Leaving the dock at Galveston
Our first dinner was a revelation. We had booked with a group, and our group had 2 separate tables, albeit side by side. The Roshtos were at one table, and we were seated with Jim Frascone, Suong Tran, Jim’s daughter Maria from New Orleans , and her BFF Rebecca, from Baytown Split , Croatia
Which leads me to my next discussion: the passenger population. If you ignore the staff, who came in various ages, but usually young, I was in the lower 20 percent of the age range – maybe even 10 percent. And my classic riddle for the voyage was, what was the difference between the passengers and staff? Passengers averaged about 60 pounds more per person~! We were old, overweight, and in addition, loaded down with more wheelchairs, canes, artificial limbs, boots on busted feet, and walkers than you can envision! In spite of the equipment, an amazing percentage of this group were of the leather-like skin of the professional tanners, and spent hours “bronzing” in sometimes very skimpy bathing garments. Senior citizens in Speedos – truly a vision to behold.
Of course, you can only have so many people on walkers – the rest of this population were the type AARP continues to brag on – those boomers (and older) who refuse to go down quietly. The gym was usually full, and those 20 treadmills were always going, the clang of the weights giving us walkers occasional starts. There were cycling classes, yoga classes, dance lessons, ice skating, etc. The ship sponsored a Make A Wish event, and raised over 10 grand in donations, but it was coupled with 2 people teams walking 30 minutes each on 2 treadmills on the main promenade, for the full 24 hours and 10 days of the cruise. They did over 4,000 miles as a group. I would have joined them, but my knee continued its painfully slow recovery. I would do a gym walk for 30 minutes, followed by 2 days of goofing off (except for stairs). But I was on the cane when I went on the ship, and didn’t use it after day 2.
The vast majority of our passenger group were Texans, but we had a huge population of Spanish speakers, both Mexican and Spanish as well. Then there were the Brits, the Germans, the Irish, and lots and lots of Asians, although many of the Asians were either half of couples with an Anglo side, or American citizens of Asian descent. There was one couple from Hungary Barcelona to Venice , and when the ship started its summer tour from Venice around the Adriatic , they were good to go. Amazing.
Our stateroom with balcony was pretty darned good. The shower of course was similar to those suspended animation capsules you see in sci-fi movies, but we managed to store 4 suitcases worth of clothes, plus suitcases, and still walk. We were also treated to the usual cruise menageries formed with towels. I kept them on the couch, and we added hats, jewelry, and other silliness. Alex Prosper, our man in the cabin, was a gem. He dealt with Hank’s chilled meds issue, his distilled water and extension cords for his sleep machine, and a variety of little things that made our trip so much easier.
Okay, what now follows is a rough how we spent our days. Life on a cruise ship is what you make it; with Hank, that means keeping it as close to his home life as possible, i.e., sleeping 16 hours a day, particularly since he was cut off from the Internet (it was 44 cents a minute!) Hank’s standard line was, “I have to get up and go eat AGAIN?” For me, it involved hours watching the ocean, actually reading (4 books!) and strolls on the various decks. So we weren’t too exciting, but we truly enjoyed ourselves.
Day 1 – Boarded ship, found room, then went up to the buffet for a late lunch. Poor Hank had just filled a plate, and as he turned, it slid out of his hand and landed on his shoes and of course the floor. He was mortified – not the kind of attention he likes to get. However, the staff took care of things handily, including cleaning his shoe! Attended our official lifeboat muster drill. Got our first drink at Harry’s Bar, as noted above. Sat and listened to the Piano Man at the Champagne Bar until dinner hour; had our lovely dinner, headed to bed, where I actually slept for 11 hours.
Day 2 – Our first time change came at noon, but one hour wasn’t enough to make much of a shock to my system. One of the nicer surprises was the on board presence of a priest, so we had mass every day. Over 100 people attended daily, and the 2 Sunday masses had about 250. The ship had to make more hosts, since he had only brought 500 with him! Anyway, I made all but 3 masses, so I felt very devout and righteous. Mother would be proud. Finished my first book (Wonder Spot) and slept a total of 2 hours. That sounded suspiciously like home…
Day 3 – Susan Roshto and I went to a Wine Tasting Activity, sat with some pretty comparable palates, and enjoyed the sampling. Most of the wines were on our selection lists if we bought the wine packages, so we were able to sample before getting a whole bottle. Had lunch with a couple from Spring, and of course Hank managed to get in a lot of football conversation (as he did nearly every meal except dinners with whoever we happened to sit with.) This was our first formal dinner night, and we all looked spiffy. Hank loves to pose for photos, so we did, but the results were less than spectacular, so none of those glamour shots made it home with us. Besides, we were wearing the same outfits we had photos made for 10 years ago, so it was kind of a wash! (Inserting the old photo, below so you can see my dress) Slept 9 hours – the last full night of sleep I was able to get.
