Tag: Cruising

Accommodations, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, TRAVEL, Travel Planning

It Wasn’t Their Fault

Jane Sadek

TRAVEL THERE: WHEN YOUR CRUISE LINE SAYS OOOOPS

I want to begin this post by saying I love Sandra Rubio and CTC Travel.  They have been more than good to me.  They get all my lavish dreams and help me balance them with my frugal husband’s concerns.  They have wonderful travel events.  They treat me like a star, even though my travel is small beans in comparison to some of their clients.  When I get all flustered and frustrated, Sandra is a rock.  I’m about to complain, but I want you to know I’m not complaining about Sandra or CTC.  In fact, they saved the cruise!

Obstructed View

I wasn’t exactly sure what Celebrity meant when I read “obstructed view” in an email from my travel agent.  I’m actually a pretty easy-going traveller.  Some people think obstructed view means that if you stand on your tiptoes and hold your head just right, then a tiny corner of the balcony above you can be seen.  That’s not me.

Then I saw they were talking about and they were 100% right.  I was going to have an obstructed view.  It was like a porthole view, not a veranda view.  I’d booked my cabin 18 months ahead and NOW, after I’d already booked my non-refundable air they were telling me about an obstructed view.

I’d booked the cabin especially, to be close to Eden, because I saw that as a sort of gathering spot for all of us who were traveling together.  Then when we booked the vow renewal ceremony, I’d requested for it to be in Eden for all kinds of reasons.  I was emotionally married to this Deluxe Ocean View State Room w/ Veranda 1B and now it was flawed!  You might say I was even a little hysterical.

I’m a reasonable person and while I wasn’t crazy about the fact that a mistake had been made, I was willing to get over myself and change cabins.  But guess what, after they had made the mistake of allowing me to book a deluxe veranda cabin, which was actually an obstructed view mess, they were ONLY going to charge me a $100 fee PER PERSON to transfer our reservation to another cabin.  Oh and if the cabin was in a higher category, then I’d have to pay for the upgrade also.  I could live with that, but $100 per person for their mistake was just a little more than I was ready to fork over.

My Little Russian Powder Keg

If I was a little hysterical, then you might also say my friend Viktoriya was Mount Vesuvius.  She wanted heads to roll.  To be honest, I kind of wanted a few heads to roll also, but I didn’t want those heads to be on the shoulders of anyone at CTC Travel.  I told Viktoriya to dial it way back.  I also told her the first thing we should do was pray, especially before we started lopping off heads.

What I most felt like doing was going somewhere to mourn, but if I didn’t do something and quickly, things would get ugly.  While I’m certainly not a travel celebrity, I have been travel blogging for a decade now.  I have thousands of followers on social media and hundreds of thousands of people see my Travel Advisor reviews.  In fact, I’m one of the Top Twenty reviewers in Dallas.  While Bill has tried to get a few upgrades with that information over the years, I do my best to downplay it.  I don’t want to be feel beholden to anyone and feel like I have to say anything nice, especially if I don’t feel there was anything nice to say.  I also don’t want anyone to think I’m just saying something nice because I was compensated for it.

For once, I was changing my policy.  It’s one thing to tell some housewife in Heath that she’s looking at the Mediterranean through a big circle.  It’s another to know that hundreds of thousands of people will hear how you ripped off someone celebrating their 25th Wedding Anniversary on your cruise ship.  I can tell you one thing, those hundreds of thousands Travel Advisor people might not have cared and maybe even my 2,000 some odd Twitter followers might not have either, but let me tell you, my 500 plus Facebook friends would care and they were going to hear all about it.

I wrote a very apologetic email to Sandra, but I did give her all my social media stats (including a copy of one of the emails Travel Advisor sends me regularly about my status in the Top Twenty) so she’d have some ammunition to use with Celebrity.  I assured her I didn’t blame her, but that I expected a different cabin and I wasn’t going to be paying $100 per person for it.  In fact, I suggested an upgrade was probably in order.

