As I promised (threatened?) below, I am posting to this blog e-mail that I sent from our trans-Panama Canal cruise in October 2006 to a small number of family and firends.
Not un-edited; I had to remove irrelevancies, but no revisonism!
There may be references to pictures uploaded to our photo website - I was editing and uploading pictures as I created these postings. That was not an happy event, as the site and its organizational program I use does not play nicely with multiple computers. However, having corrected everything later, the weblinks still work.
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This is the first of what I hope will be some once-in-a-while notes from our cruise on the MS Zuiderdam, Vancouver to Ft. Lauderdale, Sep 30 to Oct 21, 2006.
Unlike a real postcard, in order to save upload costs, this one has no picture. However, eventually I will upload some representative pictures to our photo website at http://longworth_mueller.fototime.com/; so click on the link to see those. (You may have to scroll down to the "Panama Canal Cruise" heading on the left -depends on your screen resolution.)
A note on upload costs: the Zuiderdam has a satellite based digital data link to the Internet, which is distributed to public areas on the ship via wireless network, but at low speed. The cost depends on how many minutes you buy, and for 250 minutes works out to about 37 cents per minute of connect time, and the more people that are connected, the slower the download/upload speed, because the sattelite pipe to the Internet is limited in capacity.
It's a great business model for the provider; since most people don't want to connect to the Internet for a certain amount of time, but rather want to receive and transmit a certain amount of data; however, the lousier the speed, the more money the ship can charge for a given amount of data moved! And there is no other game in town - I suspect only the on-board casino is more sure to make money for the company.
Note from more recent travel: In 2008, in Germany, many hotels advertise Internet access; what that meant in some was that they had allowed German Telekom to install a T-Mobile Hotspot in the hotel, with coverage only in the lobby area, or some public rooms, certainly not guest rooms. In order to connect, you had to purchase an account on T-Mobile, at Euro$8 per hour, or an "all-you-can-eat" for a month account at somewhere about Euro$25 for the month - a no-brainer you say, until you dig down into the very fine fine print, ande discover that you have to sign up for a 6 month minimum., All of this points to the very profitable-for the providers-idiocy of charging by connect time, whereas what most of us want, and what the providers mostly incur costs for, is transferring some amount of data. My Blackberry plan charges me for the amount of data I transfer, my home Internet provider offers me the option of having unlimited data, or some number of Gigabytes of data - connect time is so last century; get with it T-Mobile and others of your ilk, and you might just get my business.
Enough complaining!
We flew to Vancouver on the 28th (Sep 2008), uneventfully, except for the more than 2 hours it took to get to the airport because of an accident that closed all but one lane of Hwy 401 just before the ramp to the collectors at Dixie. No great problem, but because of potential problems getting our bags onto our original flight with the late check-in, we transferred to the next flight.
Arrived in Vancouver on time, and took the Airporter to the Hotel Vancouver, where we had reservations (thank you Eugene Chan!). (2008 added note: Eugene was a student at Renison College, and the musician at St. Bede's Chapel, in my time as Chaplain. By the time of writing these e-mails, Eugene had gone to work for the Fairmont group of hotels, and offered us accomodation in Vancouver at the employee rate.) The weather was warm and sunny - shirt-sleeve weather. A quick brush-up, then lunch at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Then a walk-about, beginning with the observation tower at the Harbour Centre, with a great 360 degree view of the city and harbour (and a great espresso/cappuccino bar).
After that we walked along the sea wall to Stanley Park, and back to the hotel along West Georgia Street. Lamenting (!) as we went at the chance Toronto keeps missing to have a decent water front, replacing it instead with dreary condo after condo. Vancouver has condos, but they are set back, there is not Gardiner Expressway equivalent to keep you away, and architecture is very imaginative. Supper was in Gastown, with another visit to the observation tower to get the nighttime panorama.
Friday was spent at UBC (after a long skytrain and bus ride) visiting the botanical gardens, and a wonderfully tranquil Japanese garden. Bus back downtown, and then supper at the Steamworks brewpub on the edge of Gastown - great patio, great beer, great food.
Saturday the weather had shifted to dull, dreary and drissly, but we really had no need to go outside. After re-packing, we took a taxi to the cruise ship terminal, with both getting in and getting out happening under cover. Given the number of people (close to 2000) being boarded, check-in was remarkably efficient, the whole process probably taking less than 45 minutes from our arrival until we were having lunch on board. Our cabin was ready by 3 p.m. with half our luggage already in it, the rest arriving over the next half hour, so we were able to unpack and settle in before the 4:30 lifeboat drill.
