What we Learned

Travel expands one’s horizons. Each trip is the opportunity to learn something, both within and without the individual. Some of the tidbits we’ve learned this time around:

If you are a male and you put on a Speedo, and, when standing up you cannot see the Speedo without the aid of a mirror, you have exceeded the “Speedo Limit” and should not go out in public.

Sun is not essential for fun, but it certainly helps with relaxation.

Not sharing a room with the boys eliminates that “bonding”. It also means they can stay up as late as they want, we can go to bed and get up as early as we want, and everyone likes each other better from a distance.

New foods won’t kill you, but some things grow as you chew.

Texting your significant other, who’s back wherever you traveled from, while the people you are actually with are trying to coordinate travel and/or find lost party members, could get your head chopped off.

Always bring the big suitcase, whether it’s full or not. Even if you don’t need the room, someone else will.

Smaller suitcases packed beyond capacity will split at the seams. It’s a false economy to think that you can get by with less weight or that packing the bag to the max is a good idea.

Carryon bags must have rollers. All bags get heavy and it’s foolish to bring a gym bag or something without wheels that you’re going to have to carry around.

Teenagers must be told that you want your change back each and every time they are given pictures of dead presidents. They must be frequently reminded of this once they have returned.

Ugly pants attract attention. It’s up to the person wearing them to ascertain whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.

TSA people are on a power trip and really have no useful function other than show. While they’re good at making up arbitrary rules and enforcing them with great show, it’s hard to see that anything they’ve done has actually made the travelling public or the country safer. Case in point – Our passports are all in leather cases, which are identical other than color. Seven of us went through with them in hand. Taylor was stopped, publicly chided for keeping the passport in a case in his hand, and made to put his passport on the X-ray belt. He got “selected” thereafter for special attention as well. Do they really think this 16 year old, middle-class white bread is a terrorist??

Friday and Saturday – Sea Days

This is the first time that we’ve had two consecutive days at sea on a cruise. Half a dozen would be welcome, as it’s a time that you can truly relax. It also was the first time that we had sunshine available, although it was still pretty nippy out in the mornings.

As might be expected, the adults were up early and exploring what was about the ship. The kids opted to sleep in and awoke only in time to barely catch the end of the breakfast buffet or the beginning of the lunch ones. By that time the adults had all staked their turf on the sundecks.

You’ll have to excuse the posts as getting the two days mixed up; they were spent very much the same way and kind of run together, except that on Saturday EB and I got massages, a fathers day gift from the fam. They were the best cruise-ship massages that we’ve had; usually those tend to be kind of mediocre, to say the least.

There was enough sun to get a bit of color, which was welcome. After all, we had 6 bottles of sunscreen that we needed to use up! I think we made it through about 1/3 of the first one was all.

Dinner on Friday was “Lobster Night”, although the Prime Rib looked every bit as enticing. You can’t help but laugh at Jacob over the food – he’s seen some things that he hasn’t experienced before.

At the big seafood buffet before we left Los Angeles, we were amazed at the variety of sushi and all the seafood and other things available. It was almost obscene how much there was. What impressed Jacob the most? The individual cups of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream with the little spoon built into the top of the cup! On Friday, he reached into his jacket pocket at one point and showed us his “souvenirs” – plastic ice cream tasting spoons from Victoria.

He, along with the other kids, have accepted our challenges to try something new, though, especially since they can do it at no cost and get something else if they don’t like it. Escargot was kind of memorable, although it wasn’t especially appetizing with the kind of green gravy they had around it. Everyone tried it, though.

The funniest one (again, Jacob) was on Friday when some of them got a smoked salmon as an appetizer. It didn’t have nearly as much smoke as we’d normally expect, and looked about like it could have flopped out of the case at the Harris-Teeter. Jacob took a bite and began chewing – and chewed – and chewed – and chewed. It seemed to be getting bigger, and his color wasn’t looking so well. I think everyone has had a bite of something they didn’t care for seem to get bigger the more you chew on it! It finally went down, though, followed by his full glass of water.

We all went to the 7:00 show the last night. It was the same juggler we saw in the opening show, although the act was entirely different, followed by a comedian who did a hysterical stand-up show. So funny, in fact, that most of us opted for the 11:00 “Adult” show that he did. The early show ended with a production number which was loud and enthusiastic, if nothing else.

Dinner the last night is always fun, but you hate to see your waiter go. It’s hard to tell how much is an act or whether they really enjoyed working with you, but I think that Lyall and Gang both liked us. They said they did, anyhow, and they kidded with us and that’s always a good sign. We took their pic the last night and wanted the boys to scoop him up horizontally, but they never take hints – he’s such a little guy it would have been funny to catch him off guard. Eventually, though, we got something other than the typical “stand and smile” pic. Tips are given out (you get envelopes specifically for this purpose) the last night as well, and I would think that would make everyone working on the ship smile.

While waiting for the late show, we hit the casino for the last time. The slot-gods weren’t smiling on anyone, though, except Caleb, who managed to turn about $7.00 into $28.50, despite being busted and thrown out twice. After that, it was time to go to the late show.

Departure

Leaving the ship is the antithesis of arriving. All those smiling employees who were greeting you – want you to get the hell out so they can start over again. They got their tips the night before, when you left the envelope out and they made up the rooms for the evening.

If there was one part of this cruise that needed some significant improvement, it was our stateroom attendant. For those that don’t know, these people do the cleaning service in the room, clean the bathrooms, pull out the beds and turn them down at night, make sure you have ice water, etc.

