Devils Island & Approaching the Amazon.

Travel Blog   Sunday and Monday, December 29-30, 2013

At sea in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of French Guiana

On Sunday morning, we presented our third show for the guests and we had a full house in the show lounge. We were presenting information on our “visit” to Devil’s Island our stop for the following day. Since this was one of the high points of the cruise, many of the guests were eager to learn everything about this former French penal colony located off the coast of French Guiana in South America. We were very pleased with this new show that we had produced and the guests complimented us on it. It was broadcast on the stateroom TV continuously after our live show ended.

We had been told that we would be landing on one of the islands and would spend a few hours exploring the remains of the prison located on one of the three Iles du Salut (Salvation Islands). We anticipated walking in the footsteps of Papillion, the most famous escape Baynard (prisoner). This determined man who escaped during the Second World War and subsequently wrote an excellent book on his life in this French prison system. His memoirs later became an award winning movie by the same name.

A few days after we embarked on this cruise, we were told that we would not be landing on Devil’s Island but would be spending two hours cruising around the island and the cruise director wanted us to narrate the experience for the guests. Many of the guests were equally disappointed in the decision to not land on the island. We had a short amount of time to prepare for our on the spot lecture on Monday.

We decided to forgo the late dining hour on Sunday as we knew that we would be changing out clocks and losing an hour’s sleep so we wanted to go to bed earlier and be ready for this unexpected “play by play” on deck in the morning.

Upon waking, we felt that our first week on the Pacific Princess had been a success and we were ready to offer our comments to the guests who crowded the pool deck and jogging track on decks 9-10 in anticipation of viewing Devil’s Island. We answered numerous questions and took turns relaying information on this infamous penal system that gave a ‘black eye’ to France’s modern history.

Later in the day we watched the silly ceremony marking our crossing the equator. Many members of the cruise staff, who had never done the crossing were doused with various liquids and thrown into the pool. Even the ship’s captain allowed himself to be tossed into the pool in full uniform. It was a delight for all who participated and for those of us “shellbacks” happy not be included but just watch the proceeding on the pool deck.

We are now off to the mouth of the Amazon and will not be ashore again until Thursday.

A Day at the Beach

Travel Blog   Saturday, December 28, 2013

Scarborough, Tobago, West Indies

Today was our third port day. Sunday will be an at-sea day.

We were pleased when we arrived at Scarborough harbor on the island of Tobago (pronounced to bay go).  We were the only ship in that day.  Tobago doesn’t get many cruise ships. Scarborough appeared to be a clean and well-organized city and we had a nice view of the entire waterfront area.  This was quite a contrast to the mountainous, and somewhat randomly-organized character, of our previous day’s visit to St. Lucia. 

Tobago is the smaller part of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago and is a vacation destination for many, including the residents of the other island, Trinidad.

Since we had not enjoyed a beach day on this cruise so far, we decided that that this would be a great opportunity for one.  Our guidebooks recommended Pigeon Point, a famous beach area on the southwest end of the island.  We hailed a taxi at the port area and enjoyed the half-hour drive to the beach.

Saturday was a busy day for the residents of the island, also and the roads and towns were crowded with shoppers and beach-goers. Passing through a security gate and paying our nominal admission to the beach   Palm trees provided just the right amount of shade in the right places and we pulled our beach lounges up to a spot overlooking the sandy beach.

reserve, we were enchanted by the setting.

The beach at Pigeon Point provides nearly everything one could desire.  The water is warm and, after the first 30 feet of broken coral, the bottom was sandy.  The waves were just right, small enough so they didn’t knock you down and large enough to make swimming fun.  A reef far offshore tempers the size of the waves.  I don’t think Hawaii has any swimming beaches that can beat this.

We spent our three hours at the beach swimming, sunning, reapplying our sunscreen and talking with the other ship’s lecturer, Michael, who showed up there about an hour after we did.

Unlike many Caribbean ports, Tobago does not have dozens of vendors selling tacky tourist goods at dockside.  The central town market carried only normal goods for the Tobagans.  We will be stopping here on our return voyage and will try to find some items to bring home.

We were back aboard Pacific Princess by 2:00 and grabbed some lunch and relaxed on deck before our desk duty from 5:0-6:00.  We enjoyed music in the lounge before our 8:15 dinner.  The ship is quite a ‘roller” and the deck’s motion sometimes makes it difficult to walk. We turned in about 10:00 and tired and contented.

Sunday will be a sea day on our way to French Guiana and Devil’s Island

A day in St. Lucia

Travel Blog December 27, 2013

St. Lucia, West Indies

Welcome to the lovely island of St. Lucia. We have been here before but there are things that we have not done in past trips. We thought that it would be nice to go to the beach for a kick-back day but the weather looked like some tropical rains would appear which they did. We changed our minds and opted instead to walk into the capital city of Castries and experience a cultural immersion day in the market place.