At first stowing everything seemed like an impossible task, since the cabin is about 250 ft square, including the bathroom. And yet, there is a place for everything, and in the end we don't feel at all crowded. We have a balcony with a couple of easy chairs, and inside an ottoman, and a table, for quiet sitting and watching the world go by - although so far it has been cool enough that sitting gets uncomfortable quickly.
Food so far has lived up to expectation, although our dinner companions were all rather odd. But that has changed, as people find other arrangements. The second night we were alone, and tonight a new couple joined us who were quite interesting and fun. Tomorrow we get two more, as about half the ship gets off at San Francisco, and then about the same number get on.
Sunday was spent in Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia river. A perfect Fall day, sunny, dry, and just warm enough that one could walk around in light clothing. Astoria has just begun to have cruise ships come in, in fact we were the first Holland America ship to go there, and this town of about 10,000 went all out to make sure we felt welcome. $5 gave access to shuttle buses into town, and there one could get onto any other transport, and into most museums etc. with the "Honoured Visitor" tag that came with the $5 fee. There were volunteers wearing "Cruise Ship Guide" vests all over town, ready to answer questions, give directions, or just chat about their town. They were having their weekly Sunday market, with mostly crafts and produce and fruit vendors, but also a whole lot full of various kinds of food stands - fried oysters, crab, salmon in various forms, but having had nothing but sea food up until then, we opted for that great north-western cuisine speciality, a pulled pork barbecue sandwich! One sandwich being enough for the two of us, they were so generous, and for a remarkably low price.
Altogether, the day was a wonderful experience of small town America at its finest.
We left Astoria at 5 p.m., (amazed at an 82,000 ton ship that can move sideways away from the pier, into mid-channel, then rotate gracefully on it's own axis through 180 degrees, and then move out, with no assistance from tugs, etc.) We have been sailing south ever since, expecting to go under the Golden Gate Bridge at about 5 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, Oct 3) morning. We are going to get up for that, and then either get off the ship and walk around downtown, or go back to bed, whichever seems more sensible. So I'll cut this off right now (although by the time I actually will send this it will probably be Wednesday afternoon).
Keep an eye out for further notes from us as we head south tomorrow evening for Cabo St. Lucas at the bottom of Baja California, and points further south in Mexico.
Late addition: It is now actually Wednesday morning, so I'll add some words about San Francisco before uploading all this.
We got up at about 4:15 a.m. to be on deck as we sailed through the Golden Gate at about 5:00 a.m., along with a few other hardy souls, accompanied by much coffee. Even at that hour of the morning, one can see traffic on the hills of San Francisco and the city is waking up. We watched the docking, and again were amazed at how 82,000 tons can just pull up to a pier as if it were an outboard boat. (I guess technically it is, with propellers at the rear that can push in any direction, and bow thrusters that can do the same.) We'd ordered a light breakfast in our cabin, after which we went back to bed, and tried to sleep, but at about 8:00 a.m. the dis-embarkation announcements (for passengers leaving the cruise in San Francisco) got to be too annoying, so we got up, had another breakfast, and walked off the ship into the city.
After a quick look around Pier 39, a major tourist trap, we walked the other way along the Embarcadero, and eventually up California Street to take the cable car up Nob Hill. We got off at Grace (Anglican) Cathedral, a beautiful church, and had a great walk-around, and a nice chat with the guide lady, whose son-in-law turns out to be the Rector of the Garrison Church in Sidney, Australia, where we had been two years ago - small world, small church!. Grace Cathedral is of course the home of the renewed labyrinth movement, and they have a large carpet labyrinth at the back of the nave. Also a great gift shop, where I could have gone broke buying Alan Jones' (the Dean's) books, and lots of great CDs by the Grace choirs.
We then took the cable car in the direction of Fisherman's Wharf, got off about half-way, and walked down the steep hills, admiring the architecture. Fisherman's Wharf is an odd combination of maritime shops, and cheap tourist traps. Great place to walk, and people watch. We worked our way back to the ship slowly, and got on in time for a late lunch, before the sail-away party at 4:30. Then out through the Golden Gate, in a bitterly cold northerly breeze I might add, then south towards Mexico.
Today and tomorrow (Thursday, Oct 5) we are at sea, hitting Cabo San Lucas at the bottom-most tip of Baja California on Friday morning. Tonight is the first formal night, with the Captain's welcome reception and dinner. Then a do nothing day tomorrow, except if you are a Type A personality; there is so much on offer every hour on this ship that you could be busier than working! We are trying to be selective!
We'll keep you posted!
June Longworth & Gerry Mueller
Aboard MS Zuiderdam
Somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean South of Los Angeles
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