I wrote a lot of emails during our recent cruise aboard the Holland America Line’s Eurodam, and thought it might be fun to string them all together so that you can enjoy the trip with us. Pretend that these are an edited series of letters.
New York, Thursday night, September 29, 2011
The American Airlines flight from GJT was uneventful. It was a teeny jet (2 on one side, 1 on the other) and it was filled with gas workers going back home to Dallas. The scenery over Oklahoma and Texas is dry and incredibly boring. We got to Dallas early, but just had time to go to the bathroom, jump on the train, get off the train, and run to Gate C-23, when we discovered that they were almost in the final boarding process for the flight to New York. I was convinced our bags wouldn’t make it, but they did. Not for the first time did I think of “Incredible Race…” While waiting at JFK for the bus from the airport, we ran into a nice retired couple who took the same trip on the same ship in April, liked it so much that they’re taking it again. That’s a good omen.
Dinner at the Serafina Fabulous Grill and conversation with Terri, Ted and Molly revived Georgia, who had as much fun as I did. I wish everyone could have been there – Terry has some family raising wisdom that Ted could use, and they all grilled us about Jackie and Becky. Ted hasn’t changed a bit, although if possible he’s bigger – and none of it flab. He’s getting out of the Marines next year and they plan to move to Charleston. Terri is always fascinating; she’s now living in Brooklyn and working, among other places, as an intern with an NPR project called the Story Corps. They hadn’t gotten together until that evening. New York in the company of intelligent, articulate young people is uplifting. Afterwards, we told each other that if that dinner was all we’d done on our vacation, it would have been memorable.
It’s now 10 p.m., so I’d better send this and go up to our nice but postage stamp-sized room in the Sheraton (which was originally the Americana). They start shuttling us to the boat at noon tomorrow;
Hopefully I can buy enough internet usage on the ship so that I can upload more photos and let you know how things are going.
At sea, Friday, September 30, 2011
Well, I splurged and bought 250 internet minutes. The trip started out with a mandatory lifeboat drill, which does NOT involve air masks popping down from an overhead compartment . Instead, you take the stairs to your assigned lifeboat (ours was #4) and they demonstrate how to put the life vest on, and how to crawl into it. When they said that the first people to board would be children, then women, there was an uneasy murmur; I suspect that all of remembered lines from a certain James Cameron movie… There don’t seem to be many children, but they said that everyone under 12 must wear an ID bracelet with their lifeboat number prominently marked, and the first job of every crew member and passenger is to make sure the kids get to their lifeboats safely. Glub.
The Eurodam is a huge ship, with over 2200 passengers and 800 crew members; we spent a little time exploring, and we had lunch and discovered what everyone said is true: the food is excellent. Our cabin is on the 7th deck and way, way above the sea. It’s on the left side as you go forward (port), so we should be able to see the shoreline all the way up.
Newport, Rhode Island, Saturday, October 1, 2011
About a month earlier, I was vacationing with Cathy in Newport, Oregon. This is the other one.
Georgia’s hip was acting up, so I went by myself on a tour of some of the summer mansions of Newport. Most were built as summer homes during the last Gilded Age, in the 1890’s, when conspicuous wealth was also fashionable. Very gaudy but beautiful. I did learn that JFK honeymooned in Newport, and was a summer White House for both Eisenhower and Kennedy, and that he had purchased several acres for a retirement home – the property is undeveloped and is now owned by a conservation trust. Newport did not have a dock big enough for our ship, so they shuttled us to the shore in 120 passenger tenders. Our boat towered over the harbor.
The ship left at 3 p.m. and we’re currently way out at sea to go around Cape Cod. The sea is very calm right now; some people I’ve met said they were on a cruise ship during a real storm and it was quite dramatic. We both slept very well last night, and probably will again. We went to a cooking demonstration (they have live shows every afternoon and give everyone in the audience samples of the food they’ve just cooked), and I’m going to put on my suit to go to formal dining tonight (!). Gloucester, Mass. tomorrow
Gloucester, Massachusetts, Sunday, October 2, 2011
Formal dinner. A new experience for us both. Georgia looked great, and I wore my suit – and we went to the Rembrandt Dining Room to discover that we were underdressed. I’ve never been in a restaurant with slipcovers over all of the chairs, and where at least a quarter of the men wore tuxedos. The food was exquisite and people we sat with that evening were delightful, and all in all it was a good experience.