I’ve already told you that Sandra saved the day, but come back next week and find out what she did for us.

Accommodations, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, TRAVEL, Travel Planning

Trying to Pretend We’re Having Fun

Jane Sadek
Celebrity Edge Brochure
My Cruise Planning Bible

TRAVEL THERE:  PRESSURE COOKER PLANNING

With 18 months to plan our Anniversary Cruise on Celebrity’s new Edge, it would seem that everything should have been smooth sailing, but as I shared last week, almost from the day we booked to the day we left, life was just one big crisis after another.  So, what cruise planning did I manage.  I’ll tell you.

Plodding Through the Planning

In late August, I decided I absolutely had to start thinking about the cruise.  Deb was in her new house and even though Bill was all tied up remodeling our rent house, surely we could start thinking about the cruise. I got on the Celebrity Cruise Line website and started studying everything they had there about our dining choices and the shore excursions.  Excitement abounded while I looked at all the options, but Bill wasn’t as thrilled about it when I tried to share the news.  I understood why, but it still made me sad.

The next time I got around to thinking about the cruise was late September and the first thing I discovered was that much of the research I had done in August was null and void, because all the pricing had changed.  I emailed my travel agent, Sandra Rubio of CTC Travel.  She was glad to hear from me, because since we’d booked the cruise I’d been fairly invisible, but come to find out, the shore excursion pricing I’d been looking at was based on a special they’d been running.  Not much she could do about that.  The special was over.

Because we knew the cruise was going to cost so much, we’d already decided to keep a low travel profile for the year, but as I began to actually plan the cruise, I knew this event was going to take up more than two years of travel budget – more like 3 to 5 years – and all the while, we’re bleeding money on the house we were trying to sell.  Still, I had to start making some decisions.  If we were going to have a vow renewal ceremony, Sandra encouraged me to go ahead and book it.  I got over that hump in October.

The next hurdle was considering pre and post trip excursions, so we’d know when to book the air.  I planned the trip 14 ways.  I priced it out with the Celebrity pre and post trip excursions.  I even had Sandra price out DIY pre and post shore excursions.  After all that research, we finally decided to just do the cruise and splurge on the best short excursions during the trip.  I was ready to book our airfare on January 7th, exactly the number of days ahead all the travel bloggers say you are supposed to book international air.

“Obstructed Views”

We got air hundreds of dollars less than the cruise company was offering it and I had just started to relax.  Things were shaping up for our trip in spite of what was happening with the stupid real estate problem.  And that’s when I got an email from my Sandra with the words “obstructed views” in it.  It’s a darn good thing we’d booked non-refundable air, because had we not done that, just days before, chances are we would have cancelled the cruise.  It was just too much.  There had been too many complications about the cruise and in our lives.  Obstructed balconies made me want to stay home.

So what did we do?  Come back next week and I’ll let you know.

 

Accommodations, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, TRAVEL, Travel Planning

A Year of Antiscipation

Jane Sadek
Cruise Buddies

TRAVEL THERE: I HAD MORE TO DO THAN WAIT

Excuse my sabbatical from blogging.  I came back from my cruise more than overwhelmed.  I came back, got to work and haven’t looked up since, until today.  Let the cruise blogging begin!

If you’re thinking of cruising, a shift has occurred in the last few years.  After of decades of saving the best deals for last, the cruise lines finally learned they’d been training their passengers to wait until the last minute to book their sailings.  So, a major shift has occurred.  The earlier you book, the better the deal – or at least that’s what they tell you.  Sure, there will always be last minute deals, but you might not like what you get.

I just checked.  To get a room in the same category I first booked, I wouldn’t save a penny if I’d waited until now.  The good news would be that I wouldn’t be spending anymore.  However, chances are, I wouldn’t have gotten the same room, but on a smaller cruise ship, there’s the chance I wouldn’t be going at all.  So what did I do with that 15 months I had before the cruise?  Well, I’ll share some it with you.

