Mary Lis Travel Blog

12-20-06 

Progreso is a fairly new cruise port and the main reason cruise ships stop there is because the ruins of Chichen Itza are about an hour and a half away. Like most cruise ports, if you don’t venture away from the port it is mainly a bunch of cheap stuff for sale. Our shore excursion of kayaking through mangroves and swimming in a cenote had been cancelled due to lack of interest and when we asked at the shore excursion desk they said there was not really anywhere we could swim in a cenote (We found out later they just didn’t know what they were talking about.) So we opted to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast in the main restaurant – they made me a delicious asparagus and mushroom omlette and I developed over the week a great love for Crystal’s oatmeal.

After breakfast we took a complimentary bus into town – basically to the end of the 8 km pier – and went to take a look at the beach. The water was very murky and there was no place to put our stuff while we were swimming so we opted to go back to the ship. I did stop and buy some “pearls” for $8.00. I put it in quotation marks because I have no idea whether or not they are really pearls and, for the price, it seems likely they are not. But I love them all the same.

I went upstairs to the gym to workout and then did yoga on the balcony. That was perhaps one of the best times of the cruise for me. At one point I looked up and there were two black frigate birds flying above me – a passenger had pointed out to us earlier that you can recognize them by their forked tails – and it was a wonderful moment. Dinner was French themed, which did not appeal to either of us, so we managed to secure a second reservation at Silk Road, the Japanase restaurant where we had sushi and miso soup and rock prawns and I had the most tender delicious steak I have ever had. The waiter told me it was the same grade as kobe beef. Mary got to have sushi for the first time in her life. She hates seaweed and I asked our first night in Silk Road if they had anything without seaweed. The waiter said they could make it with soy paper instead of seaweed and she was very happy with that and pleased that she could join the sushi nation.

After dinner Mary attempted to go out on deck for her cruise tradition of standing at the front of the ship in the dark and singing along with her IRiver mp3 player, but it was too windy and scary. At 8:30 we went to the movie theater and saw Little Miss Sunshine which we both realy liked. I feel very bad that I was rude to the the poor guy who was standing in the theater handing out popcorn. He handed me one and I asked if it was buttered and he said yes so then I handed it back and said, “Oh, I don’t need that then,” and then walked away annoyed. The poor guy kept looking at me and clearly didn’t know what he should be doing and I felt very bad that I was taking out my annoyance on him. The last time I went to a movie it was on Holland America and they just had little bags of popcorn sitting there that you could go get throughout and even after the movie. On Crystal they made this poor guy stand there with the popcorn and then he left so you couldn’t get more if you wanted. It annoyed me that they made that poor guy stand there holding popcorn. It was also certainly inappropriate of me to take ou my annoyance on the poor guy. The movie experience is better on Holland America. It was either the screen or the projector on Crystal, but the whole picture was broken up into visible little squares. After a while I forgot about them but at first it took some getting used to.

The next day was a sea day and we had seminars to attend in the morning and afternoon. At the morning seminar we were supposed to discuss something in groups and some guy sitting in front of us said that he couldn’t leave his seat for some reason which I didn’t catch. Mary gave me a look and then wrote me a note that said, “‘I’m on quarantine’ and he’s HERE?!!” Once I caught what the jerk had said I couldn’t stop watching him. We both watched as he went and handled the juices and touched his face and touched just about every surface in the room. At the break we went back to our room and each took an Airborne. After the break he moved to the other side of the room (equal opportunity infection) and later in the afternoon we saw him in the hot tub. We were appalled. This was a travel agent, no less! The poor women who sat next to him in the morning were at our table that evening and they said he later told them he had just been released from quarantine which is not as bad, but he was still incredibly poorly behaved. Mary watched him go up to the refreshment area, pick up a tea bag and then put it back. It’s no wonder there is more Norwalk virus on the bigger ships. There are just larger numbers of people which basically increases the chances that some rude person is going to feel that is is more important for them to get their money’s worth on the cruise than to not infect their fellow passengers.