Day 4 – Another time change day. First day I opted not to take my motion pills, and from now on, I was good to go – quite a relief. Finished the book “The Swan Thieves” by Elizabeth Kostova, and I highly recommend it. (her other book, The Historian is about vampires, and sucks, in my opinion). Drug Hank up to deck 13 for lunch at Johnny Rocket’s, a 50s style diner. Very cute diversion from the dining rooms and buffets. When you enter, all the staff holler “helloooooo” and of course, “good bye….” when you leave. In between, they all do line dances on the half hour. A. Lynette was amused, and Mr. Gupton worked on his milk shake. Slept 2 hours.
Day 5 – Another time change. Haven’t mentioned my knee, but I came on board using the cane (only partially because it got me on early!). It had been 3 weeks since the knee job, but I really expected more progress. Stairs were uncomfortable, but I kept trying. The ship did a project for the Make a Wish Foundation. We had a “Walk Across the Ocean” event, where they set up 2 treadmills on the main promenade deck. People could sign up to walk for 30 minutes, 24/7; and they did! For 10 days! You could turn on the telly any hour of the night and watch them walking. You also of course could make donations and buy tee shirts. Our intrepid walkers managed over 4000 miles, and the passengers raised $10,000.00.
Anyway, I wanted to walk with them, but I was afraid of embarrassing myself. I went to the gym, where the other 18 treadmills were stationed, and did 30 minutes. I was quite happy, but the day after, I took pills. Waited another day, did 30 minutes, same sort of thing. So I continued that pattern for the rest of the cruise, and tried to do stairs when I was by myself and could go slowly. Hank always opted for the lifts, so I made him do penance with me on the stairs once in a while.
Our breakfast buddies were Charles and Morita, former New Orleans residents who moved to San Antonio after Katrina. Seriously Italian Catholic, Charles has his own little mission; he has rosaries made out of fava beans that have been shellacked and distributes them with a legend about the favas, a famine, and St. Joseph. The rosaries are lovely, and of course he gifted me. Saw him doing it later with someone else. He has them made by a company in N.O. that makes Mardi Gras beads!
Bought my first Euros – the exchange rate blew everyone away - $100 US = $66 Euros.
Day 6 – Another time change, and this is where it started to affect my sleeping patterns big time. I’d catch myself napping in my balcony chair, lying down for a quick one, etc. At night I’d be wide awake till 3 or 4. Made it to mass, hit the gym, and for our first time, we chose to miss breakfast. The first big sale went down on the promenade deck, and I did some serious souvenir purchasing with the other 3,000 crazy customers.
Day 7 – No sleep, no treadmill, no mass. Instead, I had whales! About 11 am, I was on the balcony, half nodding, and straight out from me, I see water spouting up. Disbelieving, I still kept my eyes glued, grabbed behind me for the sliding door to the room, and hollered, “Hank, Whales! Hank, Whales!” He came out, I told him of the spout, and about 2 minutes after the first one (just like they say on Discovery Channel), up comes a second spout, followed by just the trace of the back. I was in heaven. At dinner that night, people on a higher deck had seen not the 2, but four. (darn, I missed some) But whale sightings continued to be a conversation topic, and later, dolphins were seen cavorting.
I drug Hank up to the recreation deck, and got him to the putt putt course, where he promptly whupped my ass as usual. He really can hold his putter!
This was the second formal dinner night, and Renata got our strolling violinist and guitarist to come to our table for several tunes. (one of the perks of having a waiter who has stroke not only with the kitchen, but with the entertainers!) Our glamour shot turned out much better. Jim Frascone even managed to corral our entire tour group for a staircase shot; if he sends me one I’ll pop it in here.Day 8 – Well, I made morning mass, and went to a Tango Dance class, which I enjoyed immensely. Hank and I had watched an ice skating class a couple of days earlier, and I was astonished at how the instructor could take people who had never been on skates and within an hour, had them not only standing up, but skating backwards and working on turns. The same thing happened in the dance class. It was grand!