It’s obviously much more than happens at home, where you have to do all that stuff yourself – but part of being on a cruise is being pampered a little and having those special touches. Benita missed the fact that there was no little chocolate on the pillow when you came back to your room at night.

Our guy, Hussein, who was from the Philippines, frankly sucked. He was always friendly, but things were never replenished, the ice bucket was gone most of the time (never mind being filled), and he just kind if did a slack-ass job compared to what we’d experienced on other cruises. Was this a company policy change associated with the fact that they undoubtedly lost their shirts on this cruise (after all, people don’t buy cold slushy drinks poolside when they’re wrapped in towels and sweatshirts trying to stay warm!) Who knows – but it did impact the trip some.

Anyhow, you pack all your stuff up, (thank you, PT, for that travelling luggage scale that went to Australia!), figure out what won’t fit and how you’re going to make it work, then you put your big suitcases outside your door before you go to dinner. They disappear in the night, to come back to you in an enormous warehouse where you can pick through the thousands of other suitcases to try to find it based on the color labels that you were assigned.

The last day, you’re supposed to get up and go eat as soon as you can. They want you out of there – after all, they’re not your friend any more and you’re in the way of the next crowd. So you pack up and then go sit in an assigned location, like one of the big bars, or, in our case, the ice skating rink, and wait for them to call your color to let you off the ship.

They have thought enough to put out coffee, and to have a “family area” with kid activities. In our case, we actually got off about an hour early, so we were leaving the ship by about 9 in the morning. There have been times on other cruises, though, that we’ve sat there for several hours waiting to leave. With screaming kids, that can be a very, very long time.

Two very full cabs to the airport (Mom and Dad were on United, so they had to fend for themselves at this point and caught a shuttle), and we were all ready to see what US Airways had to offer (3 first class upgrades, everyone else in the cattle car) and head back to reality, which we’ll reach about 10:00 Sunday night (local time, although our bodies will still think it’s 7ish).

All in all, a successful venture. Ten people out, ten people back, no injuries, few tears, lots of laughs and a good time.

Thursday, June 18, 2009 – Seattle

Seattle was our only port without a purpose. We had nothing scheduled, no tours or activities. We were only in port from about 8 a.m. to 4:00 in the afternoon, but nothing was open uber-early anyhow, so there was no point in rushing out there. We were all off the ship and through customs with our passports by 9, though, so things were rustling about.

Our first stop was the famous Fish Market, which looks just like you’d expect. It’s WAAAYYY better than the farmer’s market in Lost Angeles was, if for no other reason than that it was truly a farmer’s market – veggies, fruit, and amazing flowers. No chain stores that we saw, although after a bit we decided there wasn’t a lot there for us other than a couple of T-shirts and trying about 50 different types of jelly offered at this one booth. (My favorite was Garlic Pepper, which sounds kind of disgusting but is really good).

At that point, we recognized that the seniors couldn’t keep up with the kiddies. The four block trek from the ship to the Market had about put Bobbie Jean under, and my folks were looking for benches to hold down as well. When we got to the market and realized it took about 8 flights of steps to go up where the map indicated and that there was NO elevator (how stupid is that???), we put them in a cab to go around to the front while the others did their aerobics for the day.

Once we were all connected again, we recognized the desire to do different things – so we split. The senior members of the group did 10 minutes in the Farmer’s Market, said, “Nope, don’t need none o’ that,” and opted for the Gray Line tour (the busses with the open tops). They liked it so well they rode it twice. The only thing that they saw that the rest of us missed was the original Starbucks. I had visions of a commemorative mug to go with the other 278 we have, but sadly, it wasn’t to be. Our Starbucks break came in disposable cups.

The only crisis of the day was that Bobbie Jean lost her cell phone. It was time for an upgrade anyhow.

The rest of us opted to head toward the Space Needle, which is right at the end of the monorail ride. After walking about 6 blocks up some very steep hills, we found the entry and $4.00 a head later (round trip) we were riding the monorail over to the needle. Those who’ve read prior blogs know that if there’s a tower to climb, I will go to the top to take pictures most of the time. This was no exception, except Eddie had the camera and took the pictures.

The tower ($16.00 a head, adult admission) was originally constructed for the 1962 World’s Fair and has been rakin’ in the bucks ever since. If you can slap a logo on it, they’ve done so and have it in the gift shop. I can’t imagine that my life would need a Space Needle Napkin Holder in order to be complete, but then again, I’m not from Seattle.

The Space Needle is in the midst of the old fairgrounds, which now has a number of carnival rides around it. It’s not Universal, or even Carowinds. It looked more along the lines of the carnival that the Lions host in the Wal Mart parking lot every year, where you know that food poisoning is lurking in every booth and doubt the authenticity of those safety inspection stickers slapped on the back side. We didn’t do much to contribute to the economy there.

They’ve got a very nice historical display set up inside. I was utterly amazed to learn that the Needle moved 312 feet to the southwest in June, 1987. Given how hard it was to schlep a lighthouse a mile away from the beach in North Carolina a few years ago, it would seem that moving this 605 ft. tower (512 to the observation deck) would be a pretty significant undertaking that would have made the papers. If you read a bit further, though, it explains that the “movement” was do to remapping of the earth via satellite, so it was just used to make corrections to earlier maps. Once again, we see that the pen is mightier than the sword. It moved because someone said that it moved. Haven’t seen much of that type of action since Genesis, best I can tell.