We walked into town which is approx 1.5 miles from the cruise port and went downtown to the central market and wandered with no real destination for about an hour or more. Even thought we were the only ship in port today, it was still crowded in town with lots of local shoppers. The St Lucian’s speak with a melodious lilt to their voices in a combination of English and their distinctive local Creole dialect. It is lovely to just soak up the sounds and bright colors of the buildings and clothing. It is a true Caribbean experience.

The temperatures approached the 80’s and the humidity equal, so we decided to return back the ship to cool off. The walk back took us less than an hour around this snug harbor of St Lucia.

We have been given an assignment on this ship that we have never had on previous ships to sit near the excursion desk and answer questions on the ports. We didn’t get many questions so we wonder if it is really worth our time but we are listed on the daily calendar of events so we will continue to do this each day we are assigned to do so.

The evening show time was changed today so were didn’t have to wait until after our late dinner for entertainment. We attended a show with a very funny comedian. In our experience on board cruise ships, we have heard many comedians but this was one of the better that we have seen. He played to the audience and included a number of them in his jokes and presented a show which lasted over 45 minutes. The dinner was excellent and the day was likewise here on the lovely island of St Lucia.

Off to Tobago, the smaller island in the country of Trinidad and Tobago for more exciting experiences and some beach time tomorrow.

Public market at Castries

a Day in Sint Maarten

Travel Blog   December 26, 2013

Sint Maarten, West Indies

Today is a port day.  Because of strong headwinds in the Atlantic the last two days, we arrived in port a bit later than expected.

We ate our typical leisurely breakfast on the short deck aft of the buffet on the Pacific Princess.  The food has been excellent and the service staff quite friendly.  The temperatures have been absolutely ideal.  What a wonderful place to be on Boxing Day. 

The ship was secured and we were ready to go ashore by 10:30.  Since we had spent much time on the island on previous visits, we chose to stay right in Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch Side.

The island is split between two countries  Sint Maarten, occupying the southern portion of the island, is a self-governing entity under the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  St. Martin, in the island’s North, is French territory.  There is not border visible between the two parts.  The island is the smallest geographic piece of land occupied by two different countries.

John enjoys Philipsburg beach

We decided to take a walk from the port area to town, a distance of about 1 ½ miles.  For us, this is a leisurely stroll. 

We coated our pale winter skins with sunscreen, topped off with a layer of mosquito repellant and set off toward the commercial center of Philipsburg.  It was a very pleasant walk, although we soon got in the habit of sticking to the shady side of the street.  It may be midwinter, but we are definitely in the tropics!  We walked down the boardwalk at beach-side and then went inland one block to Front Street, the crowded commercial center of the town. 

We had a list of a few items to buy that we needed to bring with us and Philipsburg is possibly the best place in the Caribbean to shop.  We had soon purchased everything we were looking for and were ready for a break.  After reaching the end of town, we returned to the beautiful beach fronted by the boardwalk and found a little beach-side bar that had wi-fi as well as cold beverages.  We listened to the live reggae music performed for us as we Skyped our daughter, Kari, from our table.  What a perfect way to spend the middle of the day! 

We hauled our purchases back to the ship and headed up to the buffet for a 2:00 lunch.  This gave us a few hours to relax and clean up, since we were scheduled to answer questions at the excursions desk from 5:00 to 6:00.  We had a number of questions from the passengers about our next stop, St. Lucia, and were pleased that Kari had been there only a few weeks ago and had given us fresh information.

We again chose to dine at our scheduled 8:15 time in the Club Restaurant and traded stories about our day ashore.  The meals were excellent, as usual.  The evening show featured a pair of twins, performing on the electronic violins, which seemed to be enjoyed by all. 

John turned off his reading light at midnight.

Friday we would be in St. Lucia.

Travel Blog December 24-25 2013

Travel Blog   December 24-25 2013

At sea, the Atlantic Ocean north of Puerto Rico

Merry Christmas to all

We awoke feeling more rested on Christmas Eve day, after our 3 hour sleep before embarkation in Florida.  Today was our first of many shows that we are scheduled to present for all of the guests. With this being the first morning on board and also with a time change we expected a very small turn out at our 9:45am show but were pleasantly surprised at the amount of other early risers. We had approximately 100 guests attending our show covering the first three ports of call in the Caribbean: St Martin, St Lucia, and Tobago. The show was very well received and we enjoyed explaining the ports of call that we enjoy visiting.