Although the ship is huge, and doesn’t seem crowded, there are times when you realize that you’re sharing your experience with 2,000 other people. Like yesterday morning when we were herded like cattle to one of ten tour buses waiting to take us around Gloucester and Rockport, MA.
You may remember Gloucester as the site of the recent movie “Perfect Storm” I think our tour guide was obsessed with George Clooney and Mark Walberg, because she told us all about what they did while they were filming. And how she knew many of the sailors who were killed in the incident. Yak, yak, yak. Oh yeah, and we just passed the first tavern in Gloucester, built in 1650.
Rockport was lovely and scenic, and Georgia ordered a bowl of the best clam chowder either one of us have ever tasted. I had some fresh fish and chips that didn’t taste as if Gorton’s (whose headquarters are there) had frozen them months earlier. It was cold and raining; there’s going to be a change in the weather.
Bar Harbor, Maine, Monday, October 3
It was a cool, blustery and foggy morning as we approached Bar Harbor. The ship is huge, but all you can hear when you go outside are the waves slipping by and the occasional long mournful toot of the horn. It’s like you were alone on the ocean. According to the convenient map on the television, we’re about 30 miles offshore and the winds are picking up.
Today we took the tender to go geocaching and explore Bar Harbor on our own. We’ve seen several fishing boats pass us; I think of Greg (Goodrick) and wonder if he would like to be on one of them. They’re bouncing around a lot, and even though I haven’t gotten seasick, it might be a little much. So far the trees have not been very spectacular; the pictures from Colorado look a lot prettier. They say that Hurricane Irene blew a lot of salt water on the leaves so they turned brown and dropped off and as a result their tourist season will be ruined.
I did find the mandatory geocache near an 1812 war cannon. Stopped by the post office to mail a couple of postcards, and then we had a Crab Log – crab meat in a hot dog bun – and fresh blueberry scones for lunch.
Every night after dinner our steward fluffs up the pillows, makes a different sculpture out of bath towels and two eyes he cut from a piece of paper, and leaves the itinerary for the next day, and two chocolates. Tonight, there was also a notice that we would be entering the Atlantic time zone, one hour earlier than Eastern. The geek in me rejoices.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax was fascinating. It’s one of the best natural harbors in North America, and has a rich and varied history. Most Canadian immigrants landed there and took the railroad to their final destination, and the immigration building(which is to Canada like Ellis Island is to the U.S.) is now a museum and is quite close to our ship.
I snagged a couple of geocaches there, and we took a brief tour in a double decker bus. Then Georgia went back to the ship to rest, and I walked in the cold and blustery rain to the Halifax Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Interesting place. The featured temporary exhibit is “Hello, Sailor!” which explores gay life on board ships in the past last fifty years. More interesting was the second floor, which was devoted to displays highlighting maritime disasters, including the Titanic (most of the recovered passengers’ bodies are buried in a Halifax cemetery, and a lot of debris washed ashore near here) and a terrible munitions ship explosion in the harbor which killed over 2000 and leveled much of the dock area in 1917.
The museum’s exhibit was on my mind that evening as the captain announced a change in plans because of the terrible weather; we’re going to leave Sidney early and go around towards Prince Edward Island to hide from gale force winds and high seas. The wind is pretty bad even now – when we open the door to our verandah, it’s definitely stormy – and with the fog you can not see much outside except the waves. The ship is rocking back and forth gently – it’s not as dramatic as the Tarawa, but it’s still a little spooky. If there are any leaves left on the trees, this storm is likely to blow them away.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011. Sidney, Nova Scotia. Or not.
Gale force winds last night – they’re presently about 50 mph gusting to 65 and this is a narrow (to fit in the Panama Canal) but tall ship so the swaying is magnified, particularly when we are sailing perpendicular to the wind and you’re on a higher deck. Thanks to the rocking, I slept like a log last night, but this morning am rediscovering the proper way to walk around if the floor isn’t where you expect it to be – legs far apart and one hand on the wall! Katy, Emily and Josh would either love it or be scared to death (or seasick!).
