was just as bad as last time and I had to leave after the first song. We went bac to our cabin and sat our on our verandah listening to the waves for a while, and when we were both falling asleep in our chairs we decided to call it a night.

 

Sea day 3 - Cruising to Costa Rica

Another day of cruising, so not much to report, fortunately. We went to stretch class, which was just ok, and then headed to the lido for breakfast. We had a nice table in our corner. Dave went to do his walk, and I stayed to finish my tea, and then went and got a second one. I saw three interesting ladies sitting together and went and sat with them for a few minutes – Joy from last night, and Norma and Veronica who I met in stretch class. We had a nice chat and then I headed over to boot camp. It’s been a disappointment to me that the fitness classes are just ok, and today’s bootcamp wasn’t any different. I bumped it up a notch and at least got a very good workout, although it made Pat think I was showing off. I hope I got her to understand that I’m just having to work harder to get the same level of workout.

I then went on a search for a place to practice Nia; Dave suggested The Loft, a space used when they have families on board. Unfortunately it’s locked, and guest services wasn’t sure they could get me in there. Stay tuned. I found a corner on the 4^th floor aft that is somewhat private and practiced there; I am playing with the first 6 songs of CURE.

Then it was time to go chat with the Captain, a Q&A session in the World Stage. It was well run – two employees with mics gathered questions and took turns asking them, and Captain Michael was personable and engaging. We didn’t learn anything particularly new, but it was interesting. A few tidbits: Each ship has two captains, who alternate 3 months on/3 months off. Captains and upper level staff can have their families on board as much as they want. His favorite port is Skagway, in Alaska, because you can get off the ship and be hiking in the forest in just a few minutes. He’s never taken a cruise as a passenger. And he will not announce when they see a whale, because everyone will rush to the side of the ship where the whale was sighted and by then it will be gone and he’ll have disrupted everything on the ship. And no, the ship won’t tip over if everyone goes to one side.

We ate lunch in the dining room with a couple from England and Pat from Tucson; they were good tablemates. Most of the afternoon was spent relaxing at various places on the ship. I took a break from relaxing to take Estephania’s merengue class, which was a delight as always. I’m so impressed with her as an instructor. We worked our way up to a fairly complicated series of moves, and then she added speed to the mix and nobody sat down. She says if several of us write to guest services we might be able to get more or longer classes, so I’m going to talk to people. Other than that, relaxing.

Eventually it was time to stop relaxing and head over to the Pinnacle restaurant, one of the specialty restaurants on board. Last time we ate at the Pinnacle was on our way from Barcelona to Florida, when our whole table decided to go. This time it was just us and it was kind of nice to have a little one-on-one time at dinner. They had a nice wine pairing to go with dinner and we ate way too much, but the food was indeed a cut above the standard dining room fare and we enjoyed ourselves.

Then of course it was time for some dancing, and we had a great group of women out on the floor. Norma was there and insisted on taking a picture of me and Joyce since she wants pictures of “all her special ladies.” We danced until the band took a break, and then it was bedtime because we had a very early shore excursion tomorrow.

Panama Canal!!

Dave’s alarm went off at 6, and we were both sleeping very deeply at that point, and I was hoping maybe there would be nothing happening. But Dave went out on the veranda and could see a whole bunch of ships waiting to enter the locks. I went out and got to see a pilot come on board. It costs a lot of money to go through the locks, based on gross tonnage, whether or not you have a reservation, and whether you cross during the day or at night. We had a reservation, of course, so we got right into the locks. The ship ahead of us was a smaller ship, the Sea Train, and it shared its space with a tugboat and three sailboats.

Our ship is 104 feet across, and the locks are 110 feet wide. The ship is attached to 4 electric locomotives (called mules), 2 lines on each. The ship moves under its own power; the mules are there to keep it centered in the lock. The transit of the three locks that take you from sea level to Lake Gatun at  26 meters (about 86 feet) above sea level takes about 2 hours; ours was a little slow because of the 5 boats in the lock ahead of us. The sailboats had real people – 2 on each side for all three boats – walking along to keep them centered. So you can imagine the speed of things.

I’ve been through locks before, on the Gothenberg canal, but those were small. These are big, and the ships that go through them are really big. From sea level you can see the ship at Gatun Lake-level in the highest lock; there’s something deeply weird about seeing a huge cargo ship floating up that high above you.

