A Newbie’s First Cruise
OK, most folks reading my blog know that the majority of our travels are by RV, and many of those are exploring the American West. So I had no reason to be surprised by the difference between RVing on land and cruising by sea. But to be frank, I was surprised — it’s just such an enormous change in venue, mindset, scope, freedom.
To start with, a cruise ship is basically a luxury hotel/resort that floats. We have a small stateroom (no balcony), and we spend most of our time walking around the boat, seeing and doing whatever is available at the moment. In Howie, our motorhome, we fix our own meals, process our sewage, and take Navy showers. We park as far from the crowds as we can, and we enjoy our solitude to the max. Our entertainment consists of hikes through wild terrain, and sights of distant vistas.
On the ship, we are waited on hand-and-foot. All our needs are met — in spades — and all we need to do is eat, sleep, and be merry. The cruise directors are constantly coming up with activities and events to keep passengers occupied and entertained, and this all takes away from the single most negative aspect of cruising: YOU CAN’T LEAVE. You’re in a very benign prison while at sea; I believe this is where “cabin fever” originates. Of course, we were only two days at sea, hardly enough time to get claustrophobic, and then our land tours began. But it is still a massive change from the near-infinite freedom of RVing.
As for this water-borne Disneyland, the planning, design, and execution are absolutely amazing. Restaurants, theaters, gyms, pools, bars, a chapel, lounges, a medical center, and more than we’ve been able to memorize in many days’ familiarization. At almost 1000 feet long and over 100 feet wide, this huge steel monster floats in 27 feet of water, and just barely fits in the locks at the Panama Canal.
Blogging on this trip is far beyond challenging, and I must let you know that any substantial write-up is going to have to wait until after we return to our California home. Why? Well, first of all, I elected to leave my laptop at home to ease our baggage load. Instead, I am writing this on a tiny little portable keyboard, bluetoothed to my even tinier cell phone screen. It’s kind of like playing tennis in a phone booth. Secondly, although wifi is available on-board, it’s expensive, slow, and keeps logging me out. And third, we are so incredibly BUSY with all our activities that I hardly have any time to write anyway. After our initial two-day sail, our activities have been nearly non-stop. Shore excursion tours take up every day, and there are presentations, shows, and of course three meals a day.
Oh and BTW I have no photo-editing software to use to clean up raw pix.
Bottom line is that I can really do only a “preview” post while we are traveling, and I’ll try to do the trip better justice when I have a real screen, keyboard, and cable Internet. Hopefully as soon as next week? (He said, optimistically.)
The shore excursions are, of necessity, brief. The ship docks, we disembark, spend a few hours at <whatever>, re-board, and the ship sets sail. Next morning, repeat. Needless to say, our hour-long ride on a submarine in Aruba didn’t exactly make us familiar with this Caribbean Island. A similar story for Cartgena, Limon, Panama. We did get to go all the way through the entire canal system, and I will have fun telling you about that day – – but not from THIS keyboard.
Today (Thursday 3 March), we were part of a very small group to be toured through the ship’s inner sanctum. This was a sailing day (normally free time), but we were busy for the entire morning. Again, it was a fascinating look into the innards of this floating city, and I’m looking forward to writing about it…. next week.
Captions for the photos (which this setup won’t let me post in-line without a re-edit):
- Cartagena, approaching the port
- Aruba at 120 feet under the ocean (sunken ship)
- The centerpiece of the Coral Princess, the “Atrium” mid-ship
- Concert pianist impressing us with Chopin
- All-teak promenade deck (7), wet with bow-spray
- Following a cargo ship through the Panama Canal
Tomorrow, a tour of Grand Cayman, then a day of sailing, and back to Fort Lauderdale. Then a half-day tour by air-boat around the Everglades, and (phew!) our flight back home.
Stay tuned, lots more to come….
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G.
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