After our seminars we went to the Spanish class. At first we were the only two people there, and for that Juan Carlos gave us a bottle of Mexican Christmas beer that is in Mary’s suitcase and perhaps we will enjoy it on Christmas day. He told us about what he and his partner Cesar, did in Progreso. They signed up for a tour in town when they got off the ship. They were the only two people on the tour and for $40 got a six hour tour that included some ruins, the town of Merida, and swimming in a cenote. We were a bit jealous. A few other women showed up to the class and we all had to give speeches to the class in which we said our name and our marital status and how many pets we had. At the end he held a graduation ceremony for us where he had one of the Yamaha keyboards play pomp and circumstance and then he called out our name and had us come get our diplomas. The Spanish class was definitely one of the highlights of the cruise.

After Spanish I went upstairs to the art class to get my framed artwork. When I get a chance I will add a photo of it to this blog so you can see how talented I am. They had an open house of the ship between 1 and 6 so that people could see other categories of staterooms so we went to check out the penthouses and also the rooms without a verandah. At 5:30 we met George and Helen Litterst, the Yamaha teacher and his wife, in the bistro. Mary and I had met Helen at the Mozart tea a few days earlier and really enjoyed talking to her. She thought we would enjoy talking to George also and we had a nice chat.

We had our farewell dinner – we found we had really come to enjoy the group of people we were seated with – and then we went to the farewell show which we both found disappointing because they didn’t do a farewell to crew as they’ve done on every other cruise we’ve been on. They have the whole crew come out on stage and we get to applaud them. This show consisted of some fairly bad “ballet”, some opera singing and then a comedian who was pretty funny. He came out dressed as a Norwegian stewardess named Tuna who, among other things, talked about how she was being sexually harrassed by the ship’s captain. The other part of the show was the headline singer, Michel Bell, whom I had wanted to see a few night’s earlier. He was good, but a little too dramatic for both of our tastes.

Mary was very well-organized and packed. I was tired and basically just threw things into suitcases – thus the repack the next day in Ft. Lauderdale. We had the most movement of the entire cruise the last night and I was rocked to sleep like like a baby.

12-22-06 

The roughest night at sea is always the night after we get off the ship. At least that has been our experience both times we’ve sailed for seven days out of Florida. Yesterday we got off the ship at about 10 am. It was a very civilized disembarkation. Two nights before, they had given us our luggage tags and disembarkation times and we were not required to vacate our staterooms until it was time for us to vacate the ship. That allowed us to have a fairly relaxed morning. We showered and had breakfast in the dining room and then made our way to the Galaxy Lounge where we waited a few minutes and then left the ship.

Immediately we were surrounded by swarming porters trying to grab our bags for a tip. As I was telling Mary, “We don’t need a porter; just say no to any porters,” an attractive female porter came to ask us if we needed help and I said, “Sure, thank you very much!” Mary completely understood my change of heart and didn’t even question me. We had reserved a Hertz rental car and it seemed like it was actually quite good that we had a porter because she led us to where we should wait for the Hertz shuttle. There was one other man waiting also.

Now I say “seemed” because it took a very long time for the shuttle to come and when it did, it came across the street. We had to run across the street with our bags and then the driver tried to tell us that the shuttle was too full. These are the times I summon up my loud, offended personality and I said, “We were here before these other people and we were told to wait across the street.” He said, “Well this is for people with reservations only.” I said, “We have a reservation.” He said, “At the downtown office?” I didn’t know where my reservation was, only that it included pickup at the cruise terminal. I showed him my reservation and he jammed all our luggage into the van and the poor guy who had been waiting with us across the street had to hold some of our luggage in his lap. It was a long drive – probably over 20 minutes to the downtown Hertz Local Edition office where we all piled in and waited at least another 30 minutes in line.

When we finally received our car, a guy brought it out up front and parked it in heavy traffic and yelled at us to hurry and get our luggage in the car – he didn’t help, he did not provide a map or help us with directions. We got in the car, which stunk of cigarette smoke even though we had reserved non-smoking, and drove off, depending on Mary’s instincts to get us to Ft. Lauderdale. We left behind us one of the couples that had ridden over in the shuttle with us. They had reserved a mid-sized car and were given a Mustang convertible. They were very unhappy with this and asked to speak with the manager. The obviously bored, couldn’t care less man they were dealing with said he was the manager and shrugged his shoulders. Now, we, on the other hand, had reserved an economy car and they gave us an SUV. The obvious solution would have been to switch the two cars, but customer service was not on the agenda at the downtown Miami Hertz agency. We didn’t even know we had an SUV until they brought it to us outside. We chose Hertz because they generally have the best selection of cars and they were also one of only a few agencies that has cruise port pickup. We usually use Budget, which does not charge extra for a domestic partner to be an additional driver. Hertz would have charged us $10 so Mary was the sole driver.