Although each room has a flat screen TV, Georgia and I figured we’d read and send emails instead. We’re also doing the cruise ship things such as participating in the trivia contest. We are among the few people on board who have never done this before. Most of the others seem to thoroughly enjoy the fantasy land of being on a cruise ship. For me, the jury is still out – the ship is very nice, and the ports interesting, but I hate to be with so many people and so obviously a tourist. We sort of overwhelm wherever we are – in Halifax, there were four giant cruise ships pulled up at the same time, disgorging passengers who then wait in long lines for the tour buses. The Eurodam is definitely not a “fun” ship with nonstop parties; the average age has to be 60, and there are probably three kids on board – two little girls and a boy of about ten who came with his grandparents. He has the teenage lounge all to himself. The sun has risen and the sea is nasty. But the air is fresh and clean and beautiful outside.
I had loaded my GPS receiver with the caches near Sidney, and was looking at it as we proceeded north – right past the harbor mouth. The captain announced that because of the weather, he was not risking stopping at Sidney, but instead we would have an extra “at sea” day while he tried to get the ship away from the storm.
Thursday, October 6, 2011 Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
The weather around Cape Breton was awful. The TV reported on occasion that the winds were a steady 80 MPH and coming from the north while we were moving westward. Somebody said that the sea swells were between 30 and 40 feet. They took the glassware down from the bars, tied up all of the flowerpots, and asked us not to use the elevators. The stabilizers did their best but it was still harrowing.
Someone took a video:
The ship spent the extra time at night going back and forth in front of the Charlottetown harbor and finally docked; this time we were the only cruise ship there, which was an improvement. We were greeted by the first snow of the season. It was cold but not particularly windy; but the captain just announced that because of the Confederation Bridge, which is tall but not enough for us to fit under, he has to go sail east then north into the teeth of the gale to make it back up the St. Lawrence; he said it was likely to be unpleasant again, and that the doctor would hand out free Dramamine for those who needed it, and that because we missed Sidney, they would provide free champagne for dinner. It wasn’t the weather that made the trip yesterday so strange, it was the fact that we’d just left Halifax with vivid memories of the exhibits in the maritime disaster museum. When someone on our trivia game brought up “The Poseidon Adventure” last night, the rest of us threatened to throw her overboard! But it’s supposed to get better the further west we travel. I hope so. The internet access is slow and they charge by the minute. The crew members were in the “Welcome to PEI” lounge with their computers getting messages to and from their families (mostly in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia), so it was pretty slow there, too. While in the lounge, I checked the Rifle weather (with the temperatures conveniently translated into Celsius, like everything here) and noticed that there’s a freeze warning. So much for the rest of our tomatoes.
We both loved Charlottetown. PEI is the smallest of the provinces, with fewer than 150,000 people, and Charlottetown has perhaps 30,000 people. If you look at the pictures in our online album, you’ll see their Factory Outlet stores. All ten of them. They’re very proud of it. The “Anne of Green Gables” series was written by a resident, and many of the people on the ship took on a bus tour of her farm. We shopped at the Anne of Green Gables Chocolate Factory. I looked and looked for a geocache and couldn’t find it; the cold and wind finallly drove me back to the ship.
Friday, October 7, 2011 St. Lawrence River
It’s currently 3 degrees outside (37F) but the temperature tomorrow is supposed to be 23 (72) which is a dramatic and most welcome change. According to the navigational information on the television, we are being slowed by gale force winds (50 mph) and we are at 49 degrees 13.26′ N, 63 degrees 44.43′ W. I don’t know if I’m going to bother downloading geocaches for tomorrow, since I haven’t had much luck! I’m still angry that I couldn’t find one on PEI! We’re having some interesting thoughts about this trip, one of which is that neither one of us want to live around old people all the time. They’re all nice (actually, we’re all nice), sure, but we both really miss being around kids and people in their 30’s. We refused to go in for the bingo game this morning. I did try out the gym. The rocking of the ship added another dimension to the usual exercises!