Come Cruise with Me

My first consideration in this had been to let our family members know what we were planning and invite them along.  I notified them months before we ever settled on a cruise line.  As we considered our options, we paid serious attention to which cruises would work best with the potentially interested family members.  All that was for naught.  In the end, not a single niece, nephew, sister or cousin joined us.  Once I knew which cruise we’d be on and that there’d be no group deal, I sent out an invitation to virtually ever one on our buddy list.  Several friends had talked a good game when the cruise was mere speculation, but when it came time to book a cabin, most wandered away, some without a word, some with ‘maybe later’ and a few with stated regrets.

In truth, I’d hoped for a heftier guest list.  This whole thing had come out of my desire to stand before our friends and family and renew our marriage vows.  Moving the ceremony from our backyard to the deck of a cruise ship had emptied the party chairs of all but the most faithful and oh, what faithful friends those were.  Let me introduce you to our crew.

The first to sign up, as I’ve already told you, were Jim and Melanie.  What delightful souls they are!  Had they not stepped up and bought their fare the moment we told them which ship, I might be telling you a different tale today.  I will be forever grateful for their encouragement that day.  As a Christian I’ve learned that God often speaks through circumstances.  The message that day was loud and clear.  Come on, book your cruise.  If Jim and Melanie are there, you don’t need anyone else.

But I knew there would be someone else coming along.  From the time I first mentioned the idea of a vow renewal, my bestie, Deb, had planned to be there – backyard, boat deck or the back of beyond.  Deb is always there for me.  When we announced our choice, she was in the middle of a huge life crisis, but life crisis be damned, Deb was going to be there.

And then there’s Viktoriya.  I’ve never had children of my own, but God has filled my life with wonderful people, who mean as much or more to me, as anyone who is actually a member of my family.  Viktoriya is one of those people.  She was literally a lost soul when we met in a class at UTD and I have observed her grow into an amazing woman.  She graciously gives me some credit for the journey she has made, but it has been God that made all the difference.

Then Life Happened 

When Bill first turned my attention away from a backyard ceremony to a cruise, I envisioned the fun we’d have, poring over the ship’s brochure, selecting our shore excursions and choosing our dining venues.  He’d even promised that would be part of the package if I’d do things his way.  Well then, life happened.  Come back next week and I will tell you about that.

ART, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Performing Arts, Restaurants & Bars, TRAVEL

Formal Night on Vision of the Seas

Jane Sadek

TRAVEL THERE: PUTTING ON THE RITZ

I love dressing for dinner.  It’s not required on most cruises anymore.  They discourage you from wearing flip flops and tank tops, but pretty much anything else goes.  Even on formal night dressing up is optional, but I dress up every evening and on formal night I pull out the stops.   

Free Champagne!

The Captain’s Greeting

I can only imagine how much the captain hates formal night.  He has to get all dressed up, spend an hour or so shaking hands and taking pictures with skads of people he has no interest in and then he has to get up and make a big welcoming speech.  It was probably fun the first hundred or so time, but he does this week after week after week!  He probably realizes that most of the people are just there to get the free champagne.

Then after he makes his speech he has to introduce his management staff and let them make their own speeches.  How would you like to take the top management out of your organization to entertain a crowd that just wants free champagne?  Yeah, who’s running the boat – right?  It was almost impossible to hear what they said, but as long as the trays of champagne wandered around the room, they had an audience.

Happy Birthday, Anniversary and Everything Else

Since this cruise was to celebrate Bill’s birthday, our travel agent asked which evening we’d like commemorate the occasion.  I chose Formal Night.  Bill’s birthday wasn’t the only celebration at the table.  The Youth Pastor and his wife also got feted for their anniversary.

Our table mates were a blast, so we were grateful for the delightful company.  The food continued in it’s mediocrity.  This was the night of the lousy lobster bisque and I followed it up with a steak.  Nothing to write home about.  One more meal down.