After our show and questioning period, we had a nice relaxing day on board ship. We purchased an internet card so we were able to send and receive emails. The most important reason for doing this was to be able to keep in contact with Kari and Jim. We Skyped them in the afternoon from our stateroom on deck 3 so we were excited to see that we will be able to talk to them “in person” as we continue this 28 day journey.

Christmas Eve was the first formal night and we attended the captain’s cocktail reception before dinner. We still needed to catch up with our sleep so we decided not to go to the evening production show but opted to go to bed soon after dinner. We have been assigned late seating which means that our dinner doesn’t start until 8:15. The show on Christmas Eve didn’t start until 10:15 and we were sure we would embarrass ourselves by falling asleep in the show.

On Christmas morning the sun was shining but it was windy. This made a challenge to get our daily deck walk accomplished as we had to push against head-on breezes as we rounded the track. The ship was bucking the winds all day which made for a very rocky experience.

The daily program called the Princess Patter listed us three times on the 25th. Our port show from Christmas Eve was rebroadcast continuous on the stateroom TV’s so we watched and critiqued our performance in our room. We normally tend to be overly critical or maybe nit-picky when we watch ourselves on TV but we thought that it looked pretty good. Our background music was not picked up on the theater’s audio feed so we know we will have to correct that with the staff for our next shows.

Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!

On Christmas, there were religious services and a variety of activities throughout the ship. We presented one of our favorite shows on Pirates to a large crowd in the afternoon. The show lounge was almost filled. We enjoy giving this show and by the comments we received from the guests, we knew that they enjoyed it also. After the show, the cruise director had listed that we would be available near the excursion desk for an hour to answer questions from the guests. We had a few people stop by with questions.

We wanted one more night to catch up on sleep so we decided to eat an earlier dinner and go to the early show. We ate our dinner in the Panorama Buffet and then attend the special Christmas variety show at 8:15. The turkey dinner was quite good with many traditional foods for the holiday. We were in bed by 10:00. Tomorrow we have our first port in St. Martin so we will be refreshed and ready to hit the shore with renewed energy.

We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday and that 2014 will be a great year you.

At sea, off the southeast coast of Florida

Travel Blog   December 22-23 2013

At sea, off the southeast coast of Florida

We awoke Sunday morning to a beautiful Palm Springs area day.  This Sunday was the first full day of winter, but you would never know it, as the sun was shining bright with a temperature of nearly 70* F and there was no wind.  The mountains sparkled as Gary, our house-sitter, drove us from our winter home in Desert Hot Springs to Palm Springs Airport. 

Since it was the peak of the holiday travel rush, with reports of horrible weather all over the center of the US, we were quite apprehensive about our travel plans.  We would be partially right about this.  We checked in at the Delta counter with our two large bags.  We thought they might be overweight, but they didn’t even bother to weigh them with the rush.

Our plane was right on time for its 12:15 departure and we were soon flying over the glistening, snow-capped peaks of southwest Colorado. As Delta does not fly directly from Palm Springs to Fort Lauderdale, we were forced to change planes in Minneapolis, a city known for its winters. 

We were not surprised to land after dark in the middle of some snow flurries.  Ascending the jet way into the terminal, the sharp cold air made us very much aware of the difference between the California desert and Minnesota winters.  We had packed no winter clothes for this trip. 

Since we had just over an hour before boarding our flight to Florida, we rushed to our departure gate, located at the other end of the airport, grabbing a sandwich at Subway while on our way.  We seated ourselves comfortably in the departure lounge and waited for the boarding call for flight 1688. 

Just as the Law of Gravity keeps us from floating off into space, another law often prevails, Murphy’s  We had both been concerned that bad weather might delay our departure, but we hadn’t considered that a series of human and mechanical errors would make the trip more challenging.   Immediately before our scheduled 6:45 loading time, an announcement was made that the airliner, a venerable MD90, was having some computer problems, which would need to be repaired and the computer reset before takeoff.  After a few more announcements were made, finally telling the passengers that a new plane would arrive from Seattle at 8:30 and, after it was unloaded and serviced; it would take us on our way. 

We were eventually loaded on the new plane, carry-ons stowed and seatbelts adjusted when the captain made a new announcement on the intercom.  Water and drinks had not yet been loaded and there with be a further delay.  A short time later, another announcement came from the cockpit.  Because of the delay, the maximum 16 hour work day for the cabin stewards would be exceeded and we were directed to leave the plane, carrying all of our things until a cabin crew could be found.  It turned out they were on a Minneapolis bound flight, but would board as soon as they arrived from Atlanta.

The mood of the passengers turned from impatient to downright surly as we off-loaded our gear and headed back to the terminal.  John decided that DELTA must stand for “Doesn’t Even Leave The Airport.”  We knew if the flight was cancelled that we would miss our cruise. A series of phone calls and texts to our travel-agent daughter, Kari, kept us informed of what we could expect.