So we dressed quickly and headed out to the foreward deck on our level, which up until now has been secret but had big signs pointing it out this morning. The sun wasn’t up, but it was light out. We got excellent spots on the rail in the center and settled in for the transit. For future reference you should bring a water bottle and your sunglasses, because you’re going to be in this spot for a while. They open the front deck of the ship on level 4 for this, and we could see them setting up the drinks and putting out the “panama rolls”, a special pastry of slightly sweet brioche dough filled with fruit. If you happen to transit the Suez canal on a HAL ship, they are called “Suez rolls” there.

Going through the locks is both exciting and boring; nothing happens very quickly but things keep happening all the time. The lock gates are the original ones from 1914, built in Pittsburg. The gates take about 2 minutes to open or close, and the lock fills in about 10 minutes. Meanwhile the mules are keeping the ship centered in the locks and of course ships are going by in the other direction so you have to do a lot of waving (You’re on a boat! I see you! We’re on a boat! You see us!). The mules have one way radios so the lock pilots can talk to them from the bridge, but they can’t talk back (what? Why? They cost over a million dollars each, could they not have sprung for a 2-way radio?) so you hear them using their bells to communicate with the ships – it’s very quaint sounding. Later on we discovered that it's even lower tech than that – there’s a bell and striker on the outside, and the driver seems to have a foot pedal to move the striker. Another detail is that the gates don’t close perfectly until the water pressure seals them shut, so we can watch the level come down in the lock in front of us once it’s about 2/3 empty.

We were fortunate that it was cloudy for most of the time, and even sprinkled a little on us once. We stayed in position on 6-forward until we got into the 3^rd lock, and then walked around the ship to get a panama roll and see the lock from different perspectives. We ended up back on level 6 in front to watch the double locks open and the mules let us go to head into Lake Gatun, which was formed by damming the Chagres River (one of the most violent rivers in the world, Ryan our cruise director keeps saying, meaning that it would rise and fall 20-40 feet when it rained). It’s peaceful and beautiful, with lush tropical vegetation all around, and surprisingly empty given the number of ships waiting to cross. For this part of the morning we grabbed a little extra breakfast and I settled in on the back Lido deck to get caught up on some blogging and watch the world go by while Dave tirelessly prowled the ship. A big bonus of staying put was that they came by with watermelon shooters, aka chilled watermelon soup, which I snagged two of and enjoyed very much.

Eventually I was done writing and joined Dave in his prowling. We spent a little time walking and realized it could be lunch time. He stopped at the taco bar and I got a salad in the lido, and I found two chairs (no table) in our favorite corner of the Lido, where we ate. Eventually a table opened up and we sat there until it was time to go forward for the Miraflores lock, a single lock. We watched us pull in from 6-forward and then tried to race to the back to see the gate close, but just missed it even doing our best race-walking. They always send someone to walk across the closed gate, and he was just going. We were surprised at how quickly they started draining – basically the gate closes and the water starts going out right away. The Gatun locks have extra drains on the sides; in the Pacific side locks there are only drains on the bottom, and indentations along the sides that look like ships could tie up to them.  It’s very odd to be in low the back of the ship (we were on deck 2) looking at the walls, complete with colored paint scrap marks and several cracks with water coming out of them. My guest services line friends Prem and Aphreen were there too.

Longtime blog readers might remember reading about our solar eclipses on board, which it turns out have a similar rhythm to canal cruising. Everyone is on deck for first contact – when the moon’s shadow first touches the sun. That’s like the first lock. Everybody stays on deck through totality – the Gatun locks. And then people slowly drift away. The number of people on deck for the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks was definitely smaller, and we spent most of the time down on deck 2 aft because it’s shady – it was HOT in the sun, uncomfortably so. We did go forward to watch the men in the rowboats try to throw the ropes to the ship, but we were on 6-forward and the ship curves out. Deck 3 would be better, or maybe deck 2 aft.