Another Show, Another Disappointment

For formal night the entertainment was Boogie Woogie Wonderland, which was supposed to highlight the music of the seventies.  They were a little loose about hitting their target.  The seventies were my boogie woogie wonderland, but I have no idea what inspired some of the costumes they wore.

The songs they chose to highlight were among some of my favorites, but the voices just weren’t up to the challenge of the music.  Overall, it was an entertaining show, but it just came up short in the quality department.

Awkward!

To top off our night, after the show we headed to the Some Enchanted Evening Lounge for The Perfect Couple Game Show.  We were expecting a “Newlyweds Game” knock-off, but instead got the Embarrassment Olympics.

When we arrived Adult Karaoke was still going on.  There was a group of drunken bridesmaids dominating the room whether they were on stage or not.  I was glad when the spectacle was over.

Instead of a Q&A of martial habits, The Perfect Couple was a series of party games designed to embarrass people who were unwitting enough to volunteer to be contestants.  Why pay entertainers when you can get passengers to entertain everyone with karaoke and awkward feats of skill.  We made it through a few rounds, but when they started with tennis balls in men’s jeans, we decided it was time for bed.

Come back next week for sure, because we arrive in the Yucatan and enjoy a marvelous shore excursion.o

ART, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Restaurants & Bars, Shopping, TRAVEL

Our First Day at Sea

Jane Sadek
Photo Won at the Art Auction

TRAVEL THERE: ENJOYING THE BOAT

There she is!  Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas.  On our day at sea, we explored many of her charms and suffered a few of her deficiencies.  Come along and see how it went.

Up & At ‘Em

First up, the gym!  I’m an early riser, so I take advantage of it to get in an hour on a stationary bike.  The gym on Vision of the Seas is nice, but quite small.  On this morning, pretty much every spot on the equipment was filled.

I got my hour in and headed back to the room via the the buffet.  I filled up my soda cup, got Bill some ice water and picked up a few pastries in case Mr. Bill was ravenous.

More Like Eggs Benedict Arnold

Breaking Our Fast

We enjoy the luxury of sit down service and convivial company, so we returned to the Aquarius Dining Room for our morning repast.  There is no assigned seating, so you get the luck of the draw in table mates. The luck of the draw in food was pretty marginal, especially their sorry excuse for Eggs Benedict.

We ended up at a table with a bunch of round dancers, who were nice, but only interested in their dancing, so we were relieved when a mother and her daughter arrived.  After a little chatting we discovered they’d been caught in all the flooding from Harvey and it was interesting to hear about their experiences.  They became our new cruise buddies and we enjoyed seeing them several other times during the week.

We went back to the room so Bill could wrangle with his computer and the market.  I took a shower and got ready for the day, in part by perusing the Cruise Compass and picking out the good stuff, like the Art Auction

My Free Gift

Champagne Art Auction

One of my favorite things at sea are the Park West art auctions. How can you lose if you’re spending your morning looking at art and hearing tidbits about artists and the art world, while you sip free champagne?  I’m probably not ever going to be bidding, but it’s relaxing, fun and interesting.  Bill doesn’t exactly feel the same way.  He’ll attend, probably more for the champagne than the art, but he sits there, giving me a running commentary on the dangers of buying art at sea, just in case I get the urge to lift my bidding card.

Were I to actually bid on something, it would be because I thought it was a pretty picture and I’d enjoy looking at it.  Occasionally I’ll say something complimentary about a painting and Bill reacts as if I’m considering purchasing a fake Mona Lisa and he demands to know which wall we’d hang it on.  It sort of takes the fun out of the dreaming, but I just shake my head in amusement and have another sip of champagne.