Finally we re-boarded the plane and taxied a short distance to have the plane de-iced.  We finally headed to the runway at 12:30 am, five hours and ten minutes after our scheduled departure time.  Although everyone aboard was dog-tired, we found it nearly impossible to get any serious sleep in the rigid and cramped seating on the jet.  We arrived to a nearly empty Ft. Lauderdale Airport shortly after 5:00 am, grabbed our luggage from the carousel and took a taxi to our hotel, where we checked in 6:00, Monday morning!

We awoke about 9:30, grabbed breakfast, showered, packed and headed to the nearby Port Everglades Cruise Terminal, where, after a bit of a wait, we got onboard the beautiful Pacific Princess.  This is one of the smaller cruise ships in the fleet, with a passenger capacity of only about 600. 

Our stateroom on deck 3

We were very pleased with our spacious outside cabin and the classic beauty of the ship, but we were tired and hungry.  We obtained our lecturing schedule and met our tablemates for our late-seating dinner.  The food was excellent, as was the service.

We are scheduled to deliver our first program at 9:45 am in the Cabaret Lounge.  Nearly exhausted, we remembered to turn our clocks ahead before retiring at midnight.

Beginning our Amazon Adventure

December 21, 2013

Desert Hot Springs, California

Today is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is the shortest day of the year.

We are trying to get all of our last-minute bill-paying and packing done in preparation for our latest adventure.  An old friend, Gary, arrives today to act as a cat sitter and house sitter.  I hope Ocho, our black Persian, doesn’t terrorize him too much.

Today is a typical winter day in the Palm Springs area.  It is a mild morning with blue, sunny skies and very little wind.  You couldn’t ask for better weather.  We fly to Florida tomorrow to embark on our cruise.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast for much of the US is not promising and we hope that we can get to Florida by Monday, when our cruise departs.  This is also one of the busiest air travel weekends in the USA.  We are especially concerned about making our connection in Minneapolis.  I guess whatever happens will happen.

We will be working as lecturers on two separate 14 day back-to-back cruises which will leave Ft. Lauderdale on Monday and end in Manaus, Brazil, 1000 miles up the Amazon.

We have three ports of call in the Caribbean, a stop at Devil’s Island, French Guiana, and four stops in the Amazon.  We will spend Christmas and New Year’s Day at sea on the southbound trip. Our ship, the Pacific Princess, will offload its passengers in Manaus and bring on a new load of passengers on our northbound voyage.

We sincerely hope that Murphy’s Law does not kick in for us on this trip.  We will try to update this blog when possible.

Smooth sailing and Happy New Year.

John and Donna

You might be able to catch us during our travels on Skype at j.mollan

Minneapolis forecast

SUNDAY	SUNDAY NIGHT	MONDAY	MONDAY NIGHT
Cloudy	Cloudy	Snow	Snow	Chance Of Snow	Mostly Clear
Hi: 19°F	Lo: 14°F	Hi: 17°F	Lo: -6°F	Hi: 4°F	Lo: -14°F
		POP: 70%	POP: 60%	POP: 20%

On the way home

May 6, 2013
Vancouver International Airport
This was a day of waiting, confusion and frustration.
This cruise has certainly been in wanted nothing more than pthe very tiop tier of cruises we have worked on. Our presentations were flawless.  The ports of call were fascinating.  The food, entertainment and service aboard was first-rate.
However the departure from the shipand the ground transfers, were nothing short of chaotic.
It seems as if each person on the shore side wanted nothing more than to pass us on to the next person, rather than attempting to really solve our problem relating to ground transportation .
I won't go into details, but we must have received 40 different "answers" from 40 different people between the time we exited the ship's gangway and finally got your ground transportation, which was supposed to have been provided.  We finally just grabbed a taxi and will deal with this matter when we get home.
Anyway, we still have a wait of at least six hours at the airport before our late Delta flight takes off for Salt Lake and transfer to Palm Springs.
Hurry up and wait!  :)

WE did make it home by 11:00 pm.  Two commuter jets, but smooth ride. 
It was actually cool here in Palm Springs!