After returning via monorail and another 6 block walk (this one blissfully downhill!), we bought T-shirts galore (surprise!) and returned to the ship in time to beat the 2:30 close of the lunch buffet. After all, we’ve paid for these meals and wouldn’t dare want to miss one!

This afforded the second time we’ve had sun on this trip, so most everyone hit the sun deck. Given that we started the day with heavy clouds and 60 degrees (this IS Seattle, after all), it was surprising to see Sol peak out and invite us to partake. It wasn’t Carribbean sun, but it was enough that sunscreen was warranted, so that counts as acceptable vacation sun.

Show and Dinner

Everyone reconvened to go to the show at 7:00. Tonight was LaRaf, who were illusionists (think Harry Houdini, but on a cruise ship). It was a decent show – no real “WOW” moments, other than the finale, when they actually did an old Houdini stunt – the one where he’s handcuffed, put in a bag, in a box, which is locked, then they pick up a curtain and when they drop it the other guy is on top of the box. By the time they get it all unlocked again, the one that started on top is now in the original position in the box. It was OK, but I personally thought the lady changing costumes at the ice show was better.

Dinner dress was the topic of some discussion this evening. Mom and Dad misread the calendar, so they were dressed for formal night – looking very nice, but with a necktie on dad some 24 hours early.

Eddie and I had been tipped to shop at Rugged Wearhouse for cheap clothes. (It’s true, they have them – so if hard decisions had to be made about ditching something, it’s things you don’t mind throwing away on a vacation) While there, though, we’d found these truly hideous pants – Mine are black, white and yellow plaid and his are blue, white and yellow plaid. Think cheesy used car salesman in the late 1960’s and you’ve got the idea. We decided we’d “wow” everyone by wearing them to dinner one evening.

The effect was exactly as desired – the adults laughed and the teenagers were mortified, with directions to us to go back and change because they would “just die” if seen with us dressed this way. Undaunted, we proceeded – and got more than our share of stares from the crowd. If we were together, it was somewhat obvious that it was intentional and a joke. If we happened to be separated, people were unsure whether we just had bad taste or if we were part of the clown act from the ice show. The goal was attained, though.

At dinner, Lyall has taken to showing tricks and posing riddles. Tonight’s finale was when he balanced 8 forks on top of a wine bottle by sticking the tines together and balancing them on toothpicks. It took a while, but it WAS impressive.


Dating Rituals

After dinner, everyone under 40 engaged in further teenage rituals. Specifically, the one where the older boys ditch their little brother, because everyone knows when you’re trying to work your mojo on a couple of girls who think you’re older than you really are to try and get some shipboard romance going, your little brother can really put a damper on the moment.

This, of course, is exactly why the parental units require that the little brother be included most of the time. In this case, Caleb had made the mistake of following the adults out of dinner while Jacob and Taylor held back and then grabbed an elevator down. I was done in the casino and ready for bed and Caleb couldn’t find the boys so we went on a search. Although I wasn’t especially good at it, I was a teenage boy once and can think like them when necessary. It still makes my brain hurt, though.

Thus, after checking their room (where I knew they weren’t) went to the promenade which is the ship equivalent of the mall. It was teen night in the dance club, and from 11 to 1 it was open to 14 to 20 year olds and we knew that would be the eventual target. We found Jacob and Taylor with the two lil’ fillies who’ve been bird-dogging them throughout the cruise at the end of the Promenade. I delivered Caleb to them (still wearing my plaid pants, mind you) with the admonition to “call and check in later, boys.” The look on Jacob’s face was priceless.

Apparently they had a good time, because they checked in at curfew and were still comatose when we passed through the room about 8:00 and counted – 3 heads, each in individual beds, all belonging to the occupants of their cabin.

Once again, the goal was accomplished. Life is good.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 – Victoria, British Colombia

Victoria Island is, by most accounts, a fairly small place. That is, unless you’re walking it, in which case it gets large fairly quickly. We had an activity scheduled – whale watching. Eddie and I had done this before in Provincetown, MA, when we were there, but the others hadn’t done it.

We were loaded into a 55 ft. boat with two levels, one in the open air above and one down below, with windows all around. People divided as you might expect, although it was chilly and enough chop on the water that people tended to rotate through the cabin as well. Coffee and hot chocolate were provided, so that helped take the chill off. It was definitely “sweater weather” out, about 60 degrees with some wind.

We were all excited about whale watching. After all, they had promised to use their special whale-whistles to call them right up to the boats, where each and every one of us would be allowed to individually hand feed them a special non-smelling, non-slimy dead fish and then pet them while they posed for photos.

We travelled about 30 minutes on the boats out to where the whales live, or at least where they go for lunch. There were several companies doing the same with lots of boats, like whale paparazzi running in a pack from one location to the other. You could tell who’d sited whale, because their boat suddenly leaned that direction as everyone rushed from one side to the other, clicking cameras the entire time.

From a whale’s perspective, that’s got to be a little annoying. I mean, you’ve just gone out with the fam for a little sushi, and all these people show up and take your picture. They don’t say anything, never offer to buy you a drink, but are just there taking pictures of your kids. You know those pics are going to either end up on the internet or in National Enquirer, even when there was nothing exciting going on. For humans, that kind of activity would rate a call to 911.

The young ladies who were the flight attendants on the trip were great. All were marine biology students (or something along that line) who were quick with facts and tips about the whales.

We learned that the “resident pod” there (as opposed to the travelling pod, which can be identified by their ugly floral shirts, fanny packs and the cameras around their necks) are fish eaters, dining primarily on salmon that is going upstream to spawn.