Beyond the champagne, there’s always a free gift of art.  This time a 7×7 seriolithograph by Yuval Wolfson.  If I had any space on our walls, I could frame it and hang it.  Instead it will end up in my scrapbook.  There was an extra bonus this time which will also find its way to my scrapbook.  To hold the audience’s attention, they also have drawings for Royal Caribbean chotkies, like t-shirts and water bottles.  To my amazement I won one of the drawings and I got two lovely 8×10 photos of the ship – one of which is shown above – and which will kick off my scrapbook of this adventure.

Winding Up the Day and Gearing Up for the Night

The auction lasted past the sit down lunch, so we were forced to go back to the Windjammer for a buffet lunch.  It was marginally better than the Embarkation Buffet, but that’s not saying much.

Usually we would have explored more of the boat, but on this trip, Bill had to keep an eye on the market, so we went back to our room.  I really can’t complain about the relaxation.  The room was comfortable, the sea was just outside our window and after catching up on my travel journal I did a little reading.

Come back next week and I’ll tell you about formal night.

Accommodations, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, TRAVEL

While I Was Sleeping

Jane Sadek

TRAVEL HERE: VOOM DID NOT ZOOM

My first day at sea was ending, but Bill was unfortunately just getting started.  Not the best way to spend a cruise.

The Trading Day

Many people think that folks who trade stocks are sitting at their computers all day long, buying and selling, and there are traders who do that, but that’s not Bill.  He only makes a few trades a day, if any, at very specific times, mostly at the opening of the market.  What he does the rest of the day is research, testing systems and writing code.  In fact it’s what he does when the markets are closed that is the most important.

At the end of the day, when he knows whether it’s been a good day or a bad day, then Bill has to get ready for the next morning.  His systems will tell him whether there are any potential trades coming up, but he has to decide to whether to execute them or not.  He also has to be sure there is plenty of money in the accounts to make his purchases and he has to be very careful about his orders.  A careless click on the computer or the wrong wording in the order could cost him thousands.

Trading on the Boat

So, as I changed into my pajamas, Bill was firing up the computer to get ready for his morning trades.  Even sitting at his desk at home, this can take hours, according to what’s happening in the market.  On this particular Monday, the market had been taking a nosedive since the Friday before and Bill had both of his hands tied behind his back.  All he had was a laptop and a bad internet connection.  Usually he has multiple computers streaming information onto two huge screens and a rocket-face internet connection which he pays a premium for.

While our cabin was plenty big for sleeping, relaxing, grooming and changing clothes, it did not offer Bill  a perfect work space.  There was a desk-like area for putting on make-up, but it was not ideal for his purposes.  He was hyper-aware that he was just a few feet away from his sleeping wife, so he was trying to keep his movements and noises to a minimum.  He also had very poor internet connection and was suffering from the speed of the computer and the small screen.

Electricity everywhere and not a plug to plug into!

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning he decided he might have more luck with all of it out in the public areas.  He’d find a comfy chair somewhere near an electrical outlet, prop his laptop on his lap and finish up his work.  What he found was that comfy chairs were easy to come by, but electrical outlets were not.  He tried a little bit of everything, but as soon as he would find something that might work, one of the other twelve people wandering around the ship after the bars closed would come sit next to him and do something distracting – like argue with their girlfriend or clip their toenails or listen to music so loudly that even though they were using headphones, Bill could hear it.

Eventually, he was able to discern there were no trades that had to made in the morning, but that was only half the battle.  He needed desperately to do some more research, but it just wasn’t going to happen.  He crawled in bed for an hour or two, but no sleep was to be had.

Come back next week for our day at sea.

 

 

Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Restaurants & Bars, TRAVEL

Off to Dinner

Jane Sadek
Not Pear Chocolate Crisp

TRAVEL HERE: NICE TO MEET YOU!

Even though the Embarkation Buffet on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas was a disaster, it was still early in the cruise, so  I gave them a pass.  I blamed us for being so last minute and hoped better meals were ahead.  I was also interested in who we’d end up with for table mates.

