Rarotonga - January 31

0 for 2 – Rarotonga January 31

We didn't get the stop at Rarotonga this morning due to high winds and seas; just the same as the 2009 world cruise for us. We were at the island when we awoke at 6:30 this morning, but after a few minutes of looking outside and feeling the ship toss around we both said "it doesn't look like we'll make it this time either". Oh well, it just adds to the reasons to do another... as if I need a reason. The staff quickly came up with a new 'sea day' program and I see a lecture at 2:00 I want to attend.

We boarded some new speakers in Tahiti – I particularly like Charlie Urbanowicz who is speaking on different S Pacific topics. His material is interesting and he is an excellent, entertaining speaker – some of them have great topics, but speak more like a boring college professor.

Today was Dutch day in the Lido in honor of Queen Beatrix's 75^th birthday. They had the deep-fried apple thingies for dessert that I love... I'd skip the whole meal and just eat those. I'm going to have to find out how to make them – it can't be too hard, it's just a very thin batter and then cinnamon and sugar. A couple of those with a big blop of whipped cream on top might be better than sex – well close anyway! [grin]

Now we have several sea days before we arrive in Auckland. The Captain says he is trying to arrange for us to dock 1 day early since we have skipped our day here in Rarotonga.

Bora Bora – January 29

Bora Bora – January 29

We were up early enough (before 6 am) to see the island as we approached and went up on the open bow area to get some pictures as we went through the very narrow opening in the reef to enter the lagoon. What can I say except beautiful! Could there be an ugly island in the S Pacific? Probably not.

So far this is my favorite place and is on my 'come back' list. The island is almost completely encircled by reef islands forming a beautiful lagoon around the central large island. Several of the luxury resort companies have built resorts out on the outlying island with the over-water bungalows. The water is quite shallow through much of the area that we can see so it is that bright pale aqua color that glows. I would love to spend a couple weeks here exploring the waters. Jim says he thinks Moorea was prettier, but he's not as much of a water-lover as I am and I agree that the many green peaks in Moorea are beautiful.

I've decided I could probably spend a month or two in this little house:

In the after noon we spent time watching a group of boys with their kayaks going back and forth with the tenders riding their wake waves. It was fun watching them as only a couple of them could get the 'right' spot to ride all the way in and the others would paddle away and wait for the next tender to go by. There was one with a stand-up paddle board instead of kayak and he would catch the right spot almost every time and ride it all the way from the pier to the ship or back. At times there were 14 or 15 of them trying to paddle in to get the spot.

Sea day tomorrow and then Rarotonga. The weather forecast is not sounding good; it's supposed to get stormy and rainy later today and tomorrow too. So we may miss Rarotonga on this trip too. Our friend Ian from the 2009 WC, reminded me that we couldn't go there then because the seas were too bad.

Moorea – January 28

Moorea – January 28

Another day in paradise, except I'm still on the ship. We are anchored just off the shore near the village of Papetoai so we have a beautiful view from the balcony (finally the ship is turned for us!). It's really hot and muggy so I haven't spent a lot of time outside reading; instead I've been in here where it's nice and cool. I was hoping to do a snorkeling day here – maybe in a few days. I'm walking much better in the last couple days so I'm hoping to get off the ship soon. The water is so smooth and beautiful, I considered getting off here on the tender, but decided all I would end up doing was riding in and then riding back – not worth it if there is a line for the tender on either end in this heat! Tomorrow is Bora Bora so depending on the conditions I might try it there since we haven't been there before.

Tahiti Folkloric Show

Tahiti Folkloric Show

After spending most of the day reading and looking at the island, it was finally time for the folkloric show. I decided to go to the showroom about 30 minutes early so I could get a good place for photos – aaack it was almost full already. So much for that idea. I did get an aisle seat in the back of the balcony which turned out to be pretty good. With my ISO set up to 5000 I was able to get good shots – they are very snowy at full resolution, but on the computer screen they look great.

 

Tahiti - January 27

Tahiti – January 27

It's a beautiful morning here in Tahiti! It was cloudy and a bit rainy as we approached the island, but as we were docking the sky cleared and it's been beautiful. I won't be getting off the ship here as I'm just beginning to walk on my foot some and don't want to push my luck. So far luck has been with me – if I had to twist an ankle, it was great that I had so many sea days to recover! For my big excursion today, I'm planning to walk all the way to the buffet for lunch. Jim has picked up a sandwich for me each day now for a week and I'm looking forward to something a bit different and maybe about 6 desserts – I'm in serious dessert withdrawal.

