Cruising the WorldDay 4

January 25, 2019 – Santa Marta, Columbia

Our first stop was calm after a rough few days at sea. Santa Marta is at the Northern Tip of Colombia. We booked the HAL Taste of Tayrona excursion. We generally like to travel on our own but the first 6 stops or so were in ports with limited transportation or security issues. When booking a HAL excursion you are assured you will get back to the port on time to board the ship. When doing excursions on your own, you risk missing the ship if something happens with transportation.

We left the ship about 8:30 am. HAL excursions are able to leave first. We boarded busses on our way to Tayrona park which took about an hour. Along the way we saw how people lived here in Santa Marta. It reminded us of the Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Plenty of cars, trucks, busses, and horses pulling carts. People lived in small cinder block homes with corrugated steel roofs. The businesses along the way were constructed in the same way and there was no lack of patrons. It was very hot here but most locals were in long blue jeans.

The bus ride was about an hour and traffic was heavy. We arrived at the park and went for a short hike to the ocean. The park was quite dense with vegetation. We thought we might see a monkey or two; but saw none. The wild life we saw was limited to a few lizards and a gecko. The view of the ocean was spectacular. The waves were huge. We did go for a short swim but the undertow was very dangerous. We munched on some fruit provided by the tour and boarded the busses to come back. Most of Colombia is mountainous and beautiful. 

The largest legal crop in Colombia is coffee. Of course, the real cash crop is cocaine. Another reason we booked the HAL tour was the unknown drug cartels.

We arrived back at the port and had a few hours left before we had to board the ship. We walked into downtown Santa Marta and visited a market with locals selling their goods. Lots of jewelry, fruits, coffee and junk. The shipped was docked in a working port and we had to get on a shuttle bus at the entrance of the port.

January 24, 2019 – at Sea

Another rough day and night put us near Jamaica.

I started the morning at the gym and hit the elliptical trainer. I decided to do an hour at level 10. What made at even more exciting than usual was the ship moving through the great swells. I really had to hang on. After about 40 mins I decided to look at the different metrics on the machine. I had to push a button to get to the next metric. Steps per minute, steps per hour, size of stride. When I saw the last one I was sure that Leonard Falcone was in the room

Anyone see the significance here?

Terri took in the Abs class. She was back before I was even finished. “Lame” is what I remember.

We did team trivia again and did not do as well as yesterday. The questions were a lot tougher than the previous day and there were a few that had all 6 of us without even a reasonable guess. The same team who won yesterday, won again today.

We spent much of the afternoon in our room. I don’t usually get seasick. I blame it on the quiche right before the treadmill.

Dinner was interesting. After decades in sales, Terri has no problem getting people to talk. People love to talk about themselves and the two couples who we joined constantly stepped on themselves as they tried to one up each other. As we looked across at each other we began to roll our eyes a bit. I sat next to Anthony and we talked about our careers. When he learned what I did he told me that he played the oboe in his High School band. His wife Nancy played the clarinet. (yes Mrs Smith, I did invite them to join the community band). Terri joined in with, “you know Anthony, Jeff always says one bad oboe can kill a 100 piece band”. Anthony muttered something about not liking a reed instrument and the conversation went in other directions. Dinner ended and the two couples left. Terri had some wine left so we sat a bit longer and struck up conversation with a couple at a table next to ours. Turns out Jim and Jean are mutual friends with Tom and Marcia from Bucyrus, Ohio. Marcia worked with Terri for years and Tom makes a mean fried bologna sandwich. He also drives a classic 60s GTO. Great friends.

The evening entertainment was fantastic. Isabel Commandeur from the Netherlands. She was the winner of the show “What’s My Name”. The same show as “American Idol” here.What a great voice. She belted out some great tunes from the 40s – 60s and included Venus by the Dutch group Shocking Blue. It was great show and I am sure we will be hearing a lot of her in the future.

We finished the evening in the Crow’s Nest listening to the Station Band play Latin and Salsa Music. They have a very authentic sound. We felt like we were at Camino Real in Southgate eating a burrito and listening to the mariachi band. One glance at the solid asian band closed the vision.

Tomorrow is our first port. Santa Marta, Colombia

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January 23, 2019 – at Sea

I thought you might enjoy this handy map given to me by the class of 2018. You might see a familiar face if you look at our starting location. I’ll keep the map updated as to our location.