A Few Hours in Victoria

The day dawned absolutely beautiful.  We will be rounding Cape Falttery, the northwest tip of Washington state, today.  After the rough water the past two days, this is quite a relief.
We spent much of the morning packing, but enjoyed some time by the pool in deck chairs.
Unlike other days, our presentation took place in the afternoon.
Our first five presentations have received rave review from both passengers and staff, with many personal comments and follow-ups.  We really couldn't have done better.
Entering the Juan de Fuca Straits, we were entranced, as always of the Olympic Mountains on the starboard side, and Vancouver Island on our port side.
The original schedule had us stopping for shore excursions and visits to Victoria at 6:00 pm.  the headwinds and heavy seas of the previous two day slowed our progress and we couldn't get ashore until 7:30, which made for a short evening on land.
We were greeted on land by our good friend, Brenda Hazelton, who lives in Victoria.  She is a port greeter and was dressed in the charming costume of the Victorian era.  She invited us to her home, where we were pleasantly surprised to also see our mutual friends, Steve and Janis, another couple from the Sands.  What a good time we had chatting about a wide variety of subjects!
All too soon, it was time to return to the ship for a slow-speed crossing to Vancouver, where our cruise will end on Sunday.
Brenda and Jim, thank you so much!

Brenda, Donna, Janis, Steve & Mokie

Jim, Brenda, John Steve, Mokie in Victoria

It's Show Time!

Donna enjoys a beautiful evening on the Promanade Deck

May 2-3

Two Days at Sea

We have enjoyed two days at sea. We were presented two shows that we wrote and produced on the history of the great ocean liners. The first one, on Thursday, took us up to 1930 and emphasized the history of the immigrant experience and also WWI. The Friday show continued with the saga of the ocean liners from 1930-1960 including the important war effort of these ocean liners.

The show lounge was filled with guests during our shows and from the comments that we received after each show, the audiences seems to enjoy our shows very much. We found that we have a ‘following’ of guests who have attended each of our shows. Many of the guests that boarded this week in San Diego mentioned that they wish that they could have been able to view our earlier shows. 

The guests with scheduling conflicts have watched the presentations on their stateroom TVs at their leisure. We haven’t been able to walk anywhere on the ship with out someone stopping to talk about their own family experiences on these ships and to tell us just how much they have appreciated having us on board. Our heads are growing daily with the compliments we are receiving. This has to be the largest amount of comments that we have ever received on our shows on any previous cruise. The compliments are definitely our “pay”. We love presenting our nautical series of shows for the hundreds of guests on board..

our venue, Showroom at Sea on the Statendam

After our morning show on Thursday, we went up to the Crow’s Nest which is a wonderfully positioned bar on deck 12 in the bow of the ship. Since this is an older ship, this area has not been filled with verandah staterooms  or a gym as is the case with the newer ships looking for revenue everywhere. While we were looking out the windows in this observation bar, we were lucky enough to see a variety of whales nearby. Many of them broached and all of them entertained us. There was a blue whale, a fin whale and humpback varieties all spotted. It was exciting to see these whales so close to our ship.

On Thursday, we went to a wonderful headliners show with all the band playing and two of the four singers showing their fabulous skills in operatic styles. This ship has the smallest entertainment crew that we have ever experienced with only two dancers, four singers and five musicians so they are busy everyday in the bars and on stage and they do a fabulous job each time we see them in various venues around the ship.

Friday found us off the northern CA coast with the first rough seas of the cruise. It was windy and choppy all day so we had difficulty walking our two miles on the promenade deck so we had to resort to walking the inside decks. Tomorrow is supposed to be calmer and this will be appreciated by the other guests and by me (Donna) as I had trouble standing on the stage to deliver our show and felt a little sea sick when we went up to the highest lounge, the Crow’s Nest.

Tomorrow we arrive in Victoria for the evening and some of the guests living on Vancouver Island will disembark. The rest of us will have the evening to enjoy this lovely city.

San Diego, a US Port of Call

May 1, 2013

San Diego, a US Port of Call

San Diego is always one of our favorite ports of call.  There is so much to do in the city.  Since we lecture on maritime themes, our first stop was the San Diego Maritime Museum, located right next to our ship’s docking area.

The museum is most famous for the windjammer, Star of India, the oldest merchant ship still afloat. 

In addition the Star, many other ships are included in the museum.  A replica of Surprise, a British brig-of-war from the Revolutionary War era is absolutely fascinating.  Also in the fine collection of ships are racing yachts in the America’s Cup class, as well as two submarines, (one Russian) and a classic San Francisco Bay ferry, restored to its condition 100 years ago.

When it comes to historic merchant ships, nothing beats the Star of India.  The barque-rigged, iron-hulled square sailer was built in 1863 and, over the years, hauled just about everything from bulk cargo to immigrants from Britain to New Zealand.  Of course, since one of our most popular lectures is about square riggers, we spent much time aboard, examining nearly every feature of this proud ship.  We were amazed at the amount of interior room below decks and also discovered that the crew of the ship numbered only about 25. Just sixteen of those were seamen who went aloft in the rigging. Comparing the British brig of the mid 1700s to the 1863 Star of India, we were surprised to find how far sail technology had advanced in just one century.

For any traveler to San Diego harbor, the museum is a must.