If there is anything of interest later in the day I'll come back and post more.

Pitcairn Island - January 24

Pitcairn Island – January 24

After a very boring day yesterday lying on the bed with my foot up on the pillow tower I was looking forward to the stop at Pitcairn Island today but Captain Mercer announced that while we would make a brief stop to deliver supplies, no one from the island would be allowed to board as about a third of the island's 59 people have the flu. They apparently picked it up from a ship a couple weeks ago. Usually many of the islanders board the ship and do a presentation and then have handcrafts to sell... it's kind of a fun and unusual day. We can already see the island in the distance; I'm hoping we will be going around it so that I can see from our port side balcony... I'm still not up for leaving the cabin. I'm able to hobble around fairly well and am surprised that I can put my weight on my left foot already, but the rest of my body still feels like it was run over by a truck; I must have hit the ground pretty hard!

 

For those of you that don't know why Pitcairn Island is noted for – it is where the Mutiny on the Bounty took place – all of the inhabitants are descendants of those sailors. Tonight will be a formal night with a Pirate theme – I'd kind of like to see what type of costumes are being worn by both passengers and crew.

 

We still have two more sea days before we reach Tahiti. There hasn't been much of interest out there in or on the sea to talk about – no critters except a (very) few flying fish. Our first day of the crossing we did see a couple whales and some dolphins but that's been it. The water has been extremely good; some swells, but almost no waves. I'm ready for a storm with some bouncy seas.

 

* * *

We are now heading away from Pitcairn. I only got half lucky; we stopped with the port side toward the island while the supplies were loaded for the islanders so I did get a few pictures from the balcony, but we went all the way around the island in a clockwise direction so we looked out to the sea instead of the island. The first picture, Jim's shot, was taken from an area on our deck just below the bridge – looking out over the bow.  They have opened the bow to passengers several times while we are stopped or going very slowly.  I don't think I've mentioned that they have painted across the front of the superstructure " 2013 Grand World Voyage".  It's pretty cool – I'll try to get a shot of it sometime.

 

In the Captain's noon message he talked about the cyclone that is just passing over American Samoa, but said it appears to be going the other direction and we should not get closer than about 600 miles but we will begin to hit the remains on Saturday and our weather will change. He also said that the weather in Tahiti and the surrounding islands is predicted to be rainy.

Jim just brought me some sushi from the buffet for my lunch so I'll post this after I eat.

Easter Island

Easter Island – January 21

 

We had large swells and the Captain decided to use the alternate anchorage which put us in right at the town where we had landed in 2009. The announced that no disabled passenger should try to embark the tenders as the swells and waves were quite bad. It took about 45 minutes to load each tender as the sailors had to time each persons entry just right. We were on the third tender and it was about 1 and a half hours after our original tour start time – but who cares- we made it. We were in a 6 passenger van and headed off. Our first stop was at the group of Moai visible from the ship and we had been there before. I like it because it has a beautiful water background and I included the ship in a couple of the shots. This is also the only Moai that has its eyes in.

 

Ok … I'm walking around and shooting as I want to get as many pictures at each stop as possible when BAM – my ankle turns on a stone and I'm on the ground. Ouch (although I don't think that's what I actually said), I picked up my left leg and my foot is completely to the inside almost at a 45 degree angle. I looked at Jim and said "I broke it". I started to move it to see what would happen and popped it right back in place. That cut the pain way down so I said, "maybe not broken but I seem to be stuck here on the ground". By then several people had come over to help and one of them was a great young man from the shops here on the ship who immediately arranged for me to be transported back to the tender pier in a van. With my arms around his and Jim's shoulders we hobbled me to the van and then to a chair at the pier to wait for a tender – I felt like a football player being helped off the field. They made a bag of ice for me to put on it and gave me some lemonade and were super nice... all I could think was #@$%^^$#! this was probably the port I most wanted to go to!!

