For Christmas this year, Zak and I decided to give each other the gift of a cruise. We left from Los Angeles on December 17th and made our first stop in San Diego on the 18th. The second stop was Catalina Island on the 19th, and the third stop was Ensenada in Mexico on the 20th.
On the first night of the cruise, we got into an elevator with several other people. A kid also got in who was breathing really hard. A lady in the elevator said, “Oh, you must be in a hurry.” And he said, “No, I’m just really excited!” This piqued Zak’s interest and he decided we should follow him to find out what had excited him so – after all, we wanted to be excited, too. We followed him surreptitiously but not with any degree of success. He just sort of hovered by the (empty) pool on one of the top decks, so we abandoned the attempt shortly after that. We saw him a few more times that evening around various lounges, but didn’t ever figure out what he was sooo excited about. We think it’s possible that he was going to a rendezvous with someone... ooh la la. Or maybe he just realized we were following him and didn’t want to let us in on the secret. The phrase “I’m just really excited” was used frequently by us over the course of the cruise. It’s still funny to Zak and me, but it’s okay if no one else thinks it’s funny.
Some of the highlights from the trip were going to the San Diego Maritime Museum and getting to walk around on a pirate ship and a Russian submarine. The pirate ship is the HMS Surprise, and its claim to fame is that the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was filmed aboard it. I learned that pirate ships don’t have cannon, they have guns. Even though they are actually cannon, at least in my mind. I guess they’re only called cannon when they’re on the land. We read a sample of a pirate’s code and lots of other interesting stuff.
The Russian submarine, the b39, was pretty interesting, too. It was so cramped and claustrophobic and there was a ton of equipment shoved into such a relatively small amount of space; I don’t know how anyone survived while it was at sea! It was neat to crawl through and see what tight quarters the sailors lived in. They didn’t get to shower, but the doctor on the submarine made sure that each sailor got a hot wash cloth each day to wipe off with. I guess this was to help fight the spread of germs or something. Uh, hand sanitizer, anyone? The bathrooms were SO small. I don’t really know how you can be comfortable doing what you need to do in such an incredibly small space.
We also went aboard the Star of India, which was originally called the Euterpe (the Greek goddess of music). It was much larger than the Surprise and is one of the oldest iron-hulled ships still active.
Our favorite thing about Catalina Island was its laid back atmosphere. Zak has decided he wants to move there when he’s done with school next May. I guess we’ll see how things work out, but for now I think that idea falls into the “possibly maybe someday” category. It was rainy and misty on the day we were there, and we walked some of the residential streets away from the touristy areas. We found a little pet cemetery. That was a little weird, but I guess people do love their pets. Zak got a few pictures of some of the more creative headstones. The beach was pretty small, at least in the area where we were, but it was still fun to walk along it and go underneath the pier.
Ensenada was also really interesting. It was extremely dirty and there were little kids with big, sad eyes who walked right up to everyone with their hands outstretched. It would’ve been nice to help them, but there were signs in a few of the shops that said not to give the kids money, because they would have to give it to their parent or caretaker who would use it for whatever they wanted, and it wouldn’t really benefit the kids. So that was sad. We enjoyed walking around and seeing all the shops. The pharmacies were especially strange. Apparently they have all kinds of things for sale in those pharmacies. The funniest thing about them is that the proprietors walk around with these white coats on like it makes them actual pharmacists. Nice. We did end up doing a little bargaining with some of the people selling their wares on the street and in shops and brought home a few souvenirs. It was fun to just walk around and see what the city was like.
There were some pretty fun things to do on the boat as well. On the first night, we were wandering around and came across a little arcade where the games were all set to be free for the evening. We played a little Ms. Pacman, some Beach Head 2000, SportShooter, and Centipede. We also found a lounge where brave souls were doing karaoke and sat and listened to that for a little while. We ended up back there two nights later and discovered that many of the people were repeat karaoke-ers, if that’s a word. I guess a lot of the same people got up to sing each night, and in the case of one woman, she even sang the same song – Cher’s “Believe.” It was very entertaining, but the one who topped them all was an older guy named Mike who sang Tom Jones’ “Delilah” with such verve and enthusiasm that we had to leave after he was done. We knew that no one would be as good as he was, so we left the karaoke lounge on a high note. Pun intended, as Zak would say.
The food was really good in the dining room, which, sadly, we only made it to three times out of the eight times available. The first night we were watching the boat leave LA when dinner was served at 5:30, and then another night we were taking a nap and didn’t wake up until after 7:00, so it was much too late to go. We only made it there for breakfast once. On our first night at dinner, Zak tried escargot (I tried one, too) and said it was pretty good, considering what it was. He also tried duck for the first time. I was somewhat tamer in my choices and only had roast beef and turkey for my dinners. The food was okay in the Windjammer Café (pretty much the only other place to eat on the boat when the dining room was closed), it was just always buffet style. Zak really liked the pizza.
The first night we went to the dining room we met our tablemates and it turned out that one of the couples were LDS newlyweds from Oregon. The other couple was from Canada and was also close to our age. That made it more fun to talk to each other, and despite our fears about having to make conversation with total strangers when all we really wanted to do was eat our food, we actually really enjoyed meeting and conversing with all four of them.