So what’s weird is that you get to the ends of the locks – both the Caribbean and Pacific sides – and there are lots and lots of ships lined up waiting to get in. But while we were in the canal we saw maybe 10 ships, and there were no ships in the Pacific-side locks with us in either direction. Ryan says it averages about 38 ships per day – were not sure if that’s each direction or total. Either way, it seemed very not busy to us. Also, like last contact on eclipse day (when the sun completely comes out of the moon’s shadow) by the last lock most of the ship has gone on to other things. Dave even went and took a shower before we crossed under the Bridge of the Americas. I was in the Ocean Bar writing – I’m not sure I’m going outside again for the rest of the trip. I can confidently say that the unleaded margarita, light on the syrup, is the perfect post-canal drink.

So here we are magically in the Pacific Ocean. Our next stop is in Costa Rica, so we have another day and a half at sea to recover from today’s excitement. What a great experience! I’m going to post this now, and I’m sure I’ll have more reflections later.

Cartagena, no photos

 I will add photos later, when there's better internet. I'll change the name of the blog at that point.

We arrived in Cartagena very early in the morning. Quick breakfast on the Lido (and a quick Hello to Afint and Prem, who I met standing in the guest services line) and then off to the World Stage for shore excursion staging. There seemed to be a very slow moving line to get in, but it turned out it was the bottled water line and we could go right in. It was pretty ful, but we finally saw some empty seats. And who should be right next to us but Kay and Bill from last night, which was good because we couldn’t remember Kay’s name. She commented that she always tries to call Bill by name a few times during the meal to help people remember his name, “But he doesn’t remember mine”, delivered so deadpan that the woman in front of us had to snort with laughter. The time went quickly and then we were on our shore excursion.

It was called “A Snapshot of Cartagena”, and that’s what it was. 11 of us piled in a van with Cesar, another guide (Carmen?) and a driver, and squished all of the sights into 3 hours. We went up to the hill with the Convent (actually an Augustine monastery) and down to the fortress and into the walled city and all the time Cesar was telling the history of Colonialism (apparently nothing happened before Columbas 1502) and saying “take a picture here and then it’s time to go.” And also telling about how he started as a busboy and worked his way up.  The tour ended at a yacht club on the harbor where we had what was billed as snacks but was actually a very tasty lunch. Oddly, the group didn’t seem to connect – there was very little talk around the table. Back on the van for the last ride, and then a small fiasco boarding the ship. We’re not sure we’d recommend this particular tour. We were only in Cartagena for the morning, and all the shore excursions seem to have returned at the same time. So there was a huge line waiting to get on the ship with no shade and nowhere to sit. They were passing out water and lemonade but it was a definite error on their part. We are confident that they will be hearing about it from many passengers.

Dave went to hang out in the Mix bar and walk around the ship; I stayed in our cabin and fought with the internet trying to get the blog up. At 4 I gave up and went up to do bootcamp. There was only one other person (afternoon classes are never as popular) and we got to chat a bit during Suyash from South Africa, the instructor, as he tortured us. I already knew that the fitness center, spa, and salon are a separate company that contracts with HAL; what I didn’t know is that they contract with all of the other cruise lines as well. Suyash came from Norwegian Cruise Lines most recently. He also tolds us that P&O makes the staff clean their own cabins, which made them completely out of the question in his mind. Also that P&O are part of the same organization as HAL and Carnival. We’re taking a short P&O cruise while we’re in Australia in April so that will be interesting.

After the workout, a shower, and then down to the dining room for dinner; there was very little line and we got a 6 top with some nice folks – not as good as last night, but perfectly acceptable. After dinner we sat in the Ocean Bar for a while and listened to the band; it was just guitar, bass guitar and drums (no vocals or keyboard) playing some nice instrumental jazz. One thing about this cruise, and I don’t know if it’s just Zaandam or if it’s all over HAL, is that both the music volume and the air conditioning are kept at much more comfortable levels than on past cruises. So we can enjoy the music without covering our ears or freezing (Bubster, you’d be freezing). At 9 we went to see the show, a dance and light show extravaganza that we were both skeptical about; it turned out to be well done, even magical at times. It was a good way to end a good day. Sadly, no towel animal again tonight.

Sea Day 2 - Cruising the Caribbean (No Photos)

Sorry no photos - the internet has been just too flaky today.