After catching up on our email, we spent some of the afternoon hours strolling through parts downtown of San Diego.  This central area lacks much in the way of retail space and is mainly occupied by government buildings, financial institutions and hotels, but we were still fascinated at the way their railroad service interfaced nicely with the efficient light-rail trolley service.

Our ship departed San Diego after dinner and we were soon heading north.  Our next port-of-call will be Victoria, three days from now.

Two Days at Sea

The Star of India was our next door neighbor in San Diego

may day
We are docked for the day in San Diego and the weather is lovely. About 400 guests disembarked here and we are added about the same today on the way to Vancouver. We have presented 3 shows on board with great reviews from the guests. We have 3 more to go. This is a lovely older ship, Holland America Statendam and we are enjoying the great service from the staff. Nice to be back in US waters.

It is Sunday so it must be Puerto Vallarta.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

It is Sunday so it must be Puerto Vallarta.

Today is our last Mexico stop and last chance to speak Spanish. We arrived at the port and were treated to a perfect view of the PV triathalon. We had a great view of the swimming part of this event from our decks on the ship and watched as these athletes swam the long course and then ran to their bikes for that part of the race. We were tired just watching them!

We decided to take the city bus down to our favorite area of PV, the old city. Since it was early on a Sunday morning, many of the shops were closed but we still had fun wandering throughout the downtown for a couple of hours. We were in search of another Mexican ceramic sunshine to add to our collection displayed in our home. We found one that we do not have yet. We have purchased one of these on every trip to Mexico and have about 25 of them displayed and surprisingly we have never bought a duplicate.

We stopped at Sr. Frogs for a cool drink and then found a city bus heading back the 6 miles toward the ship. The bus fare was just 8 pesos (about 75 cents), a lot better than the taxi prices of around $20. Riding the city buses is always an adventure but this time it was a slow adventure coming back to the ship as only a few lanes of traffic were open due to the triathalon bicyclists in the middle two lanes. It usually takes about 20 minutes to travel by bus from downtown but this time it took about over an hour. We got a chance to get a rear end massage on the bus as it slowly rode over the cobblestones J

We went back out to check our email and post this blog entry as we will be at sea for two days now so internet will not be available to us. We will be busy with shows for the next couple of days and will not be in port until Wed. when we dock in San Diego.

Adios to Mexico until our next trip.

Manzanillo, Mexico

a view of the city from our ship

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Manzanillo, Mexico

We have always enjoyed your visits to this charming port city and today was no exception.  Manzanillo has built a new cruise port since our last visit a few years ago and it makes access to the central part of the city quite convenient.

Manzanillo is a charming city located on several peninsulas and isthmuses with picturesque homes winding their way up the city’s steep hillsides. We spent several hours strolling the streets of this town and picked up a few odds and ends, but purchased no souvenirs.  Unlike our experiences on a few of our previous trips to this city, we did not get lost even once!

The city is also the Pacific home of Mexico’s navy and we witnessed their operations during the heavy ship traffic in this busy port. 

If you want to see what a Mexican city is like, free of the pressure of tourist schlock, try Manzanillo.

At Sea off the Pacific Coast of Central Mexico.

Friday, April 26, 2013

At Sea off the Pacific Coast of Central Mexico.

Today was the first sea day of our voyage.

Since Holland-America hired is to present on sea days, this was also our first lecture.

Our program, titled Life on a Square Rigger is always popular and this was well attended.  We had the Showtime at Sea theater. It makes for a comfortable presentation as we can see the audience and interact with them.  Since the show, we have continued to received nice comments from the passengers and crew.

Thursday, April 25th
Bienvenidos a Huatalco Mexico

We are

now in Mexico and we have been in this charming port before so we decided not to go on a tour and just stay in the port area. The temperature in in the mid 90's and very humid so we wanted to go to the beach for a swim. We got ready to get in the water but were warned of stinging jelly fish so we went back to the ship and took a swim in one of the pools.
This is a Holland America older ship but very nice and only 1200 passengers. Tomorrow is our first presentation so we are excited about that. We then head to Manzanillo and PV and then Sand Diego and Victoria and Vancouver BC. We have 6 shows to present before Vancouver so we will be busy but that is what we love to do on board.
Hope all of you are well and enjoying our blog.
Adios.

Puerto Chiapas, Mexico

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Bienvenidos a Mexico

Puerto Chiapas

We decided not to do any touring today and instead stayed onboard our ship, with just a brief walk along the pier area to give us a chance to catch up on our blog and email.  There is very little to see in this most southerly of Mexican ports and a day on deck looks very good to us.

Note:  We passed a long line of people relaxing in deck chairs on the Promenade Deck yesterday.  Not one was texting or using an e-reader. Let’s hear it for print.

We took a dip in the ship’s aft pool, went to lunch at the Lido and then went ashore to post the messages you are now reading.