Getting me into the tender wasn't a problem but I knew getting me out would not be easy with the huge swells, but they managed; we got my right foot (the good one) up at the edge of the boat and then at the right time they sort of tossed me to the guys on the tender bay. Then two of the crew helped me up the long stairs into the ship with Jim carrying our cameras and bags. They had a wheelchair waiting. I had my choice of calling for emergency medical care and them paging the Dr and Nurses to the med center or waiting a couple hours until it reopened... since it wasn't really life threatening I decided to just go to the cabin and wait. It felt awfully good to lie down with a pillow tower and an ice pack for my foot. Jim pushed me in a wheelchair to the med center when it opened and after X-rays it isn't broken – just pretty badly sprained so I'm wrapped in an ace bandage with an ankle brace and spending my time on the bed with my foot on pillows and using ice. It sucks but it could have been worse.

Shortly after we got back to the ship, the Captain announced that they were canceling all remaining shore excursions and that no additional people would be tendered ashore so they could concentrate on getting the 800 people already there back to the ship. It really was rough! I felt bad for those people that couldn't go, but I'm thankful that I was able to get back early before the tenders were full of people returning and the swells and waves were even worse that when we went.

 

Here's my last shot before I fell.

 

Just as I'm writing this on Tuesday afternoon feeling extremely stupid for falling in the first place, there was a knock on the door and a steward brought me a plate of candies from the front desk 'hoping I'm feeling better'.  What a thoughtful thing to do.  Yummy too! I'll send them a thank you note in a few minutes.  I want to get this posted while it seems that we have a good connection – my earlier post went right through.

At Sea - January 20

January 20 – At Sea

Our cocktail party last night was really fun – this is a great group that seems to enjoy meeting each other. We had half of the Crow's Nest so there was plenty of room. Several of the ladies wore the silver locket that was the Ensemble gift – it is really pretty!

The only thing in my plan for today is a lecture by the speaker, David Pasta. He's a geologist and has given some really interesting talks. We've missed a couple of them, but they are on the TV later in the day so I've gotten to see almost all of them.

Tomorrow is Easter Island – one of the places I'm really excited to visit again. Hopefully the weather and sea will cooperate so we will be able to anchor there.

In past blogs I've always put bits in about the characters on board... there really aren't any of note except perhaps the petite lady 'of a certain age' that wears clothes appropriate for a 14 year-old. The other day in port I noticed that she had on a zebra striped mini dress with patterned stockings and knee-high gladiator sandals . . . and a curly brown wig that hung past her waist. Ok, the more I think about it that does qualify as an interesting character. Other than her, I think the rest of us are just plain old normal folks.

At sea heading to Easter Island

At sea heading to Easter Island – January 18

This is one of my favorite parts of the world cruise; the long run from Peru to Easter Island. We are all hoping for favorable weather when we arrive – we hear that it has been to rough for some of the ships to anchor and do the tendering operation. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Yesterday was much like any sea day for us mostly lounging around reading and watching the sea go by. By late afternoon we had bright blue sky with no clouds but the temperature was still relatively cool. I was surprised since we are now well out of the Humboldt current which keeps the temps down on the western shore of S America. By evening I needed a sweater to sit out on the balcony... I'm NOT complaining, I love this weather and am rather dreading the hot temperatures to come. We saw on CNN yesterday that they had record heat in part of Australia and we aren't all that far from being there.

We both went to a lecture yesterday afternoon, while the topic was very interesting, the movement of the earth's plates causing volcanoes and tsunamis, the speaker was quite dull. It was sort of like sitting in a college lecture that you didn't want to attend. I do like the topics though, so I'll attend again today. Many of the earlier presentations have been Hollywood/celebrity related which doesn't interest me much. I did go to a question and answer session with John Amos and it was good. The Daily says that there will be a choir practice this afternoon at 4 and I was going to check it out since I had so much fun doing it on the American Queen – then I realized that we will be having our cocktail party at 4:30 so I won't be able to make it.

We have had almost no internet connection since we left Peru so I'll post this when I can get on.

General San Martin, Peru

Today we are docked at General San Martin (Pisco) Peru. They offered a shuttle into a small fishing village nearby but after seeing the first 4 shuttle buses fill immediately and still a waiting line we decided that we didn't need to go in. So we wandered around the pier a bit and visited with our little seal friend and watched some pelicans on a sandbar nearby. It was actually a lovely walk, there is enough cloud cover and with the temps only in the 70's it is about perfect. This stop is actually just sort of a filler stop - it allows time for the people that went to Machu Picchu from Callao time for the trip; they rejoin the ship here. We were really ready to do that trip this year until we realized it was much too short a time to see much of anything so I'll look at a regular land trip for it. This is the third time we've been on a cruise that offered the big overland trip and each time we've passed it by either due to cost or that it was just too short a time period.