Up early for exercise – as one of my breakfast table mates said, it’s hard to fit everything in, first your workout… Dave joined me for stretch class which was full and a good stretch, but took off before Abs class and Pilates, neither of which was good, unfortunately. Too much hip flexor in the abs class, and no Pilates in the Pilates class. Chi did her own workout during Pilates and I ran in to her afterwards, and she was all sweaty. She’d done her own interval class and invited me to join her next time and I think I’ll take her up on it. Dave had already had breakfast at the Lido, so I did dining room breakfast (oatmeal! My favorite!) with a fun group of tablemates.

There was a port talk (about our first port, Cartagena, not THAT kind of port) which I’d thought about attending but I was feeling sleepy, so instead I took a nap while Dave finished his laps around the promenade deck. We both headed to the World Stage for the second Panama Canal talk, which was more about how it works currently. Ryan was interesting and engaging once again. Meanwhile Dave and I had both struck out with getting an assigned seat or reservations at the early seating for dinner, but supposedly if we come between 5:30 and 6 there will be a table for us with a minimum of waiting. Stay tuned.

We had lunch in the dining room with an excellent group of folks – we ended up just about shutting the place down. Then it was blogging time on the Lido for me while Dave went off to wine tasting. I love that we get to do separate things and then get together after and share stories. I had many ideas about working out when I was done blogging – maybe run through the advanced mat pilates, maybe dance through the new Nia routine Cure – but when I walked by the midships pool it was rockin’ and rollin’ and I was hooked. I spent about an hour and a half in the pool having a fantastic time, and then got out and showered and got ready for dinner.

(There's a video of the pool that goes here. It's cool.)

We decided to go right at 5:30, and there was a reasonable line when we got there. It took a few minutes to get started but once it did it moved right along, and we requested a larger table. We ended up at a 6 top with two other wonderful couples, Steve and Ellen and Kay and Bill. Kay and Bill are 5 star mariners, and Ellen and Steve are delightful people, and we just had the best time. Ellen described what they do in upstate New York during the winter – “I play clarinet and he plays the radio” while Kay told a story about her grandson, a former picky eater – “Martin, do you eat green beans? “Not since the accident, grandma” “What accident?” “When I accidentally ate one”. Somehow the food tastes better when the company is good. It turned out that Bill and Dave sat next to each other at the wine tasting, and Ellen was one of the other women playing in the waves in the pool with me. A great time was had by all.

After dinner we went out to 6-forward and it was only moderately windy. Dave used his phone app to identify some of the stars we saw in the South. I’d never heard of most of them. We’re in some fairly heavy swells and the ship is rolling side to side enough that even some of the crew are having to take those little extra steps, but we noticed that outside on deck our footing seems much more secure. Dave’s theory is that when you can see the horizon moving, your brain compensates for some of the motion. It’s the only theory we have, so we’re taking it.

Next up for me was another Permission to Move dance class. Estefanie was leading some sort of music game in the Ocean bar when I got there, so I had a short chat to the beverage manager. Class was terrific once again; Chi and I bravely took the center of the front row. We learned Salsa dance and ended in pairs for the last song. It was fun and hardly scary at all. We finished the evening with the comedian, who was just fine. Not make you cry funny, but funny enough to make us glad we went to the show.  We think we slept well, but my fitbit said I only slept for a little over an hour, and Dave’s said he didn’t sleep at all.

Sea Day 1 - Cruising by Cuba

It took a while to fall asleep, which is different from at home – somehow on the ship I just enjoy drowsing in the bed. We woke up a little after 7 and went up to the Lido for breakfast, which is Dave’s preferred way to do breakfast. We sat in the same area where we sat for snacks last night, which is undercover and protected by the wind but very much outside, which we like. There was a beautiful rainbow. After breakfast there was yoga (exactly as expected) for both of us, and then Dave went and sat on the Lido while I did the 45 minute BodySculpt bootcamp workout. In 2011 I first did this workout on the way to Hawaii, and it pretty much changed my life, since I became a fitness instructor when I couldn’t find a workout I liked as much. This is not the same program at all, but it is still a hard workout and there was a good group of women doing it. One of the women had to ask me if I was the Energizer Bunny, which is of course one of my nicknames.

After class I got changed and met Dave in the big Auditorium (decks 4 and 5 forward, called The World Stage) for the cruise director Ryan’s talk on the history of the Panama Canal. He’s a history buff and really got into it, so it was a very interesting and engaging talk.