I did, however, miss the time change notice, so I missed the Island Frenzy Parade. In fact, that’s how I realized there was a time change, because I went to watch and I was an hour late. We also were then an hour late for dinner; I nearly hauled Hank there by hand, and only went in to apologize, intending to head to the buffet instead. (You know how freaked I get when I have lost control, right?) Anyway, Renata shoved my napkin in my lap, sat me down, got my wine, and proceeded to whip our dinners out in record time, so we were eating dessert when it was time for the parade of waiters and their serenade. Renata, of course, had tricks; she made a very shrieky whistle out of a cigarette package plastic, which she blew frequently during the parade and while everyone clapped. And what would happen while all this was going on? Whales outside the window!Day 9 – No time change today, but we were already whacked with the time. I didn’t waken till 9:30 (no sleep till 4) and Hank didn’t get up till 12:30. Boring hubby managed to stay vertical till lunch was over, but then napped between lunch and dinner, and headed back immediately after dinner was over. He enjoyed himself immensely, and if I could only have seduced the stateroom attendant, Gupton would never have been the wiser! I took the high road, though (sigh – Alex is really cute – sorry I didn’t get a photo) and I finished Eat, Pray, Love. Then I had to go looking through the ship’s library for something worth trying. Picked up Cornwell’s (Bernard) Azincourt, which I had been intending to read, but gave up about 60 pages in and bought a book down in the shops.
Hank woke up 11 pm ish, and I conned him into going downstairs (one deck below was the promenade deck) for Ben and Jerry’s. Now, our rooms were incredibly soundproofed; you never heard the people on either side, no flushing, no thuds, nothing in the hall. And Gupton and I were pretty dull, as mentioned, and usually kept to our room after dinner. Well, we headed downstairs, and half of the ship must have been walking the place. Everybody likes a party that goes on all night!
Day 10 – Land Ho! We docked while mass was going on, and us good holy ones could hardly focus on the altar for craning our necks out the portholes. Oh, should mention that mass was in Cleopatra’s Needle, a bar all decked out in Egyptian mythology, obelisks, etc. The priest was highly amused, and commented frequently about us desecrating the pagan idols. Anyway, everyone was ready for some solid ground, and passengers and all staff who could get off, did so. Hank and I did an afternoon excursion, so I hit the treadmill in the morning and watched all the people head off like rats deserting the ship. 
Our tour was a 4 hour bus ride around the biggest island of the Azores. Our guide was Portuguese, natch, and his accent was heavy on the zh sounds, so Azores came out as ajoresh. Hank couldn’t understand a word, but then he couldn’t hear anyway. I had no trouble once I got the hang of it. What surprised me about the tour was that yours truly, Master Gardener intern, was fixated nearly completely on the vegetation! Bird of Paradise plants, all in bloom, planted in the highway medians! Hydrangea bushes hugging the curbs, and little sticks of hydrangeas planted to cover bare spots. Their azaleas were still blooming at higher altitudes; their gingers were coming back from the winter but hadn’t bloomed yet. They even had a variation of the Bird of Paradise that was a tree – 15 feet, white blooms. 
Our tour took us to Sete Cidades, which means 7 cities, but is actually 7 lakes of different colors. They were formed from the volcanic activity. Photo of Hank with the 2 big ones; color may not be perfect, but one is blue because it’s so deep, and one is green due to vegetation surrounding it. The bus then wound through the countryside, and I missed getting an aqueduct photo from many centuries back. However, a bunch of people on the bus kept taking pictures of the Holstein cows – that totally was beyond my understanding, but there were hundreds of them, and the Azores exports a lot of dairy products, even to the States, evidently. We also stopped at a botanical park, where I saw lots of things we used to have in Florida. I could name things before our guide got to them (bragging rights!)At dinner, we were all comparing tour notes, since none of us were on the same ones. Then Hank and I joined Suong and Jim in one of the hot tubs outdoors. Did I mention it was cool on the Atlantic? And I had been wearing my hoodie most of the days? Well, the hot tub was yummy, but I thought the wind was going to turn us into icicles before we got toweled off and into the elevators! It was pretty fun, and of course, helped that we had lubricated during dinner…But at 1 am, I was bright-eyed, so I went downstairs for hot chocolate and people watching.
Day 11 – Back at sea for the jump between the Azores and the Straits of Gibralter. Another time change day; seriously whacko now. Hank up at noon, back asleep at 3; I missed mass due to my own sleeping issues, waking at 9:30. It was somewhere around the Azores or after that I started getting phone reception again, and texted Leah for an update. We ended up texting frequently after that, as these notes will show. I hit one of the travel movies in the morning on Venice (actually 2 back to back). The theater was packed with lots of people probably already booked to go there (the ship’s summer schedule was the Adriatic, starting and ending in Venice). I got Hank to the afternoon one on Slovenia and Croatia so we could see Renata’s home town of Split; he survived and then napped, as noted.