Matches Made in Heaven

When it comes to our table assignments, so far we’ve been pretty lucky and thankfully, for this cruise, our luck held.  I’m not much on names, but Couple #1 was a youth pastor and his stay-at-home wife.  Couple #2 was a pair of coffee shop/truck entrepreneurs.  Couple #1 was on their first cruise to celebrate an anniversary.  Couple #2 seemed to be frequent cruisers.  He liked to gamble.

I happen to enjoy formal dining arrangements, a holdover from traditional cruising.  One of the big reasons is because I don’t like training a new waitperson for each meal, but I also like the opportunity to get to meet new people, even if though no one may become my new best friend.

We’ve been through a variety of seating arrangements, from formal, timed meals with assigned seating, to Norwegian’s Freestyle.  My least favorite was Freestyle.  We were traveling with friends, so we really didn’t miss the chance to meet people, but having a new waitperson every night was not so much fun.

Not Exactly Heavenly Food

I was looking forward to our first meal, because first nights at sea are traditionally lobster night.  Not on this cruise.  You could get lobster, but it was over there on the part of the menu where you had to pay a surcharge.  I like lobster, but not enough to pay extra for it.  Instead I had escargot for an appetizer, lamb shanks for my entree and a pear concoction for dessert.  It was a decent meal. 

The escargot was off the charts.  Not even the hint of a complaint in that department.  The entree was OK.  I would have preferred lobster, but nothing wrong with what I had.  Dessert was a disaster. If you ordered a Pear Chocolate Crisp, what would you think you were getting?  Well, probably not what I got – a row of mousse-y squirts with puree’ed pear in the middle of each squirt and a hardened chocolate decoration stuck in the center of the plate.

They really liked mousse-y, pudding-y desserts on this cruise.  Like the Chocolate Sensation they always had in the buffet.  It was kind of a chocolate fluff with a chocolate crumb crust.  If you saw my face while I typed that, you’d know how bad it was.  The Pear Chocolate Crisp was in the same category.  With their penchant for mousse and pudding you might think their Creme Brulee would have been good.  Well, it wasn’t.  It was better than the Pear Chocolate Crisp, but so runny that I would have been embarrassed to call it Creme Brulee.

Instead of beating you up day after day with how bad the meals were, I’ll do some summarizing here.  The Lobster Bisque was awful.  No cream was used in the making of that soup!  Campbell’s cream of tomato soup is thicker and at least as tasty, if not more flavorful.  Two guys at our table would order steaks cooked exactly alike, but only one of the steaks would come out with grill marks on it.  How did they even do that?  The carrot cake was so dry that you could have choked on it.  Each meal was an exercise in how not to cook!  What a disappointment!

As bad as what we were eating was, one of the ladies at our table required  a gluten-free menu and she was having a very hard time.  This was no fad thing.  Gluten made her sick and caused her hair to fall out.  She was not the kind to make a big deal out of it, the way I see some people do.  She was very gracious and appreciative of the efforts expended to accommodate her, but I noticed she would look hopefully at every dish delivered, give it a taste and then quietly push it away.

It was time for bed, at least for me.  Come back next week for the next chapter of our adventure.

ART, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Performing Arts, TRAVEL

Dinner & a Show, But Not in That Order

Jane Sadek
The Masquerade Theater

TRAVEL HERE: WELCOME ABOARD SHOWTIME

Though he was still fighting the internet, my sweet husband put a good face on it and headed to the Masquerade Theater with me for the Welcome Aboard Showtime.  Live entertainment is something we really enjoy, but don’t often splurge on it.  It’s usually one of the highlights of our cruise.  Follow me to the 5th deck.

Getting There is Not Half the Fun

 Our least favorite space on any cruise boat is the casino.  The area is usually loud, and it also has lots of lights blinking, garish decorations and second hand smoke.  For some reason, the people who design ships think it’s cool to direct traffic through there.  We disagree with them, but apparently that doesn’t make any difference.