 

Last night was our third Pinnacle dinner for our Ensemble passengers and probably the most fun group. The dinner was lively from the time I made the welcoming toast until the last few people left. We will have our first cocktail party in a few days – then there is quite a bit of time until our next affair which is the private shore excursion in Sydney.

Callao, Peru

We are on day 2 of an overnight stay in the port of Callao Peru. Yesterday morning as we arrived into the port there was very heavy fog; I think it was the fog horn that woke us up. We docked right on time so obviously the fog didn't cause any navigation problems. We rode the shuttle into Miraflores and wandered around some shops and then had a little lunch at Cafe Cafe. Then we headed back to the ship, then (as usual) just lounged around reading – I'm getting extremely spoiled. The ship had a barbeque last night for dinner and even though we went up just as it was starting the pool deck was packed. We did find a table and had a great dinner. Holland America has a marvelous supplier for beef; the steaks we've had are all fork-tender and wonderful! I would love to get some of these at home. There was a folkloric show last night that I would have gone to, but it wasn't until 9:30 and my back tells me my day is over long before that. The show was by Inkamerica and we've seen it twice before so I'll live, but I'm hoping they have the other shows earlier!

Today we are planning a lot of nothing until this evening when we will have our 3^rd Pinnacle dinner – so far they have all gone well so I'm looking forward to this one.

The passengers on this cruise are much the same as on the other long voyages we've done with the average age about 70. There are a few that are probably over 90 and a few probably in their 50's. There are even a half dozen (or so) kids onboard and one baby. So far we've found 3 couples that we know from the 2010 S America Grand Voyage. I can see why people could do this year after year... it could become habit forming for me too... if I could afford it. If we could learn to be happy in an outside cabin it would be more conceivable, but we are spoiled and love our balcony. We use it so much that it makes it worth all the extra $.

Callao, Peru

Callao, Peru

We are on day 2 of an overnight stay in the port of Callao Peru. Yesterday morning as we arrived into the port there was very heavy fog; I think it was the fog horn that woke us up. We docked right on time so obviously the fog didn't cause any navigation problems. We rode the shuttle into Miraflores and wandered around some shops and then had a little lunch at Cafe Cafe. Then we headed back to the ship, then (as usual) just lounged around reading – I'm getting extremely spoiled. The ship had a barbeque last night for dinner and even though we went up just as it was starting the pool deck was packed. We did find a table and had a great dinner. Holland America has a marvelous supplier for beef; the steaks we've had are all fork-tender and wonderful! I would love to get some of these at home. There was a folkloric show last night that I would have gone to, but it wasn't until 9:30 and my back tells me my day is over long before that. The show was by Inkamerica and we've seen it twice before so I'll live, but I'm hoping they have the other shows earlier!

Today we are planning a lot of nothing until this evening when we will have our 3^rd Pinnacle dinner – so far they have all gone well so I'm looking forward to this one.

The passengers on this cruise are much the same as on the other long voyages we've done with the average age about 70. There are a few that are probably over 90 and a few probably in their 50's. There are even a half dozen (or so) kids onboard and one baby. So far we've found 3 couples that we know from the 2010 S America Grand Voyage. I can see why people could do this year after year... it could become habit forming for me too... if I could afford it. If we could learn to be happy in an outside cabin it would be more conceivable, but we are spoiled and love our balcony. We use it so much that it makes it worth all the extra $.

Sea Day - Jan 13

Well... the world of football has ended for us this year. It was an exciting Bronco game but ended badly for us and to make it worse, the Packers lost the next game. Now I don't much care who wins what. The ship made a really stupid decision and closed the sports bar to set up a photography set there for the formal night; people (including us) were not happy! We watched the games in the cabin and ran up to the Lido for a quick supper during half-time. When our steward came to turn the beds down he said everyone was watching football in their cabins. The second game didn't end until 11-ish pm, I'm wondering how many of those passengers even went to dinner.