Lunch in the dining room (deck 4 aft) at a table for two was a nice interlude. The lunch menu (she says after two meals) seems to mostly be the same, with a few variations each day. My suspicion is that they’d really like to close the dining room for lunch and have everyone head up to the Lido, which is much less staff-intensive, but they fear a rebellion from long-time cruisers if they do. As seems to be a theme, the flavors were very good but the food doesn’t get to the table in time so it’s a little soggy.

We had the Mariner reception at 1, but the invitation said drop by any time between 1 and 2 so we got there about 1:10, just in time to hear the end of the introductions. We got a our welcome aboard champagne and had a nice chat with Helen from Toronto, whose travelling companion didn’t come because she’s not yet a mariner.

Afterwards I stopped at Guest Services to see if it was safe to swap my internet to the laptop, that is, would it swap back to my phone when I wanted it to. They said yes, so I am able to blog. Standing in line about half the people were there with internet connections issues. The people behind me in line were originally from India, 4 brothers and their wives taking a cruise together. They were interesting to talk to and made the wait go quickly.

It's the beginning of the cruise, so I’m overscheduling myself – Dave has been doing a much better job of just relaxing. There was a class called “Permission to Dance” which sounded interesting. I was a little nervous because I can’t remember more than three steps at once and get really frustrated, but I shouldn’t have worried. Estefanie, our teacher, was just great. She started with a very simple line dance (Cuban Shuffle), and after we went through it once she said “That was good, but this isn’t called permission to move, it’s called permission to DANCE. And she got us all shaking our hips and waving our arms and we looked good. Next up were Mambo #5 and Danza Kuduro, both songs I like very much, and a 4th song I didn’t know, a merengue. Everybody was dancing and having a great time, I was really impressed. A funny thing that happened before Estefanie got there, I was sitting chatting with Chi from bootcamp and there was a woman sitting behind her who I was sure was Helen from the Mariner reception, so I asked her if she was Helen and it turned out she was Helen’s friend and roommate, who was supposed to meet Helen there. Why did I think she was Helen?

Even I was ready for a break at that point, so Dave and I headed up to our corner of the Lido for refreshing alternative (code for non-alcoholic) beverages. The skies had completely cleared up, so it’s wall to wall blue sky and blue water, with just enough breeze to make it about perfect for sitting outside. Then there was more relaxing, and even some knitting. I had managed to score a salon appointment for a haircut at 5:45 (a big advantage of late seating) and had really wanted to cut it all off, but after chatting with the stylist we decided that the partially grown out perm made a short cut not a possibility. So she cut off all the raggedy ends and blow dried it, and it looked GOOD. When I met Dave in the big theatre (The World Stage, technically) his first comment was “Wow!”. The entertainment was a guitarist in a multi-media spectacular, which made us feel old – we both would have been happier if he’d just played.

It was “dressy” night, which used to be a big deal but isn’t anymore. We got dressed up, of course, and looked pretty spectacular if we do say so ourselves. Sadly, dinner at our table was not excellent. Joel had met a guy at breakfast and invited him to our table, but he didn’t add much to the vibe, although he had a very interesting bowtie that I thought might mean he’d be a good tablemate. Sid and Loraine complained about everything, and conversation never got going. We’ve decided to try to switch to the early seating.

After dinner we hung out in the Ocean bar and it was wonderful to see that the dance floor was crowded the whole time – it is definitely the party place to be. I know you won’t believe this but I was actually too tired to dance! We stayed through one set and then headed back to our cabin, where we had our first good night chocolates and towel animal We were concerned that towel animals had been cut from the cruise. I fell asleep very quickly and slept well. A funny note is that I woke up in the middle of the night because the ship had started to rock and roll. I’m pretty sure it was when we came out of the passage between Cuba and Haiti. I fell right back to sleep, but both my fitbit and Dave’s recorded us getting almost no sleep. Mine showed me waking up at 2:16 and not getting back to sleep. I’m pretty sure the fitbits can’t tell the difference between tossing and turning and the ship’s motion. Stay tuned for more exploration of that question.

