Setting Sail

November 6, 2013

We have set sail for America.  Wondering how many stow-a-way mice are on board?  No Cats in America comes to mind again.  Not many surprises thus far so this won’t make for an interesting read.  Check-in was a bit frustrating as we tried toSetting Sail get our room assignments correct.  We met Rio (who would name a child River?), from Indonesia, our cabin steward.  He smiles all the time, is very jolly, and is a hard worker.  He reminds me of Justin, except he is Asian.  Speaking of Justin, he just turned 30 while we were at sea.  We did purchase the ridiculously priced internet plan and were able to Skype call him on his big day.  He, Megan, and Asa had spent part of his big day with his siblings!  So proud our children enjoy each other’s company—even when we aren’t there to orchestrate it!

I digress.  Back to the cruise.  We have visited three ports- Mallorca, Malaga, and Las Palmas.  We didn’t find much to share in Mallorca.  Rey and Shelly found a great shopping mall and are all decked out in new cruise attire.  George and I are still mainly sporting our hiking clothes but have the few items we found in Barcelona.  It seems this ship is all about ‘casual’ so that certainly works for us-not sure about all of those other guests with a minimum of three large suitcases full of dress-up attire.  Malaga was, perhaps, the windiest place I’ve ever been.  Except for that, it was a great city not far from the place we just lived for eight days.  In fact, we could have paid $169 per person for a tour to Ronda.  George took us there for free just last week!  In Mallorca, we finally went inside a bull ring and toured the museum about bull fighting.  Along with the fancy outfits worn by the matadors (I’m sure the outfit has a name, but I don’t know what it is), the bull heads were mounted on the wall.  I think we all found it a bit disgusting and I, for one, will never willingly attend a bullfight.  The old town and the Roman ruins were quite pleasant but we still returned to the ship a few hours before the curfew.   Las Palmas, one of the Canary Islands, was a beautiful beach town in its own right and I’d happily spend more time there.  Finally, the weather began to warm up and swimming in the ocean looked pleasant enough.  Instead though, after a nice stroll along the beach, the four of us spent several frustrating hours on the laptop trying to locate lodging in New Orleans.  We were unsuccessful due to poor internet and limited hotel availability.  First, we did stop a minute at a beautiful beachside restaurant, though,  to begin Rey’s big birthday bash.  What a great place to turn what is the new 40!  Right? Shelly and Rey left a bit early to pick up a suitcase (yes, purple, too) they had just purchased—to hold all of their new wardrobe finds bought earlier—while George and I waited until the last minute to find our way back to port.  In a bit of a panic that we weren’t going to get to the ship in time and not absolutely sure that we knew the direct way back, we decided to take a taxi.  MISTAKE.  He took us to the port, alright.  After much driving, we could see our ship across the way.  We could swim or get back in the taxi.  I guess he thought we were passengers on the oil tankers or the freighters with words on the side of the ship that I could not read.  This would not be the day you’d want to miss your boat, if there ever is a day like that.  The next stop is Grand Turk- about 3,000 miles away and seven days later. Oh, and we had no passports as immigration in the Canaries needed to stamp us out of the country so the cruise officials had collected all of them.  We arrived with 10 minutes to spare and there were lots of people behind us in line but I do wonder what the process might be if one really missed the cruise ship.  Actually, we saw that happen last year.  I was glad to be on the inside of the ship