I went to a matinee performance of Pianotainment yesterday afternoon and it was really good. I hope they have more of the afternoon or early evening shows otherwise I just don't see them.

This morning shortly after I woke up I was standing out on the balcony and the sun started peeking up over the layer of very low clouds – it was beautiful – bright red and right then two albatross soared by. Naturally I didn't have the camera but it would have been a gorgeous photograph. They have swooped by our balcony all morning sometimes so close you could probably reach out and touch them. I've named them Frick and Frack. While we are enjoying them, they are probably thinking, 'come on, you stupid people, toss us a fish!"

It's another sea day and we have no real plans... we'll just see what looks good.

At Sea - Jan 12

At sea – Jan 12

 

It's another lazy day at sea. Tonight will be the black and silver Ball; I don't know if we will dress up or not – it depends on how we feel about it later. The Ball doesn't start until 10:00 and we are usually in bed before that.

We had our second dinner in the Pinnacle last night – it was smaller because a number of people were on overland tours. It turned out that we could seat everyone around the big table so we were all able to talk together at the ends – it's a long oval table. It was a very fun group. I was surprised to hear that this is one man's first cruise. I was going to ask that question at the cocktail party and truly expected to have no first-timers – it will be interesting to see how the group breaks out at the Mariner star levels. We have only a few more days until we hit 4-star and get the free laundry! A number of people onboard see to do this every year.

This afternoon is a Bronco play-off game and Jim just checked the TV – ESPN is showing 'out of range' so he's in a panic. He isn't the only football fan onboard, we've seen a number of Green Bay t-shirts.

Not much else to report right now.

Manta, Ecuador

Jim got up this morning about 5 and asked if he should order the coffee... no, no, no- that's too early for me. I slept for another couple hours and then we ordered the coffee! We are docked in Manta and have spent the whole morning outside on the balcony watching the fishing boats unload. For some reason we are fascinated by it – that's what we've done every time we've docked here.

 

Tonight is our second group dinner in the Pinnacle; I'm looking forward to it since the first one went perfectly and the food was wonderful. It is a smaller menu than for the regular Pinnacle Grill dinners and I thought people might be a little unhappy, but it includes a surf & turf choice so that hits almost everyone just fine.

 

I was a little disappointed yesterday, I've always enjoyed the bookclubs on these long voyages and yesterday was the first meeting; about 40 people showed up and there were only 20 books. Of course, some of the people were grabbing at them like they were life preservers so I decided that I didn't need to read it that badly. Maybe I'll get a chance when someone finishes it.

I also went to arts & crafts yesterday – I enjoy some of their activities and it was quilling so I stayed and played. The next couple will be counted cross stitch so I'll skip those. I have plenty of play stuff with my zendoodle supplies.

It's just about time for lunch...

Pictures from the Panama Canal

I hope some of you saw us as we went through the canal yesterday. While we were in the first lock at Miraflores, they disembarked a medical case. I know I'm weird, but I always watch that kind of stuff. While I'm sorry for the passenger, I'm very interested in the behind the scenes workings of the ships. This passenger didn't seem to be too critical as he was sitting up on the pram and waved his hat at everyone after they brought him down the gangway. We've been through the canal a number of times but this was the first time we've seen this.

Today we are at sea headed toward Manta... This is a nothing day for us! They are having the first book club meeting this afternoon so I'll go to that. Other than writing the blog and checking email I have nothing specific to do; what's not to like... they cook, they clean, they provide entertainment and a large library – sort of like heaven for me.

We cross the equator some time today, but there isn't anything on the daily program for a ceremony – that's kind of too bad, I think those are usually funny to watch.

I still can't upload pics here and I can't figure out why not so I'll take this computer to the internet guy and see if he can help me; it's probably some setting I've missed.

Panama Canal

I woke up this morning just after we had entered the first lock of the Panama Canal and the sun was just breaking above the trees. It's already very hot outside; the Captain said today would be very hot. We are on the port side of the ship and luck was with us that we are in the right-hand lane of the canal so we can watch all the activity in the middle as we go through the locks. If you read this early enough you might be able to catch the ship along the way on pancanal.com

Last night was our first Pinnacle Grill dinner for our Ensemble passengers. It was perfect. I'm always so relieved when things go as they should. We will actually be having 2 more dinners in the next week to accommodate everyone in our group as the private room in the Pinnacle only holds about 25 people. Everyone that was invited to the dinner came and seemed to enjoy it. We especially enjoyed seeing our friends, the Holtoms, from the 2010 S. America Grand Voyage.