Think about this from the salmon’s perspective. You’ve been anticipating “it” for an entire year. You’ve put in time at the gym, got your pickup line down right after having discarded all the lame ones, buffed up the scales so your bling is goin’ on and are seriously intent on pickin’ up some lady fish – and about the time you’re going to cross the red rope past the bouncer to get into the club, some big bruiser comes along and swallows you whole.

That’s gotta be a downer.

The travelling whales are mammal eaters. There weren’t any in the area, so the suggestion that we throw the child that had been crying for half an hour overboard to see if we could snag one was discounted, at least from a whale-attraction standpoint. It also confirmed that most food is cultural and that children everywhere will point to something unfamiliar and say, “Eww, what’s that? I’m not eating this, it’ll make me puke!”

The other amazing thing we learned is that these “whales” really aren’t whales at all. Instead, they’re the largest members of the dolphin family, with the adult males getting to be about 24 ft. long and weighing 6 to 9 tons. Males live about 50 years and females about 80, with the oldest known being a 98 year old female. The females live so much longer because humans have put so much toxic crap in the water and it’s fat-soluble, so they’re slowly poisoned. Females get to dump a lot of that when they calve (although the first young don’t tend to make it, being the whale equivalent of a crack baby), and that lets the females live longer. Males just continue to sneak fast food, store the fat until they have a heart attack and die.

The whale were not feeling especially photogenic for us. None of the huge breaching jumps that you see on the Discovery Channel; instead, all we had were the delinquents that hang out at the food court in the mall, trying to look older than they are and smoking cigarettes.

Our guides explained that you could tell the adolescent males because their dorsal fin, the part that sticks up out of the water, is somewhat floppy and they are unable to control it, as if it has a mind of its own. Being very tactile, they like to roll over and rub it against the kelp beds that grow there.

I leave it to you to draw the obvious parallels to human teenage males.

I suspect the adolescent whales tend to run around in groups at the kelp bed saying to each other, “Whadda you wanna do? I dunno. What you wanna do? This place is so lame; I can’t wait until I can get outta here and on my own,” (although, of course, they’re saying this in whale talk) while the female adolescents get piercings of which their parents would not approve and use glitter eye shadow that matches their dorsal fin polish. This all proves once again that some things cross specie lines and are based in the most rudimentary genetics of life.

Eventually, the boat turned back toward our point of origin. This took a lot longer and was much rougher than the trip out because we were fighting the current and because a front came in with significantly more wind, causing a LOT of spray for those on the upper deck. So much spray, in fact, that two ladies who stayed up too long were soaked. It didn’t take long in that surf for must everyone to be indoors, and some had taken on a very interesting shade of green.

Victoria Island

Back at Victoria Island, we still had some time for site-seeing, so we divided into two groups. The senior members of the organization took the shuttle downtown to the TCA, while the rest of us hoofed it around. We didn’t expect to meet up again, but that’s what happened.

The Empress Hotel looks gorgeous from the outside, as does the Government Building. We didn’t go into either of them, as the likelihood of being able to purchase refrigerator magnets and T-Shirts in them was slim. Instead, we made a quick bathroom stop and walked to the business district, where, believe it or not, we found that they were selling T-SHIRTS – right there on the street and in the open if you can believe it. Canadians have such strange ideas as to what is appropriate conduct and what is not, eh?

I do not understand how 15 shops selling exactly the same T-shirts, magnets, shot glasses and other stuff at almost exactly the same price can survive, but apparently they do.

We broke up the trek with a stop for ice cream, which, despite the temperature, was pretty good. After that we took the shuttle back to the ship in time to catch a snack and change for the ice show. Notice that we have yet to miss a single meal despite our activities.

Ice Show

The trend toward more and more “stuff” on a cruise ship is apparent on these behemouths afloat now. Our ship, the Mariner of the Seas, has 3 pools (1 blissfully designated adult only so you have to at least be 14 to go there), the expected spa, fitness room, movie theater, performance theater, etc., but also has a rock climbing wall, driving range and an ICE SKATING RINK.

This is the sister ship to the one we were on last year, so we weren’t surprised, but it still amazes me that they have these things on board. There’s seating all around the rink along with attentive bar staff eager to get your drinking dollars, and it seats about 800 people. We got in for the first show, “Ice Under the Big Top” or something along those lines – it had a circus theme.

Even without the waves, I’d be pukin’ my guts up if I had to spin around like those ice skaters.

The show was very good. There were all the typical ice skating things you’d expect, set to appropriate music. The best part was the finale, though, which was this couple who did quick change tricks. That always is fascinating, but to do it on ice skates is even more impressive. She probably did a dozen different outfits and he did 3 or 4 during the time they were performing.

The entire show was less than an hour, giving us just enough time to succumb to the siren song of the casino and head off to dinner.

Our waiter, Lyall, is excellent, as his assistant, Gang. He gives Gang nine kinds of hell about “stop smiling and open your eyes, you can’t see anything.” Gang is from China and looks the part very much, with a round face, a ready grin and stereotypical slanted eyes. He is the perfect foil to Lyall’s wit, grinning and taking the abuse heaped upon him.

One nice thing about going north rather than south is that it’s much more enjoyable to dress up in a jacket and tie when it’s 60 degrees out than when it’s 112 degrees outside with corresponding humidity.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 -- At Sea

Days at sea are some of our favorites. They tend to be very leisurely, because, after all, you can’t go anywhere. The only thing you have to sweat at all is the need to dress up a bit for “formal night” at dinner.