We managed to get to our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale by Mary finding the freeway and then me pulling up my MapPoint software on my laptop and navigating. We are staying at The Pillars which is a lovely luxury haven within the craziness that is Ft. Lauderdale 2 days before Christmas. Even though we arrived early, they had a room ready for us and we got settled and then drove to our favorite restaurant from our last time in Ft. Lauderdale, Galanga Thai. It was not as good as last time we were there and the waitress was completely indifferent. Mary ordered panang curry and asked if it came with bell peppers. The waitress said, “Whatever it says on the menu,” and Mary said, “Well if it comes with peppers, I don’t want any.” Her curry came loaded with bell peppers to the point where she couldn’t eat it.

We then stopped at Walgreen’s to return the sunburn solutions that I never had to use on the cruise. Yay! I wanted to exchange them for a birthday card and some other items for Mary. I went to a cash register, where there was a “Code Six to the Front!” in progress. When it was my turn, I told the woman I wanted to do an exchange. She rolled her eyes at me and then yelled, “Code Five to the Front!” She then directed me to go away and someone would come somewhere eventually to help me. As I waited, whatever the next customer said was responded to with a “Code Six to the Front!” Apparently they have been watching too much ER at this particular Walgreens.

Next we stopped at Whole Foods to get some food for the plane today. This was horribly crowded and we were definitely ready to get back to the hotel, especially with the friendly South Florida driving that includes speeding up whenever you see anyone attempting to move into your lane.

At the hotel, Mary slept and I repacked my suitcases which I had basically just thrown everything into on Thursday night. I actually really enjoyed repacking – it was a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle – and I gained a great deal of space. Next we ventured out to find an ATM. The closest ATM was at a Marriott hotel and shopping center next door. We saw a booth with a sign that said “Information” and foolishly stopped. When we asked where an ATM was the guy said, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe in the back near the restrooms. Are you visiting here for the weekend?” I said, “We’re on our way home. Where are the restrooms?” He said, “Are you spending the night tonight?” I’m a little faster than Mary at noticing a sales pitch so I said, “No,” at the same time she said, “Yes.” This led him to launch into a sales pitch for something Marriott and we walked away still without any clue where to find an ATM. We finally found one and went back to our hotel where they kindly lent us a plate and some silverwear so we could have our dinner – mine was my leftovers from lunch, Mary’s a salad from Whole Foods. Then we walked outside our door to the pier and hailed the Water Taxi to take a nighttime cruise through the canals of Ft. Lauderdale. There were not nearly as many xmas lights as I had expected, but it was still lovely. We got back to the hotel about 8 and were asleep soon after. I don’t know if the water taxi, which we have done both times we were in Ft. Lauderdale, has contributed to the sea legs, but it was definitely a rough swaying night here in our room at the Pillars and even as I type right now I am experiencing very rough seas.

Well, we have to leave here in 45 minutes to get to the airport for what I anticipate will not be a pleasant day, so I will post this and get into the shower. Later I will cover the last two days of our cruise.

[This is the introductory blog post for a trip we took on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator in March 2005.  The rest of the blog for this trip is collected in a Kindle eBook called Travel With Us on the RSSC Navigator.  See our Travel With Us page for more information.]

Link to Sleep Inn photos

3-25-05

Yesterday we flew from Portland to Ft. Lauderdale. We got up at 4 am PST for a 6:45 am flight and arrived at out hotel at 6:30 pm EST. We had a free Frequent Flyer flight on Southwest which involved 2 stops before we got to Ft. Lauderdale. Last month we flew to New York non-stop on Continental and even though Southwest had more stops (2) and hassles, ultimately it was a more comfortable flight than Continental. My back started hurting the minute I sat down on Continental. The Southwest seats were slightly wider and had lumbar support. To entertain ourselves we brought our laptop computer and some dvds (Harvey and Shattered Glass) and that really helped to pass the time.