This was our last formal night; photo below. It was also Surf n Turf, and Renata shoveled plates at us like it was the last meal before execution. Hank ate 3 lobster tails, and others at our table were not far behind. I of course, ate 3 desserts! We could hardly move, and Renata just kept on giggling and handing out plates.
I attended the Leaving the Ship presentation, which gave us the skinny on how efficient yet again the Royal Caribbean folks are. Here’s the commercial – hands down, this is the best line on the seas.
Tonight, we hit the Straits. At 11:30 pm, I went downstairs and codged sandwiches, woke the Gup up, and we nestled on the balcony till 1:30. Cadiz finally appeared (although we didn’t know that’s what it was at the time). Our ship couldn’t make a wake like it had in the Atlantic, so we slowed to a crawl, it seemed. Took forever to pass Cadiz, and then there was this very large, dark, nothing space for a long time. After that, another city, which turned out to be Malaga. But the Rock wasn’t in sharp profile due to clouds and mist. Shoot. At least we figured out that’s what it was, once we figured out Cadiz and Malaga the next morning. So, we saw it.
Day 13 – Leah texts me at 4 am, waking me up (for a change). “Are you all right?” Why the hell wouldn’t I be? Earthquake? Where the hell was an earthquake? Nothing on our tv? And she answers “Spain”. Well, hon, Spain may be about the same size as Texas….Next morning, someone told me it was near Madrid. Not. Turned out it was about 30 miles from Murcia, which is near Cartagena, but we weren’t close - yet. So we were spared, except for some lost sleep, and we were able to assure assorted kin that we were okey dokey.
So, we arrive in Malaga, and we had another bus tour, with a bit more walking (to Hank’s chagrin). Got good bull ring pictures, enjoyed the 19th century city ambience and architecture. Again, lots of greenery and floral color. I have a lousy picture that I took from inside the bus of a “petunia tower”. They had hundreds of these – about 6 feet high, maybe 4 feet at the base, they were structured to hold pots of petunias in full bloom. Glorious. Picasso had lived here, but we couldn’t pass his birthplace because of road renovation. Antonio Banderas is from Malaga (another big sigh – he is one honey). There was a 45 minute break for shopping, but Gup and I stayed on the bus with a few others. I fell asleep a while, then enjoyed watching all the horse-drawn carriages and reading the signs. Couldn’t believe how much Spanish I’ve acquired – I was darned proud. Once back at the pier area, we did a little shopping. I bought gifties and postcards, Hank bought Spanish toothpaste. He collects toothpaste, ya know!
Including the bus nap, I got 4 hours of sleep.
Day 14 – Malaga to Cartagena was a short hop, and our stay in Cartagena was pretty short as well – about 5 hours. My knee was uncooperative, so we stayed on board and I attempted to take photos of the ancient walls, the castle, the bull ring, etc. I would have done better with something other than a drugstore special, but it kept me occupied. Had a fun surprise as I surveyed the boats in the marina. One of them, the Sonrisa, was from Punta Gorda, Florida, which is where I worked before moving to Texas! Simply had to take a photo of it. After lunch I went up to Decks 13 and 14 for the panoramic view as we left the city. The panoramic view included my final sight of senior citizens sunbathing (shudder). Had myself a little pity party about going home; Leah had texted me in no uncertain terms that I had to show up (actually she used bad words, but you know I don’t use them so I won’t repeat them here!) We had a vigil mass, and then dinner, where I got to use my Croatian words one more time, and we got serenaded one more time by the waiters. Then came the packing, which took considerable effort, but we managed. And of course, spent my last night watching the water.Day 15 – Barcelona in a blur. We were on one of the earlier flights, so we left the ship in an organized fashion, only to be deposited at the Barcelona airport where things were, shall we say, less organized. We arrived there 3 hours prior to our flight, and got into our plane as the next-to-last couple about 20 minutes after it was supposed to leave. The last couple got there 20 minutes later, and we learned that the only reason they didn’t leave was the high terror level due to Bin Laden’s death. Our bags were already on the plane and no planes left with bags that didn’t have passengers with them. Sigh of relief. The bureaucratic mess in the airport was more Byzantine than Spanish, I do believe. Anyway, flight from Barcelona to London was about 2 hours, and they served FREE BEER. God bless British Airways. Then came the 10 hours from Heathrow to Houston. We had aisle seats, but Hank was without someone in the seat next to him. One of the only spare spaces in our steerage area. The food was pretty good, but Hank was glad we snagged some sandwiches at Heathrow. He said it was pretty good food, and he’d always heard Brit food was bad; I informed him the place we bought sandwiches was a French deli…Anyway, landed in Houston, got through customs, Leah met us with the van, and we drove home. I slept for hours and hours. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The trip of a lifetime, for sure.