On Vision of the Seas going through the casino was just about the only way to get to the theater without going outside and when you’re all dolled up, outside is not preferable.  Those romantic shows you’ve seen, where a couple stands at the railing of a ship at the end of the evening, are lies.  Most evenings, unless you’re on a protected deck, the wind is enough to blow you and your carefully coiffed hair into the sea.

Bill probably didn’t even realize what kind of expression he had on his face as we walked through the casino, but I saw it.  It definitely said, “What have I gotten myself into?”  I was hoping the show would be good.

The Royal Caribbean Singers & Dancers

For fun lets call them the RCSD for really-can’t-sing-or-dance.  Well, there was one guy who was a pretty good dancer, but I’m not sure whether he was all that good or they were all that bad.  When he’d do a high kick, he’d almost smash his nose, but none of the others were anywhere in his league, so even that was distracting rather than entertaining.  The singers were consistently weak.  I know there are all kinds of really talented people out there dying for an opportunity of any sort.  Where were they all when it was time for Royal Caribbean auditions?

 The Comedy of Nery Saenz

The best part of that evening’s entertainment was that the RCSD were not the whole show.  The bulk of the time was devoted to a really funny comedian.  I’m not all that crazy about comedy routines, because usually they cuss too much, use foul language, depend on sexual innuendo and insult people.  This comedian managed to be funny without resorting to any of that.

The comedian’s primary shtick focused on how un-glamorous it is to be a comedian on a cruise ship.  He poked fun at himself and his husbanding skills.  You got the idea that while being away from home all the time was difficult, he really loved his wife and family.  He also had a show later that evening, so he’s probably well-versed in cussing, foul language, sexual innuendo and insults, but I didn’t go to that show and I’m glad I didn’t.  If only people 18 and older are allowed, I’m probably not going to enjoy it.

After the show it was time for dinner.  You won’t want to miss that, so come back next week.

 

Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Road Trips, TRAVEL

Welcome to the Galveston Cruise Terminal

Jane Sadek
Not Galveston!

TRAVEL HERE: CLIMBING ABOARD OUR CRUISE

After all the difficulties Bill had faced trying to get out of town, our actual departure was fairly smooth.  We left within 15 minutes of our targeted ETD.  We miscalculated where the HOV lane would dump us, but even going out of our way in downtown Dallas, the traffic was so bad on I-30 we made time with our mistake.  About 11, we exited at a rest stop to use the facilities and change drivers.  By 2, we were at the cruise terminal, but so were a whole lot of other people.

Not Exactly a Tourist Destination

I want you to know that Galveston is a wonderful place to visit, but you wouldn’t know that from a picture of their port.  It is an industrial port with a couple of cruise ships thrown in for good measure.  What can I say?  It’s ugly!

We dropped our bag off at the terminal and made our way to the parking lot. (Yes, that was a singular bag!  I got everything in one suitcase!)  We’d saved $5 by booking online (Thank you, Sherry!)  We needed to be on board by 3:30 and I hadn’t been worried when we got to the terminal, but the parking lot made me nervous.  I don’t even think a hurricane would have lit a fire under these people, but we did make the deadline.

Going Through Security

I understand the need for security measures, but I hate it.  You’re passing around important documentation and taking valuable items out of your carry-on, not to mention dressing and undressing.  When I’m flying, I try to dress around the metal detectors, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t even think about going through a metal detector to get on board the cruise.  Maybe that’s why I had on a metal belt and shoes with metal decorations on them.  I took off the offending accessories and tried again.  That time my sunglasses set it off.

I went through all the rigmarole of getting dressed again and headed for check-in.  Suddenly, I needed my glasses and I couldn’t find them.  This would cause a panic in any situation, but if you read my blog last week, then you know why the disappearance of my glasses made me absolutely frantic.  I ran through the terminal back to the place where I re-dressed.  I made the people at the metal detector and x-ray machine prove my sunglasses weren’t there.  I felt tears brimming in my eyes.