Rain, wind and rough seas all day as we headed around the Northeastern edge of Cuba. Rough seas are typical in this area and we have experienced this on other cruises.

We began to settle into shipboard life today. There is no lack of things to do. We decided to try team trivia. After arriving at the Ocean Bar we learned that teams consist of 6 members. We found a group with 4 people and started to chat it up. Skip, the leader of this group ask where we were from. Michigan!, we said proudly. Not sure if we were of the correct caliber, Skip asked if we knew the Motto of Michigan. “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”, I proudly beamed. Correctly assuming we were full of useless information, we were invited to join. Skip is from Maryland but went to the University of Detroit. Our team correctly answered 13 of 15 questions. Not enough to win but enough to convince the team to stick together for the cruise.

Later in the afternoon I chose to go for a walk. The walk around the lower promenade was very windy and the ship was being tossed by huge swells. I imagined myself being tossed overboard quite easily. One lap around convinced me that it was much safer inside and we spent the afternoon exploring different areas of the ship.

Dinner was in the main dining room and we were seated at a table for 8. 6 of the people had done this cruise before. One woman was on her 10th world cruise. All of the folks had retired from various occupations. Next to me sat Bill who just retired from the Marine Corp after 23 years. We chatted for a while and I learned he was from Oklahoma. I told him about Dan from the previous night. Dan was also from Oklahoma. Bill had approached Dan at the Lido bar because he was wearing some Oklahoma paraphernalia. I asked Bill if he was by himself (he was) and did he go to the singles meetup (he did). I shared the comment about Aunt B and the smile on his face told me everything.

The evening show was comedian Jeff Burghart. Great impressions of Johnny Carson, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood. He also did a great impression of Tom Jones, including singing “She’s a Lady”, with a live band for backup. His humor targeted the audience at hand. Very good show. Great laughs.…

January 22, 2019

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Our day began with our neighbor Courtney picking us up at 8:15 am to take us to the airport. What service! We felt better to error on the side of too much time with the crowds we expected at security. There were none. Our flight left about 11 am. Our flight was uneventful and arrived in Miami about 1:40 pm. The Holland America (HAL) folks were there to meet us and called for a shuttle to take us to Port Everglades. When we arrived we again went through security and expected to wait in a very long line as we have done on previous cruises. What a great surprise. We were next in line! Check in took us 5 minutes! A HAL rep collected our passports, took a photo and issued ID cards for each of us. This card gave us access to the ship, our room, and doubled as a credit card for onboard purchases. We later learned that boarding began at noon and ended at 4 pm. Most of the 1400 passengers had already boarded.  We started to get settled into our room as our boxes began to arrive and then our luggage. The king size bed takes up a good portion of the room and we struggled to get by each other as we unpacked. The mandatory lifeboat drill was at 4:15. We constantly saw folks getting re-acquainted with other guests and staff members. 80% of the passengers on this cruise have done this before. Most have been retired for years and are in various sorts physical condition. Unlike our recent trip to Seattle, we feel quite young here!

The lifeboat drill took 15 minutes and Captain Mercer gave us some brief announcements. I couldn’t help but think it was actually Sean Connery when he gave us the ship shheduule. Back to unpacking. We did manage to fit 4 months of clothes and various electronics in our room. Our room has a door to the hallway and one sliding door out to the Lower Promenade. This was an upgrade from the inside cabin we originally booked. 

We had dinner at the Lido market and then we were off to the Bon Voyage party. The Station Band entertained the guests and there was a dance floor.  We sat at the Lido bar and I had a few Martini’s and Terri had some wine. The bar tender decided to mix a “birthday drink” for me (no it isn’t). A mix of Vodka, Gin, and Grand Marnier with a twist of orange. Quite potent. We struck up a conversation with a gentlemen next to us. Dan was a single man about our age. He is currently employed and never married. He did work in Detroit for a few years and we had a lot to talk about. We talked about the age of a good portion of the passengers and it was nice that we were at the bar with folks our age. He had just done the “singles meetup” before the Bon Voyage party. I asked if there were any available women. He said, “yes, but they all look like Aunt B” ! We won’t ever forget that line. We ended up closing the party and went back to our room for the night.

Ft. Lauderdale 9pm January 22, 2019

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