We had chosen to stay at the Sleep Inn & Suites, Ft. Lauderdale International Airport . We were able to use Choice Privileges points for a free night. (This is an excellent reward program. We also converted some Choice Privileges points to Southwest in order to get our free flights.) The Sleep Inn had a free shuttle which picked us up at the airport within about 15 minutes after we called. The hotel is very attractive and our room is quite comfortable – looks a bit like some of the new Holiday Inn Expresses we have seen in our frequent activity of me dragging Mary to look at hotels. Free high-speed internet is included (thus this post). I had to give them a $5 deposit for a cable. The wireless up in the room is completely useless.

We ordered dinner from Hunan Wok, a Chinese restaurant across the street, and they delivered it to us in less than 15 minutes. It was inexpensive and good. Mary said her chicken egg foo yung was the best she’d ever had. I don’t know if it really was or if things just taste better when you’re as exhausted as we were. I ordered something called Triple Delight which was prawns, chicken, beef, and vegetables and it was quite good also. There is also an Italian restaurant within walking distance.

After a night’s sleep (we went to bed at 10 pm quite easily even though that was only 7 pm in Portland) we can report that the bed and pillows were quite comfortable. Mary woke up this morning at 5 am and went down to the lobby to read. She says the chairs down there were very comfortable also. When I woke up, there was a Miami Herald outside our door and they had a free breakfast downstairs. Though there wasn’t really anything I wanted at the buffet, it included waffles, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, oatmeal, cold cereal in cute little boxes, sweet rolls, toast, bagels, apples, and three juices (two sugary tropical drinks and orange juice.) Mary reports that the gravy was good but lukewarm; the oatmeal was good.I went to Walgreen’s (which is very conveniently located across the parking lot) and bought myself some apple juice.

It is hot and humid here. I think it’s kind of neat – Mary not so much.

My three complaints about the Sleep Inn:

1. the windows don’t open – I don’t like having to sleep all night with the air conditioner on.

2. there was some construction nearby and when I was falling asleep I kept hearing a beeping noise that sounded like a truck backing up (Mary couldn’t hear it and wished I would stop waking her up.) There’s a slight possibility that the beeping noise was my laptop battery dying.

3. Though we’re on a non-smoking floor, people are clearly smoking down the hall from us. We can’t tell in the room, but it really smells in the hallway. I don’t know how much hotels can do about that. Personally, if I ran a hotel, there would be some hefty fines for smoking in a non-smoking room.

Overall, this is a great place to stay for the night before a cruise when all you need is some food and a bed. They have a free shuttle to the cruiseport. They’ll take us there at noon, and we will begin our cruise!

Link to Sleep Inn photos

[This is a sample blog post for a trip we took on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator in March 2005.  The rest of the blog for this trip is collected in a Kindle eBook called Travel With Us on the RSSC Navigator.  See our Travel With Us page for more information.]
3-25-05

After a lovely relaxing morning, we went down to the Sleep Inn lobby at noon to catch the free shuttle to the cruiseport. I had two days worth of the Miami Herald, 1 USA Today, and somehow I had talked Mary into carrying my bags of carrots and turkey which I planned to eat on the shuttle. However, the shuttle driver enjoyed driving fast and then making very abrupt stops (he would make a perfect Tri-Met bus driver) so I did not eat, and we were both probably more carsick on the way to the cruiseport than we would ever be seasick on the cruise itself.

It took a while to get to the cruiseport, as we had to first drive around the airport twice – once to drop off some passengers, then to pick up some others. At the cruiseport we were met at the curb by very friendly Radisson representatives and a baggage handler who surprised us by hitting us up for a tip after taking our bags. (This was in front of huge signs that said, “Workers are salaried. Tipping not required.” It was also quite surprising given Radisson’s no-tipping policy.) We tipped him a dollar a bag.