I ran back to the pile I’d left next to Bill and started rifling through my backpack again.  Bill wasn’t happy.  At the moment he was more interested in checking in, but if I had lost my new prescription sunglasses, he was going to be even more unhappy.  Sitting in the floor, dumping everything out of the backpack I did find the glasses, but by then I was already suffering heart palpitations.  It would take me awhile to get back to normal and before that could happen, I would misplace another pair of glasses.

But enough about my glasses, lets go have lunch.

Architecture, ART, Cruising, DESTINATIONS, International, Shopping, TRAVEL

A Lovely Afternoon in Passau

Jane Sadek

5p-oooTRAVEL THERE: GLADLY GUIDELESS IN GERMANY

After lunch Bill and I ventured into Passau on our own.  While we’d been frustrated by our guide’s demeanor during the morning, he had led us through a shopping area and shown us a nice riverside walkway.  Passau is no Vienna and we’d had lunch, so Bill was amenable to hoofing it around on our own.

 

A Marvelous Afternoon

While our morning tour had left a bad taste in our mouth, it had not besmirched the charming little town.  The first item on my agenda was to find some tokens for my friends.  A thorough search of the room did not turn up any of the darling gingerbread ornaments I bought in Cesky Krumlov, so I needed to get busy.  I wanted to get something for my Bible Study girls and then I had a couple of other friends for whom I wanted to buy something more substantial.

Ludwigstrasse
Ludwigstrasse

Passau has a significant pedestrian area with shops called Ludwigstrasse and nearby are a couple multistory of enclosed malls.  My patient husband wandered through all of these with me, hunting down the appropriate souvenirs – only I wasn’t finding much that I thought was appropriate.  Finally, we wandered into a knick-knack store and while most of the items were tacky bibelots   with the words “Passau, Germany” emblazoned on them, I found a shelf populated with charming ceramic cherubs molded into a variety of poses.  I’d found the trinkets I wanted for my Bible Study girls.

5p-ooo-3Strolling Along the River

I was still baffled about what to get for my best friend and my next door neighbor, who is truly the best next door neighbor in the world, but Mr. Bill was ready to roll.  We headed toward the river and were hugely rewarded.

The morning had been chilly in more ways than one.  Yes, our guide had been Mr. Rude, but the weather was overly crisp, also.  I’d layered up with a denim jacket and a wool cape, but had still been uncomfortable.  The afternoon weather was so glorious that we might have been in Dallas on one of its best days.

We discovered it was the first really warm day for Passau that spring and the whole town had turned out to enjoy the river.  Children tossed balls into the air.  Lovers ogled one another on shared blankets.  Giggly girls shared secrets strolling along the river.  Another girl sat on a stairway leading down to the river captivated by a book.  Beer drinking students toasted everyone that walked by.  It was like a movie set!

Once More to the Ludwigstrasse

Armed with a map the rude guide had provided, Bill and I maneuvered around the finger of land pointing to the confluence of the Inn, the Ilz and the Danube.  When we got back to the boat, Bill agreed to hit the Ludwigstrasse with me one more time.  I was in a tizzy.  I had to finish packing and dress for dinner soon, but I just didn’t want to head home without something for my friends.

As I bounced from storefront to storefront appalled at the pricing, Bill came to the rescue.  One of the clothing stores was having a bit of a sidewalk sale and Bill pointed it out.  I doubted anything would be affordable, even marked down, because all the prices I had seen were pretty steep.  Bill helped me figure out the exchange rate and the discount.  Suddenly, I was all smiles.  Not only had we found exactly what I’d love to get for Deb and Sherry, but I wasn’t going to break the bank!

It was a quiet night on board.  The evening happy hour was devoted to disembarking instructions.  Dinner was delicious, but sad.  We’d made wonderful friends and we didn’t know when we’d see them again.  Then there we had to be out early in the morning.  For all practical purposes, the cruise was over.

Come back next week and I’ll get you back to Dallas.  In the meantime, enjoy this video of our final stop.