The day for our group started differently for the various rooms. Mom and Dad have been missing all day as I write this (it’s about 1:00 p.m.), although I assume at their ages that they can adequately forage for food and sustenance in a place that is geared toward adding at least 15 pounds to each of it’s passengers during the week long excursion. I suspect that mom is in the Bingo games trying to get her share of whatever branded goodies they’re giving out as prizes.

The ladies opted to sleep in and have room service for breakfast rather than facing the buffet. Other than a brief merchandise handoff of some of yesterday’s loot, we haven’t seen them. Benita reported that she did bed check on the boys at 5:00 a.m. and all were present and asleep. Yet another day that we don’t have to throw any of them overboard seems to be on target.

The Fire Alarm

The boys had the most excitement. The ship had a fire / emergency drill for the crew at about 10:00 this morning. They didn’t hear the warning announcements that this was a “crew only” drill, not to be alarmed. Instead, they woke up when the alarm buzzers were going off announcing a “Code Bravo” in a specific location. Of course, since you really can’t understand much of the announcements (the Captains sounds like the Swedish Cook off of the Muppets when he talks on it) they did the typical teenager thing – they rolled over and went back to sleep. So much for emergency preparedness. Had there really been a fire, they would have ended up as a form of Cajun seafood.

We saw the boys, who travel as a cluster in most cases, stumbling out for breakfast about 11:15 when Eddie and I were on our way to the casino to see if the Slot Gods would be any kinder today. (They were to me, incidentally – my $20.00 turned into $115.00 when I stopped to go to lunch).

Other than wandering around, we’ve not done a lot. There’s a slot tournament at 2:00and we’ll both be in that just because you never know what’ll happen. There have been periodic check-ins when we’ve either crossed paths or through the use of the little dry erase boards that we put on each of our doors (well, except that someone stole the one off the boy’s door!) Fortunately, travelling together doesn’t mean that we have to be together 24/7 and everyone can have a bit of space.

It’s cold and wet out today – 57 degrees and cloudy, so there’s nothing going on outside by the pool. There are 3 pools on board, incidentally, one designated as “adult only” and it’s in a more protected area, with kind of a glass enclosure around it. Even though the pools are heated to 78 degrees, without the sun it’s still a bit nippy when you get out.

Tuesday Evening

Well, Eddie, Benita and I all crapped out at the slot tournament. It was fun to play, though. Tonight is the first formal night – everyone has to get all dressed up in their fancy eatin’ clothes to go to dinner. This means that the iron / steamer which I’ve smuggled aboard despite strict restrictions will be in heavy use since clothes wadded into a suitcase and shipped across the country over the course of several days seldom look as though they just came from the cleaners.

Note to self – all juveniles get ironing lessons this summer.

We traditionally meet as a group for happy hour before dinner and then afterwards everyone goes their own way. Eddie and I made a pass through the casino again with the kids and the other adults went to see the show. Later the kids went to see the comedy show that started at 11 (past our bedtime).

It’s great that they can go off on their own to some extent at this point. It’s made travelling much easier. The only thing that we wish is that we’d brought our walkie talkies so that we could communicate a bit. While some of our phones continue to work on the ship (I suspect we’re just about the line of site off shore, plus a tiny bit more to get us into international waters), theirs go to roaming. Once we explained the charges for text messages to them, suddenly the need to communicate with that special someone in Hickory became a little less important!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

Happy Birthday Benita

Can’t let it pass without pointing out that Benita turned the big 5-0 while in San Francisco. Happy Birthday and wishes for many more. She woke up to discover a banner across her cabin door announcing to the world not only the fact that it was her birthday, but that she’d also aged out of one demographic group into another.

San Francisco Harbor

The day started out slowly but with a great deal of excitement. To come into San Francisco, the cruise ship has to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though Eddie and I had been there before (and Mom and Dad, too, although it was about 45 years ago, so I’m not sure that counts any more), it was absolutely amazing to sail in under the bridge. There was about 12 feet of clearance given the height of the tide that day, and they blow the foghorn as you go under. One has to wonder if someone considering jumping at that moment might actually have the choice taken from them if they were startled by the horn and FELL!



Seeing San Francisco from this perspective was awesome. You can get a feel of how big and full the City really is, as well as what green space is available there. It’s hard to imagine that this was originally desert and still gets only about 18 inches of rainfall a year. Fog, on the other hand, isn’t measured. They have that in abundance.

Everyone in the group but Eddie and I saw whales as we were sailing in, before we got to the harbour. It never occurred to us that they’d be there so we weren’t on the lookout (also it’s hard to see whales when you’re staring at a slot machine in the casino).

The other cool thing was that we sailed past Alcatraz – they don’t keep anyone there, since it’s closed as a prison. You could really see the water churning around it, though, and it was apparent why nobody could escape by swimming. It looks very tiny, even up close, but when you’re actually there it seems much bigger. Having seen a number of prisons before, and since it takes a couple of hours at least to do that tour, plus the ability to walk up some pretty substantial hills, we opted for the “float by” view and pics.

Tourist Containment Area

Other than the long walk along the pier, getting off the ship was a breeze. Although San Francisco may feel like a foreign country, it remains a part of the US and thus no special shots or papers are necessary. Interestingly enough, some of the locals wish there were.