Inside the large cruise port as we were trying to figure out where to go, a Radisson representative approached us and said, “May I help you? Are you in transit? Are you working on the ship?” I must say, that given our tendency to be concerned that we don’t fit into these classy settings in the first place, this was not the best way to begin the cruise. However, Mary was dressed a little more casually than I was, and was, unfortunately, still carrying my bags of carrots and turkey. This probably did not help us in our hopes to look like we fit in. Next time, we will definitely avoid carrying little bags of food onto the ship.

That woman was the ONLY Radisson employee who ever treated us as if we didn’t belong. The woman who checked us in was very nice and acted as if it was nothing when the carrots leaked on the counter as we were being photographed and given our plastic room cards. These cards were in lovely leatherette cases and also functioned as credit cards during the cruise, as well as serving as our identification for getting on and off the ship. There was no photo on them, but when the security person swiped the card, she would see a photo of us on her screen.

We boarded the ship to extremely welcoming Radisson representatives, were each given a glass of champagne, and directed to Deck 10 where there was a buffet at the Portofino Grill and hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, salad, etc, poolside.

I spent the first few hours looking at the other passengers and saying things like, “They don’t look any better than us. I wonder if THEY were asked if they were working on the ship!” (Mary has just interrupted me to say that she wonders if there’s something a little classist about being offended because they thought we were working on the ship. I suppose there could be, but mostly I was offended because we were clearly heading towards the line to check in, and the woman made an assumption that we didn’t belong there. ) I tend to get very sensitive about these things, while Mary just thought it was funny. It probably took me about two days to realize that we basically fit in just fine. Later when I saw Patrick Swayze (more about that later – I just thought I’d begin with some name-dropping) he looked more casual than we did. Was HE asked if he was working on the ship?

Anyway, we sat down to eat, and by now I was making a big effort to hide the turkey and carrots inside the newspapers. (Mary had thrust them back at me immediately after the carrot leaking incident at check-in.)

I forced Mary to move tables when I came back from selecting my food inside and found that a woman was smoking right next to us and the smoke was coming directly at us. I’ll talk more later about Radisson’s smoking policy, which I think could be improved. For now, I’ll say that now I was all worked up about the smoking AND the fact that in my mind we clearly didn’t fit in on this ship, and poor Mary had to suffer as she always does when we begin our vacations and I worry about every little thing for the first day or so.

For lunch, I had, from the buffet inside: fresh roasted turkey, salmon, salad with virgin olive oil and lime dressing, roast potatoes, and potato salad. Mary ate from the pool grill — hamburger (no bun), french fries, caesar salad from salad bar, fresh fruit, potato salad, and “exotic cold fruit soup” Mary loved her fruit soup.

After lunch, Mary wanted to explore and begin photographing the ship. I wanted to do all the things I had read one must do when first boarding the ship, so I forced Mary to go to various places, all the time exhorting her to hurry, hurry, hurry. We went up to the spa and stood in line for about 15 minutes or so to get spa appointments. We made our appointments for Tuesday afternoon. The cost was $110 for a 5o minute massage, certainly higher than we would pay on land, but we thought it would be lovely. If you made the reservation for a morning when the ship was in port, you would get an additional 15 minutes for the same price. However, we wanted our massages right before dinner.

After we booked the massages, Mary said to me, “Come here, I want to show you something.” I knew she didn’t want to show me something, but someone as she had been whispering to me earlier and I had no idea what she was saying. She asked me to look at the man who had been behind us in line and said, “Could that be Elaine’s boyfriend from Seinfeld?” It couldn’t be Elaine’s boyfriend, but it did look very much like the actor who played Elaine’s boss, J. Peterman. She said his voice sounded like the actor’s voice also. We would encounter him quite a bit in the next few days, and if we had known the actor’s name, John O’Hurley, I might have asked him if that was who he was. But for now, we would just have to wonder.

Next we went to the library. I was not overly impressed with the selection of books. They were mostly older best-sellers, very little literary fiction, a few old magazines, but there were a lot of books, and I’m sure if I hadn’t brought books to read, I would have found something to interest me. There was a very impressive selection of travel books, and a very large number of videotapes. We never borrowed any of those as there were several good movies playing on the tv channels in the cabin.

Finally, we went to the Portofino Grill, the alternative restaurant and made reservations for dinner that night at 6:30. After that we toured the entire ship and Mary began her photographic documentary.