I'll be going in and out of the cabin to the balcony all day; the heat gets to me really quickly anymore. But I can see very well from the couch in the cabin.

So far I've heard less complaining by passengers than on many other cruises – that's quite nice. I get tired of the chronic complainers very quickly.

Hmmm... it isn't letting me add photos.  I'll come back and add a couple canal pics when I get it figured out.

Cartagena, Columbia

Cartagena, Columbia - January 8

We woke up this morning just as we were nearing the dock in Cartagena. We are docked in the container port and they are running a shuttle to the cruise terminal. Since this is a short port, sail at 1:00 we'll just stay onboard.

We went to the dining room for breakfast at about 8:30 and then back to the cabin to read. Luckily we are on the shade side of the ship as it is well over 90 outside with about the same humidity (90%) - just a slight change from the 20 degrees we've been having in Denver.

Last night was the first formal night and we decided to dress and go to the dining room. From what I saw I'd say over half the men were in tuxes and almost all the others in dark suits – a nicely dressed bunch of people... kind of reminiscent of cruises some years back. We didn't stay out for any of the night activities or shows, but we are hearing good comments about them.

Tonight is our first Ensemble dinner in the Pinnacle Grill with 23 of our passengers. I'm looking forward to meeting them.

We have finally gotten the batteries all charged up for the cameras so we are ready for the Canal tomorrow. We've been through it a number of times, but I still enjoy it.

Second day at sea heading toward our stop in Cartagena tomorrow. So far everything is going perfectly! I don't have much to report this morning as we pretty much relaxed the day away yesterday reading and then watching the football playoffs is the afternoon.

Today we'll go to the CruiseCritic meet & greet at 10:30 then one more meeting with the Shore Excursions manager and I can relax the rest of the day. My perfect day at sea.

 

They had Trivia scheduled yesterdayat noon - stupid time!  We missed it.  I hope they move it to a better time.

The World Cruise has begun

The cruise begins! We arrived at the ship about noon and were surprised to find a fairly long line for check-in. We whined a bit to ourselves as we had to go to the regular check-in line as we are 2 weeks short of being 4 star Mariners and only in a verandah suite instead of a Deluxe veranda suite (full suite). But then we realized that the line for those folks was actually longer than ours – lots of well-traveled folks on this cruise!

We finished check-in in about 30 minutes and went right aboard the ship. Our cabin was ready so we were able to get started with all our Host duties right away. We met with the Front Desk people to verify all the cabin numbers and then Jim delivered all the welcome letters while I met with the Bar Manager and the Pinnacle Grill manager to confirm those arrangements.

All that took a couple hours and then we headed up to the buffet for a quick bite to eat and found our friends (clients), the Jans. After lunch the luggage had been delivered so we started putting everything away and then it was time for the emergency drill. No more wearing the life jackets to the drill; while that is convenient, I'm not sure it is a good idea because there are always a number of people that seem to have no idea how to put it on correctly. After the drill we had a glass of champagne and then back to the cabin to finish putting everything away. I think this is the first time we have ever used all the storage space; but we did get it all put away!

By then I was pooped, we went to the library and got some books, had a bite to eat in the buffet for dinner and then I plopped on the bed with my book and didn't move the rest of the night. Jim watched the football play-off games until about 10:00 when he figured Green Bay wasn't going to lose so he came to bed. It's a pretty good bed, a bit firm but we'll live with that and also pretty good pillows.

This morning we had a rude awakening when our alarm clock started buzzing at 6:30 – something in the suitcase had hit the button to turn it on. Oh well, that's about the time we usually wake up so it was ok. Jim called for our coffee and it was here in about 10 minutes. So... I'm sitting here drinking coffee and writing this. More later...

It's Saturday morning - we'll head for the ship in a few hours.  The flight yesterday was without any hitches... but I still hate airports and flying.  Nothing fun about it.  More soon... from the ship!

 

We are packed, I can't believe we made it in 4 bags.  We must have forgotten much stuff.  Oh well, at this point I reall don't care.  Tomorrow is a do nothing day and then we leave for the airport at 4:45 Friday morning.