We learned a new concept – that of a “Tourist Containment Area”, which is designed to suck all the visitors into one confined area densely supplied with shops selling T-shirts and refrigerator magnets. The primary goal of this zone is to keep all the tourists away from the locals as much as possible while separating them from as much of their money as can occur within a limited period of time. This goal is furthered by making taxi stands and transportation either removed or difficult to find, thereby promoting the herd mentality that causes cruise ship passengers to walk en masse from Pier 35 where we landed to Pier 39, which is the infamous “Fisherman’s Wharf”.

Listening to the talk on the ship afterwards, it appears to have been an effective strategy as that’s mostly what they did – walk down to the Fisherman’s Wharf area, buy T-shirts and refrigerator magnets and come back to the ship. Woo-woo!

Our San Francisco Experience

We didn’t do none o’ that stuff. Instead, we’d been working with our friend Paul (who Eddie and I met last year through www.couchsurfing.com when we were here) for him to play tour guide. He’d engaged his friend and neighbor Keith to act as driver for us, and they’d picked up a big van to carry all of us around the City. They’re both long-term residents and knew all the cool places to go that weren’t populated by tourists. Thus, we had curbside pickup and were whisked away from the TCA.

The first part of the trip, of course, had to include a closer view of the Golden Gate Bridge. We rode through the park, around the Presidio (a former military base that’s now home to lots of not-for-profit entities) and up onto the bridge. You really can’t get a concept of the scale from the pictures; it is so gorgeous and massive. After we crossed over, instead of stopping on the right hand side at the visitor information center, we took a left and went to the old military escarpment where there used to be cannons and things to guard the harbor. What an incredible view! The bridge looks close enough to reach out and touch, even though it’s actually a couple of miles away. You begin to get a sense of the complexity of San Francisco there, because you can see a lot of the different neighborhoods and how the houses and buildings lay out.

After going even further up the mountain on that side of the Bridge, we turned around and came back across ($6.00 toll during non-peak hours) and started getting drive-by tidbits as we passed some things that were on the way to somewhere else but didn’t warrant getting out of the Van. We saw the Ghiridelli Chocolate factory, which is no longer a chocolate factory, and also the birthplace of Levi jeans. They also provided great stuff about “colorful characters” that live in San Francisco, like “Camo Man”, who disguises himself and wears leaves and branches while hiding in the hedge along where the tourists come. He then jumps out and screams at them, they (after their hearts start beating) think it’s funny and give him tips.

Probably not the career path that his mother had in mind, but if it works and he’s happy, what the heck.

There are 43 hills in San Francisco. I suspect that we climbed most of them at one point or the other. As the day wore on, there seemed to be a direct correlation between the number of birthdays one had and the desire to see a particular site up close as opposed to remaining in the van.

We did stops at a couple of the expected tourist locations. We not only went to see Lombard Street, reputed to be the “curviest street in the U.S.”, but we RODE DOWN IT IN A FORD MAXI-VAN. Did I mention that Keith was an excellent driver and never got flustered? We needed to turn around – he’d make a perfect 3-point turn on a street with a 45 degree slope. No problem. At the bottom we stopped for pics and then went off to find T-shirts. After all, we are tourists when you get right down to it. Instead of hitting the typical outlets, though, they took us to some really funky T-shirt places in Haight-Ashbury (birth of the hippie movement).

Eddie and I found great shirts. One place, in particular, is called the Upper Playground. They’ve taken original artwork, primarily by street or graffiti artists, and transformed it into T-shirt stuff. It’s very avante guard and very cool. The kids, being young and from North Carolina, were leaning more towards wanting “I ♥ SF” and opted out.

After going through the Haight, we did the ultimate San Francisco tourist thing, we rode a cable car. A long ways. Incidentally, Mark Twain once said something along the lines of, “The coldest winter I ever experienced was one summer spent in San Francisco”. That was what we were experiencing as well. It was sweatshirts for most everybody, although we did wear shorts. In the van it wasn’t so bad. Hanging on the side of the California Line Cable Car, ($5.00, one way) though, it got a bit brisk, especially since it was post-5:00 p.m. and we were in the shadows of the tall buildings. It was pretty cool, though. I took video of the ride – unfortunately, the ship’s connection is so slow that it’s simply not possible to put it on here, especially at $.55 a minute for internet time. Getting pics uploaded is hard enough at times.

After the Haight we went through China Town. Didn’t stop, because we were running out of time, but did make the dash through in the van. We ended up being dropped off back where we started at Pier 35 and made our way back in time to change for dinner at 8:30. Given that we’d never stopped to eat or anything since we left at 2:00, we were all ready to eat.

Monday Dinner

We have a great waiter at dinner. His name is Lyall (I think I misspelled it earlier) and he’s from India. He’s bonded very well with the kids, remembers all of our names pretty well already, and started doing tricks while we were waiting today. The second one was pretty cool – he took toothpicks, bent them in half, and made a flower that would move into a star if you knew what to do. Nope – I ain’t tellin’. But Caleb has decided that he needs to start writing down bar tricks for future reference.

Wait staff on cruise ships usually do something kind of corny on different nights. Last night, they sang the Italian song “Oh Sol o Mio” (which I’ve probably misspelled terribly, but you know what I mean) – in 37 different accents. They’re not ready for American Idol, or even Britain’s Got Talent, but it was cute when they paraded through and everyone was clapping.