Tonight is our first formal night and we are looking forward to playing dress-up.

Puerto Quetzal Gorgeous Guatemala

Donna check out gorgeous Guatamelan goods.

Volcano of Fire looms over Antigua

Tuesday, April 23^rd

^{Puerto Quetzal}

Gorgeous Guatemala

Since this was our first time in Guatemala, we decided to take a group tour away from the port and see the city of Antigua de Guatemala. We had a nice breakfast and then boarded a small tour bus for a day of touring to this mountain city. We were looking forward to some cooler weather and a chance to see this town. We were happy for the temperatures in the 70’s after the sticky 90 degree temperature and the humidity of the last 5 days at the coast. We were pleasantly surprised by the beauty and size of Antigua as we had not expected such a lovely large town. We now understand why this place was chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage sight. We have been to a number of places with this designation throughout the world and have never been disappointed and Antigua was no exception.

We were lucky to have been assigned an excellent tour guide for this day excursion. Our guide, Nury, is an archeologist and local who has been a tour guide for 25 years so she was able to share an enormous amount of information during the 5 hour trip.

Once we arrived in the town our elevation was over 5000 feet and very comfortable for wandering throughout. We first went to the jade museum and again met the American expert on jade. Mary Lou recognized us and welcomed us to her museum and jade factory and showed us around. Then we had an hour or so to wander through the central plaza and market area of this lovely town. We bought some of the items that Guatemala is so famous for, hand woven textiles and mountain coffee beans. We even bought some hand painted necklaces from one of the Mayan women selling them in the plaza.

On  the trip back to the ship, Nury continued her talk about the culture of the Mayan people and told us that 65% of the native people in the country are Mayan and that they are from 21 different groups, each with their own culture and language. Very few have intermarried but she said that her family had done so, therefore she is a mestizo. She also explained that there are over 300 volcanoes in the country. She said that 37 of these are cones and 4 are active with the last eruption very recently in October 2012. They are also plagued by constant earthquakes due to their location on two fault lines. She pointed out some of the buildings and churches that have been destroyed and are currently being rebuilt in Antigua. That restoration is slow due to cost. It was a wonderful educational tour.

We had a chance to Skype home and catch up on our email at a dockside internet café.  Yes, we can live a day or two without going online!

We missed lunch due to our tour so we opted for an earlier dinner and enjoyed the company at our table. They were French Canadians from Quebec City and were bilingual. We were happy to find that they could speak English well as we can’t speak French. With the majority of the guests on this ship from Canada we have met many of our northern neighbors and feel right at home again since our CA. winter home friends are mostly from Canada.

Enjoying Antigua's central plaza

The show was excellent. The entertainer played a variety of instruments, some real and some homemade. They included the banjo, guitar, bagpipes and the ever popular turkey baster! He presented a musical comedy act which was quite entertaining. After the show, we went dancing and then off to bed. Tomorrow is the first of many stops in Mexico.

A Day in Nicaragua

Pedicabs are popular in this Nicaraguan town.

Donna and John relax in hot Corinto

Monday, April 22, 2013 

A Day in Nicaragua

Corinto

We awoke shortly before 6:00 when room service brought coffee to our stateroom.  We went up on deck to experience what we could see would be another hot, humid, tropical day, as is to be expected at the beginning of the rainy season.  After a light breakfast at the Lido, we attended a presentation by another speaker on board, an archaeologist residing in Guatemala, who is a world-renowned expert on jade, Mary Lou. Her level of expertise was truly astounding.

Dressing as lightly as possible, we disembarked to the portside town of Corinto, Nicaragua.  This port gets very few cruise ships in each year, so really is not fully set up tourism.  This made our visit much more authentic than the tourist traps full of diamond merchants and other chain operations that you find so often in cruise ports.  The area is apparently not wealthy, in any sense of the word. The most common form of public transportation is bicycle-driven pedal-carts.

After buying a few, inexpensive, souvenirs and slaking our thirsts with some beverages, we returned to the ship in time for lunch. We were able to practice our Spanish a bit more as well as obtain a few local coins, the cordoba, for our collection.

We were assigned open seating at dinner so we have been able to sit with different guests. We are also able to go to dinner at our choice of times so that is so much nicer than assigned seating that we usually are given as guest lecturers.

After dinner, we went to the show and then off to bed for a good night’s sleep ready for tomorrow in Guatemala. Buenos noches.

Tuesday, April 23^rd

^{Puerto Quetzal}

Pacific Ocean, west of Costa Rica

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Pacific Ocean, west of Costa Rica

We are now under way, heading to Nicaragua.