Ft Lauderdale - The Departure

We flew red-eye to Ft Lauderdale the night of Tuesday January 31^st and had an uneventful trip on the TriRail to Delrey Beach, where we were picked up by the one and only Bubster for a short but fun visit whose highlights included a manicotti dinner on Wednesday prepared by Cousin Zach, with his wife Liz, their friends Jean and Andy, and one of my mother’s longest-term friends Sheldon and his daughter Rebecca. Other highlights (aside from a lot of talking and laughing) included Miniature golf, Oceana Restaurant, and lunch at the French Bakery in Lake Worth Beach with our new friend Melanie.

Friday morning we were woken by pouring rain and wind. The rain stopped and we left about 9:30 via Uber, and by 11 were seated in the departure lounge. There were at least 5 ships in our portion of the docks, and we were the smallest by quite a bit. We boarded around 11:45 and our room was already ready, so we dropped off our carryons and headed to the dining room for the mariner lunch. This is our first cruise since 2014, and quite a few things have changed. The mariner lunch used to be well publicized and open to anyone who had sailed on HAL before; now it’s secret and only open to 3 star mariners (which we are) and above. We ended up at a 6 top with some veteran cruisers and had a nice lunch.

We went back to our cabin to try on our life jackets and watch the safety video, then checked in at our muster station and did a little touring of the ship since our bags hadn’t yet arrived. The Zaandam is a smaller ship than the Vista-class ships we’ve usually taken. One downside to that is that they only have small and large veranda cabins, rather than the 1.5 size we’ve been enjoying. So our stateroom is the small size, which us about the same size as our trailer, so we’re used to it.

All of the public rooms are also smaller, but don’t worry, there are the same number of shops 😊. One big advantage of this ship is that there is a lot more outside space in the front and back of the ship, which we really, really like. The gym is much smaller & doesn’t have the Pilates reformer that the big ship has, which is disappointing, but they do have Mat Pilates which will be fun. They also have a good sized library and puzzles and games available, and there’s Mah Jong every day from 1-3.

Back to our cabin once again and our suitcases have arrived. A big plus to the larger cabins is that two people can pack/unpack at the same time, but we got it figured out. Then it was time to go topside for departure. This is where the Zaandam really shines, because there’s a front deck on deck 6 (which happens to be our deck) that is perfect for watching the departure.  The wind that woke us in the morning was still blowing and the rain came back in spits, but it was one of the best departures we’ve ever had. The pilot boat was plowing through the waves and we were really feeling it. We could look up to the bridge and wave at the pilot (he waved back!).

Once we were safely at sea, we went back to our room. I hadn’t put my hair in a ponytail for most of the time we were on deck, so I spent the next half hour working a comb through it. Meanwhile Dave tried to figure out what time our dinner seating was for. He made several fruitless phone calls and finally headed down to guest services to see if he could get an answer. He didn’t get to the front of the line, but while he was waiting he got out his room key and found it written on there. It turns out we’re at the late seating, which made me a little crabby until I realized that we could go up to the Lido for a snack, which we did. It made me much less sensitive. We sat up there and got many technical issues resolved, and now both have reliable internet. Well, as reliable as the ship’s, anyway. It turns out that you have to keep refreshing the internet from the navigator app, but other than that things are good. We had time to listen to the end of Piano Cocktails and the beginning of the Ocean Bar band before dinner.

We’re at a round table for 8, but tonight only 5 of us were there – Joel, a former banker from MA., and Sid and his wife, an older couple from Stamford CT. They are ok cruise mates, and we’re hoping for a full table tomorrow. We think the food is good, and our waiter Frankie is very good.

After dinner we went outside to the front deck on our level and boy was it windy! The door is on the port side, and we thought it might be less windy on the starboard side but oh no it was not! We had to hang on to the handrail to get back across.

Then we went to the back of the ship but it was raining there, so we went inside. We could hear the ocean bar band, so we put our jackets away and went down to listen. They started playing dance music so I had to get up and dance even though there were only two other people on the dance floor, but when other women saw me shakin’ my tailfeathers all by myself they came and danced with me, and eventually we had the whole dance floor filled. It was excellent.

Of course now I am too wired to sleep, but the ship is moving along quite well through some pretty good swells, so there’s a deep vibration as well as a gentle rock. I suspect I’ll be asleep shortly.