Dinner ended with the announcement that we would be going under the Golden Gate Bridge again shortly, so we made our way up to the top to watch that at night and from the other direction. That lasted about 10 minutes, until we realized that it was too cold to stand and we could go to the bar on 14 and watch from inside while having a drink. This seemed like a much better option

The Promenade

There’s a big promenade down the middle of this ship (fully enclosed on level 5 – think “inside mall.” It’s like a short main street (a block long or so) with shops and bars on either side, except without the panhandlers. Mom and Dad’s room looks out onto it at one end. They do parades and other events in there at night.

Monday night’s event was “Music of the 70’s” street party. I think the kids were somewhat surprised that we knew the motions to “YMCA” when it started playing (of course, the Village People were up on a bridge across the street leading the crowd – you can’t have 70’s music without THOSE costumes!). Their surprise turned to either amazement or embarrassment, it’s hard to tell which, when we started DOING the motions as well. Some things just happen automatically if you’re of a certain age.

With that Eddie and I went off to bed and left the kids to enjoy the street dance. Mom and Dad got separated and lost some time after dinner and before we went under the Bridge, and Bobbie Jean opted to go to the room right after dinner and watch the bridge recede from her balcony.

It was definitely not the experience other cruise members had in San Francisco. We saw lots of things that are well off the tourist track, and Paul and Keith were great at providing tidbits and other information that we wouldn’t have gotten from the typical tour guide.

At the beginning of the tour, Paul warned us that every day was Halloween in San Francisco, and we should therefore keep our eyes open for the unexpected and unusual. He said that he knew he’d become somewhat jaded when over the weekend he saw a group of about 15 nude bicyclists travelling through town. The jaded part comes from the fact that it took him a few minutes to realize that this was unusual, and then later when it didn’t occur to him to tell anyone else, because the event wasn’t sufficiently newsworthy.

This is an alternate universe.

The rumor has been around almost since San Francisco was built that it was a part of the original lost continent of Atlantis, and that people who are drawn there and live there were Atlanteans in a former life. There’s definitely a different feel; it’s very California, not especially rushed. For some reason, Paul decided that Taylor was an Atlantean, too, although we’re not sure why. Taylor did seem to connect with the location, though. If he does and decides that’s his destiny, that’s great. Our goal is to encourage the kids to look at life outside of Hickory and follow your dream, whatever it is.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Today was the day we’d been looking for. It was, interestingly enough, sunny and clear for the first time since we’d arrived in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the only sun we were going to get was between the hotel and the van while loading to go to the ship.

This was a good change for several reasons. Best of all, when we get to the ship we actually get to unpack all our stuff. Four guys in a hotel room is tight under any circumstances. When they’ve carried enough luggage to last 10 days on a cruise, it takes a pretty monumental effort to keep things organized enough that it’s not complete chaos.


The other reason that it’s good is that Jacob and Taylor finally will change underwear. The current style of wearing shorts low enough that ones undies peak over the top as a fashion statement makes it acceptable to observe what other people wear as unmentionables. In this particular case, Jacob is fond of NC State boxers and Taylor had smiley-face ones.

Along with the same cargo shorts. Every day. Since we left on Wednesday.

If it weren’t for the fact that they wore them under their swimsuits to go to the hot tub, things could have gotten bad. Fortunately, like most hotel pools, there was enough chemicals in them to disinfect as they were worn.

Traveling to the Ship

Once again, we were in the Big Blue Bus to travel. The poor driver looked at the luggage – roughly what Hannibal used to cross the alps from Carthage to Rome, minus the elephants – and started stacking it into the back of that 14 passenger van.

I’d note again that the 14 passengers who are going to occupy that vehicle have to be Lilliputian in dimensions. It was plenty full with just us.

30 minutes on the road and we were at the terminal. Royal Caribbean hadn’t sent us the right baggage tags, though, so we ended up standing in the sun writing out new tags to make sure that all the luggage went to the right rooms. We must have done it right, though, because the tags and the tip to the porter insured that everything was delivered later in the day.

Check-in

The message boards talked about check in at the port, sometimes favorably and sometimes quite unkindly. It was relatively painless to get our crowd through, although it looked as though Eddie was going to have to drag one lady over the counter to whup some serious ass.

As we were collecting to go through the Disney-esque lines (back and forth, back and forth), Dad (who’d arrived from their hotel earlier with Mom and was already checked in) said they’d been told to bypass the lines and go straight to the desk. Eddie was leading with all the paperwork and I was trailing to encourage stragglers, as was normal. Some dictatorial lady decided that we had to go through the loop-te-loops despite the fact that nobody was there. By the time she was arguing this, of course, Eddie was already at the counter pulling out paperwork.

Was this the one who almost got whupped? Noooo – that’s still to come!

So we went through the line, held back behind EB (as per his directions to give him some space) while the other counter agents began insisting that we move down and they’d take care of us. One went after Benita and the other went after me, and then one bleached blond made the mistake of reaching over to try to get some of Eddie’s papers.

Like a pit bull guarding his food dish, you don’t mess with the man’s filing system.

I was fending her off, explaining that we were happy to wait, it was still early and we were in no hurry. I told her we’d been on lots of cruises before and had the system down, to which she retorted, ‘Yeah, well, we’ve checked in a lot of folks, too, you know.’ When I responded that they hadn’t using our system, she looked as if I’d just slapped her.

By then, Eddie’d gotten all the papers out and we were checked in, cards printed and ready to go back and have a seat while we waited.

All in all, it was a relatively painless process that resolved itself at the barking stage rather than having to go to an all-out dogfight.