Our day started with a lazy morning at our hotel/condo in Jaco, Costa Rica.  After a bit of packing, we had our usual breakfast of tropical fruits, coffee and toast and then took a dip in the pool.  We had the entire pool to ourselves, since the surfers were challenging the ocean waves. We enjoyed swim thoroughly.

We checked out of the hotel, applying our leftover colones to our hotel bill and grabbed our taxi to head to the port of Caldera, located about an hour north of Jaco.  We enjoyed seeing much of the area in the daylight that we had passed after dark on the way in, especially the river filled with 16 ft long crocodiles (swimming not recommended).

We had no trouble boarding our ship, since we were one of the half-dozen staff members new to Statendam at this location.  We were last on this ship 15 years ago, before starting our careers as cruise-ship lecturers and, after a lunch in the Lido, we enjoyed re-discovering the ship. 

Statendam is a relatively small ship, by today’s standards, with fewer than 1300 passengers.  We appreciated how Holland-America has worked to preserve the traditions of their 140 year-old line.  Unlike many of the new mega-ships, HAL does not find in necessary to have every square foot of the deck, a revenue-producing area.

After meeting with the ships Event Manager, Linda, we retired to our room to unpack.  Following a spectacular tropical thunder and lighting show, featuring simultaneous booms and flashes, the ship pulled out of its dock at the industrial port of Caldera. We headed northwest to Nicaragua.

Following a fine dinner in the Rotterdam restaurant, we enjoyed the entertainment provided by the ship’s singers and dancers at the 10:00 show. We were amused by the fact that we were younger that most of the audience at the program. 

We turned in shortly after 11:00 after a busy day.  Donna reported the following morning that she did not remember her head hitting the pillow.

Gliding through the Rain Forest

iguana a.k.a. "tree chicken

Donna relaxes outside our condo.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Day two in Costa Rica

Today we were able to relax in the morning as our tour van was not scheduled to pick us up until almost 11:00 am. We had another continental breakfast which we enjoyed very much. The fresh tropical fruit plate was excellent. Along with a slice of toast and coffee, we were ready to explore.

While waiting for our tour, we walked around the grounds of this lovely hotel as we had not had a chance to do so as of yet. We also walked on the beach and watched the surfers riding the big waves in front of our hotel.

Today Kari had scheduled us to visit the Rain Forest and it was very lush and lovely. The van trip was short and we arrived at the park where we were met by a park guide named Ronald. Not the typical Spanish name! We were the only two on this tour with the guide so it was very personal. First we boarded the aerial tram which travels over the top of the Rain Forest. Ronald explained about all of the plants and the few animals that we saw in the trees as we rose about the forest at the top of the mountain. It was interesting to learn about the foliage but we didn’t see many animals from the tram.

After the tram ride of about 45 minutes, Ronald took us on a walk through the grounds for about an hour. He took us to the serpentarium which had many varieties of snakes, all alive and all in glass cages thank goodness. At each stop, he explained which were venomous and which were not and told us about their native Costa Rican habitat. He also shared more information on the plant life as we wandered through the area. This was very educational for us.

We left the park and asked the van driver if he could drop us off in the town of Joca instead of our hotel. He did not speak English but we asked him in Spanish and were glad that he understood where we wanted to go. We walked around the town and found it to be no different than any other tacky, surfer, tourist town. Nothing changes in these beach towns regardless of the country we are in.

After lunch at a bar, we decided to walk back to our hotel. We checked our hiking GPS that we always take with us when we are traveling; and realized that the walk back was only about 1 ½ miles so that would be easy. We had been told that the best way to get around the area was via the beach as the highway is very busy with no walking area on the shoulder.

Just as we began our town and beach walk, the daily thunder storm began. There was lots of thunder and lightning again over the surrounding mountains but only a light rain this time, unlike yesterday’s downpour. We decided that it wouldn’t hurt to walk in the rain so we did that and enjoyed the beach in the rain.

We got back and showered and washed our wet and sticky, sandy clothes as there was a washer and dryer in our condo. It will be nice to start the cruise tomorrow with all clean clothes. We had purchased a bread at the local panaderia which we had as our our dinner in the condo. We had to smile as this was what we call a 'french bread' but in this bakery shop they listed it as 'American bread'.

Later the skies cleared and as the sun was setting, we heard the beautiful sounds of guitar music coming from the beach. We wandered down to enjoy the source of these melodic sounds coming from a wedding being held on our hotel beach. We watched the ceremony for about one hour and it reminded us of two beach weddings that are so close to our hearts. One was our daughter Kari and son-in-law Jim’s on the beach in Mexico and the other was our niece Catherine and her partner Sarah’s wedding on Cape Cod.

Lovely memories to end another lovely day together. Another day of Pura Vida in the paradise of Costa Rica.

enjoying the view from the tram