We ended up watching a few movies on the boat that neither of us had seen before: Stardust, Shrek 3, No Reservations, White Christmas, Dark Passage, and then just snippets of other shows like A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. We also watched some cartoons. I don’t get cartoons these days. I really like the old Merrie Melodies cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and company, and the Hanna Barbera cartoons. And all the old Disney cartoons, too, of course. These new cartoons are weird, Yugi-Oh, game-playing cartoons. Of course the basic premises rarely change much, but the format is strange to me. I guess it’s just one more sign that middle age is approaching…
One of the other things Zak really enjoyed doing on the boat was walking around the upper deck in the evenings. I thought it was fun too, but it was nearly always overcast so the stars weren’t really visible. The first night we found Orion and what Zak calls the Baby Dipper. It’s even smaller than the Little Dipper. All the nights after, though, were too cloudy to see any stars. I was glad that I had brought a few jackets, a hat, scarf, and gloves. I used them every night for those upper deck walks!
On the last night on the boat, we went to a show in the Sound of Music lounge and enjoyed it much more than we thought we would. It was put on by the Royal Caribbean singers/dancers, and one of the male singers and one of the female singers were exceptionally good. The only downside was that you could feel every single wave in that lounge. Ew. And we were really moving, so there were lots of waves to feel.
After we got off the boat, we headed north to see San Francisco, since I had never been before. We only spent a short time walking around Union Square before we got on the streetcar line and took it out to Chinatown. We got a picture by the gates of Chinatown and that was pretty much all I wanted to see there. It was really dirty; reminiscent of Ensenada, actually. Then we rode over to Lombard Street and saw the most crooked street in the world. It was actually a really beautiful street, all brick, and the landscaping on the sides of the road was really nice. From there, we rode to Ghirardelli Square and sampled some chocolate. From there, we walked along the waterfront area, which was all paved over. We could see Angel Island and Alcatraz from where we were, so that was cool since we had decided not to take the ferry out to the island. One of our favorite parts of waiting for the streetcar to take us back to Union Square was the performers who entertained us as we waited in line. One guy was sitting on a bench, strumming a guitar and making up rhymes. You could tell he’d been doing that gig for a long time; he had a rhyme for everything. It was pretty entertaining to listen to, so Zak threw some change in his guitar case. His rhyme for that was, “Thanks for dough! Come back later and throw some mo’!” There was another guy who played guitar and sang. He was pretty decent. Then there was Escape Man. Zak remembered him from his trip four years ago, and Zak’s sister Nikkol remembered him from her trip ten years ago when we told her about him. So I guess he’s sort of an institution there at Ghirardelli Square. He had his buddy put a straightjacket on him and then wrap some chains around him. Then he proceeded to tell the crowd how he was going to get out of his chains and straightjacket in two minutes or less. He lay down on the ground and proceeded to do just that. He wallowed around for a couple of minutes and was able to get free with all his thrashing about. Then he walked around with his Santa hat so people could make donations to Escape Man’s College Fund. While we’re completely sure that Escape Man has no immediate plans for college, as he was at least on the declining end of middle age, it was still very entertaining.
After we left San Francisco, we drove to Bodega Bay which is northwest of SF. Zak visited this spot with his brother Rhett on their SF trip a few years prior and he wanted to go back and see it again (this time in the daylight). We got there just as the sun was setting and got some great pictures. It was really beautiful. Zak climbed up on a big rock that jutted out into the ocean a little and while there, collected some rocks, shells, and two starfish that he thought were dead. It wasn’t until later that someone explained to him that the only time they’re dead is when they’re floating in the water. Since he had to pry them off the rock, they were probably quite alive at the time, which is not fun to think about. Poor things. Anyway, I’m pretty sure they have since expired and am not really sure what Zak is going to do with them, if anything. I think they’re languishing in our cold basement currently.
After it was completely dark and very, very cold, we drove from Bodega Bay to Napa where Zak’s great aunt Hazel lives. We visited with her and her roommate Sheila for a little while before hitting the road again, this time to begin the drive home. We were both ready to get back and so we took turns driving while the other slept. It worked out pretty well and we were able to get home by 9 on Sunday morning.
I forgot to put something in that Zak wanted me to be sure to include. One of the times we left our room the first night of the cruise, we decided to keep going down the hall in the opposite direction of the stairs and elevators, just to see what was down there. There were only more cabins, so that wasn’t particularly exciting.
Zak decided to play a little joke on me (as he is prone to do) as we walked back to the stairs and elevators in the lobby. As we passed some of the cabins on our way out to the elevator/stairs, he knocked on the one of the doors (same idea as a doorbell ditch, I guess) and then said, “Run, Sarah! Run!” So I turn around and give him a horrified look and start to take off running down the hall. It was a natural reaction. I mean, there is nowhere to hide in those halls with all the cabins. Your only safe bet is to get to the lobby where the stairs and elevators are, otherwise you’re going to get caught by whoever you’re doorbell ditching. He let me go for a second or two, but then I heard him laughing his brains out, so I stopped to see what the deal was. The door he had knocked on was our own cabin, 2116, and he could hardly stand up he was laughing so hard at my reaction. He is a jokester, through and through. It was pretty funny, I have to admit now.
It was a great trip, lots of fun, lots of memories. Something that astounded us time after time was the total inability of some of the boat’s inhabitants to effectively operate the elevators. They are simple machines. Most everyone has ridden on an elevator at least once in their life, if not hundreds of times. Yet it was like the first time, every time, for many of the people we encountered. So strange.
Something else we absolutely could not understand were the joggers who were jogging on the top deck every morning before 8 am. Uh, aren’t you on vacation? Why do you need to make everyone who’s pigging out on doughnuts and pastries from the breakfast buffet feel like losers? Lame, guys. Very lame.
We had a great time on our cruise! Sorry for the extremely long post. I'll put some pictures up in the next one.