One interesting thing – for all the fuss over having the appropriate paperwork to take Jacob with us and out of the country – nobody asked about it. Not once. Not the slightest mention of it. We could have schlepped the boy off to Canada and sold him to slavers. I’m betting the Canadian market for teenagers with significant appetites is pretty slim in this economy though, so the current plan is just to bring him back home, unless, of course, Jerry and Candy give us different directions.

Boarding

Boarding was easy as well. Walk up the ramps, stick your card in the slot, stand on the tape and smile for the camera. Then you’re on the ship (no “Welcome to the cruise cocktail was offered!) and herded toward the food chutes until 1:00.

It is a BIG ship. Lots of the older people on board can be heard talking about the fact that it’s just too big, and from their perspective that’s correct – think of a small shopping mall and you’ve got the approximate dimensions.

The only place we really notice it is with regard to Mom and Dad’s room. They were right across the hall, and the cruise line “upgraded” them to a cabin that overlooks the Promenade – actually an interior mall or streetscape. This is great for watching the parades and events that happen nightly between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. It puts them a LONG ways away from us (at the complete other end of the ship, roughly 2 blocks away) and a lot closer to noise that they probably don’t appreciate. Between Dad’s hearing and Mom’s Ambien, though, it’s probably not going to cause them to lose any sleep.

Afternoon Activities

After 1:00 we were in the rooms waiting for luggage. The boys got theirs first and Taylor whipped them into line. When we stopped by to check later, it was spotless (yeah, that’s hard to believe, but is accurate). Everything was unpacked, suitcases stowed under the beds, things very organized and they were asking for their dirty clothes hamper. (The pop-up mesh ones travel well and are a Godsend if travelling with kids, just to corral the dirty stuff if nothing else).

Other luggage was slow in coming up, so everyone went to the sundeck to catch the rays available (well, except for me, who was waiting on the rest of the luggage. I’m not a sun worshiper anyhow).

With only two of us in the room, I was somewhat lost in attempting to organize things. Usually, it’s a matter of double stacking, dividing drawers and showing no quarter for things out of place. We actually have empty shelves and drawers with lots of space to put our stuff now, which also means there’s nooks and cubbies to lose your stuff as well.

Travelling with Teenagers

For the first time, the boys aren’t sharing a room with a parent but instead are in one by themselves. Lots of talk about trust and don’t mess up, because we will kill you and throw the body overboard. Rules are pretty simple – stay together, don’t go to anyone’s room, don’t bring anyone to your room, check in periodically and let us know where you are. We did a surprise check this morning (the parental units have a key that works to their room) and everyone was in bed – alone – as reported and anticipated. But it showed that we will bust in without notice to do a spot check. As all parents know, the mere threat is sometimes as good as actual action if there’s a reasonable possibility they’ll follow it up.

Entertainment

Shows on cruise ships can be either pretty good or pretty bad. The first night’s show, which was packed because there was only one showing, was pretty good, despite what it sounded like going in. The lead act was a juggler who was as much a talker and funny as he was a juggler. He did impress everyone with his ability to juggle 2 ping-pong balls with his mouth and blow them up to the top of the stage, probably 20 feet in the air. He was followed by a standup comic.

Dinner

Dinner was late. 8:45. That’s almost bedtime under the best of circumstances, and hardly the time that one wants a multi-course meal. Nonetheless, it was there and we ate it. Our waiter is Lyle, from India, and he’s assisted by Vang, from China. They had the names down pretty quickly and were learning preferences (de-caf, no alcohol, etc) even as the meal started.

Either the food was really good or we were hungrier than expected. Prime Rib with baked potato was the winner, although a baked Salmon and shrimp ravioli were pretty good too. We tasted “watermelon gazpacho soup”, which was excellent and will now have to work on a recipe to figure that one out.

I forgot to mention – the first thing I had to do was go fix our dinner reservations. When they’d upgraded Mom and Dad, they also removed them from our table – and gave them 1st seating at 6:30 rather than 2nd at 8:30 with the rest of us. It was all fixed by dinner, though, and we’re now a table for 10 at 8:30.

Casino

Of course, after dinner was a trip to the casino. We anticipated the slots would be kind of loose since it was the first night and they want to suck you back in for the rest of the week. The kids followed us in despite the “over 21 only” signs and were there quite a while. Only when Taylor started to win a bit did he get run out. Their ID’s have two holes punched in them to make sure that the youthful sin is kept to a minimum.

Caleb stood and watched me play what I thought was a nickel slot called “Texas Tea”. It’s my favorite of all of them, and I always look for it. We were doing pretty well, hit a couple of jackpots and were ahead, then it started a downhill slide. I knew he’d learned something, when he asked, “So do you just keep going until the money’s all gone?”

Probably the best $20.00 in tuition that I could possibly have spent.

By then it was late, we were tired, so the boys went to their room and we went to ours. Mom and Dad had crashed right after dinner, since they hadn’t had any days to acclimate to the time change.

Key Frustration

If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know that everything happens through the use of your room key – you charge to the room that way, gain access to things with it, etc. We hit a relatively high frustration level when our keys kept “de-magentizing” and wouldn’t work. The ship truly DOES become too big when you have to go hunt down someone to get a key to the room, especially if you find out that theirs won’t work, either.

Someone finally said that it was because we were putting them in our pockets next to the cell phones, and that was killing them. Just goes to show that technology doesn’t necessarily simplify our lives like we expect it to. The phones don’t work at sea, yet they’re now the “wrist watches” that we carry so everyone has them.

Room keys now have a hole punched in them and are on a lanyard, safely removed from the cell phone.