I’m going to miss a lot of the amenities on board ship, such as enjoying fresh room service coffee every morning as the world floats by, or the innovative sculptures our steward makes on the bed each night out of a couple of towels. They range from a swan to (last night) a dinosaur. We’re addressing postcards to mail when we land at Saguenay.
Saturday, October 8, 2011 Saguenay, Quebec
You won’t find Saguenay on older maps; according to Wikipedia, the city was formed in 2002 by amalgamating the cities of Chicoutimi, Jonquière, La Baie and Laterrière, along with the municipalities of Lac-Kénogami and Shipshaw and part of the township of Tremblay. These communities had suffered from the decline of the papermaking mills, and a devastating flood, so the Quebec government consolidated the local governments, and poured billions into reconstruction, and built a large pier at La Baie for cruise ships. The Eurodam was the first to dock there a few years ago.
Every sign is in French; the residents will speak English if they have to, but they’d clearly rather not. Georgia found a fascinating jewelry seller at the market set up in the welcoming area, and then we took a bus to what used to be Chicoutimi and had lunch – a sandwich and a salad – in a small internet cafe filled with a wide range of interesting characters, none of whom spoke English. Later in the day, I took the bus to the other side of La Baie and saw a wood carver, and a cool monument to those who were lost in the flood at the Ha! Ha! bay. The monument is known as the Ha! Ha! Pyramid, and appears as if it was made with thousands of “Yield” traffic signs; the symbolism is that we should yield to nature and avoid destroying wetlands.
Saguenay is a jewel.
When we left, we had dinner with a couple from Colorado Springs; he was a retired Marine pilot, and we’re scheduled on the same flight to Denver.
Sunday, October 9 – Tuesday, October 11. Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Quebec is about as close as you can get to France without crossing the ocean. It was founded in the early 1600’s, and literally a few steps from the ship found us in the oldest shopping area in North America. Most of the buildings date from 1650. A funicular elevator runs up the hill to the iconic Fontenac Hotel to the “new” old town area.
Your mom was a trooper, but finally pooped out about lunchtime, so we came back to our ship and had lunch; we found a geocache -La croisière s’amuse -near the ship. I took out on my own after lunch and found two more caches. As always, the sport gets you to places you might not otherwise visit. One of the caches was in the lower part of old town, by a cool fountain; the other was <0.2 miles away but up on the hill. The line for the funicular was out the door, so I walked up and found two 30something Quebecois ladies with a GPS receiver in hand. Together we found it under one of the cannons that had defended the city from the British invasion … unsuccessfully. I called Georgia on her cell phone and took a picture of her waving at me.
Since we’re staying overnight at the Hilton, we were among the last to leave, so we ordered room service breakfast, and we spent the morning on the balcony watching the sun rise over Quebec enjoying a coffee. Holland America is remarkably efficient, and they’ve segregated the us by departure time – we’re waiting for GRAY #2, which is supposed to come about 9:30 a.m. Too bad I was so frugal with the online minutes; I bought 250 (and got 20 more as a bonus) and still have almost 25 minutes of internet time. The Quebec skyline is clear, and the buildings definitely foreign. Georgia said that the church turrets reminded her of Hungary.
The Hilton is a Hilton. A big, ugly monument to the 1970’s plopped next door to the graceful Quebec provincial capital building. Nuff said.
We had lunch in upper old town at a small cafe; for a starter we shared a selection of Quebec cheeses, then a pizza. While we were there an old man set up nearby with an accordion and an MP3 player. The MP3 player provided the rhythm, and he played music that reminded us of every French movie we’d ever seen. While we enjoyed the pizza, a young couple and their two children came by. While the father got out his movie camera, the mother gave her little girl a coin to put in the accordion player’s box. She ran over and plunked it in, and then ran back to her mom. She then picked up her daughter and began to dance with her to the music. A moment we will never forget.
I would like to forget the trip home. Once again, the Amazing Race came to mind. A small plane from Quebec to Toronto. While in Toronto, we were supposed to clear American customs, but we got our signals crossed and just barely made it to Air Canada before they slammed the door shut; then of course it landed on one side of the A concourse in Denver, and our United Express plane took off from Grand Junction on the other side of the B concourse.
But we, and our luggage, made it back home. All in all, a wonderful trip and one I would recommend to anybody.