Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Posted on October 20, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Arcadia from Waitangi

Usually cruise ships tie up to a dock on port stops, but sometimes they anchor offshore. When the ship anchors it is called a tender port because people move from ship to shore in smaller boats called tenders. Each ship carries several life boats different from the rest that they can drop to use as tenders. Tender boats are taller than the standard life boats and have double catamaran style hulls and two propellers. Ordinary life boats have a single V-style hull and one propeller.

ready to lower the tenders into the water

Some frequently visited ports send out their own larger island tenders, but at ports like Bay of Islands in New Zealand the ship uses their own. On most of the ships we’ve sailed on the tender just pulls up alongside the ship, but the P&O Arcadia had little docks that folded down from the side of the ship to tie the tenders to. Quite clever actually.

Arcadia’s tender dock

The tenders let passengers off at a yacht club between the town of Paihia and the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. A scenic walk along the shoreline led to the treaty grounds, which had an admission charge to go inside.

canoe shed at Waitangi Treaty Grounds

From outside the fence you could see a shed with large canoes and a café. The entrance was in a building that looked like a museum. The treaty grounds is the place where the Maori signed a peace treaty with Great Britain in 1840.

Paihai and Russell

A free shuttle took passengers from the yacht club to nearby Paihai. This historic town has plenty of shops and restaurants for tourists. It also has lots of different places offering tours of all sorts. People can go fishing, parasailing, dolphin watching, take a helicopter or bus tour, take a day cruise, visit caves, or at times go snorkeling or diving. Bus tours around the area start at $20, but some of the other things can get pricey – especially the helicopter.

coming into Russell on the ferry

A ferry runs to Russell for $12 round trip for adults. Russell was once called Kororareka, an early whaling settlement. It is one of the oldest towns in New Zealand and has the oldest hotel. It was once a wild place full of sailors, whalers, and escaped convicts from Australia.

museum in Russell

Russell also has shops, restaurants, and places to book tours of all sorts. It has a couple museums too. We took a short bus tour. The driver said the permanent population there is quite small with most of the homes being holiday houses for people who just spend a few months there each year. We passed a hotel in the distance where the rich and famous stay in rooms costing up to $19,000 per night.

mosaic sundial on Flagstaff Hill

We got out on Flagstaff Hill, which would have had great views had it not been a cloudy, misty day with rain off and on. One path led to an oversized mosaic sundial. The other path led to a flagpole that had a history of Maori’s knocking it down and English putting it back up.

Things to do in the Bay of Islands

Maori Experience shore excursion

Bay of Islands is a maritime park with 144 islands and lots of beaches, bays, and sea life. Shore excursions from our ship included Waitangi and Countryside, Cape Brett Cruise, Rural Drive and Waipoua Forest and The Maori Experience. We saw some passengers on the Maori Experience heading off from the yacht club in a couple of double canoes. An older Maori guide on one of the canoes wore a loincloth and nothing else but tattoos. The rest of the guides wore just a bit more clothing.

Cruising to Bay of Islands – Things to Do On Your Own

ferry from Paihia to Russell

People who come to Bay of Islands without prior plans will have no problem finding something to do. They can stay at Waitangi and visit the treaty grounds or make their way to either Paihai or Russel and choose from the plethora of tours offered at either town or just explore on their own.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Posted in Arcadia, New Zealand, P&O, Ports of Call | Tagged Arcadia, Bay of Islands, New Zealand, P&O, Paihai, photos, Russell, travel, vacation | 4 Comments

Disney – Hollywood Studios

Posted on October 6, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Twighlight Zone Tower of Terror towers over Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park (internet photo)

Hollywood Studios seemed less crowded than some of the other theme parks at Disney World. Or maybe it just felt that way because we got there right at opening time before the crowd had time to build up. Initially we wondered why our hotel had a 7:30am shuttle when none of the parks opened before 9:00. It didn’t take long to figure it out though. The first day we took the 9am shuttle straight to Epcot. By the time it made the rounds to other hotels and we got through the ticket, security, and gate lines it was after 10 by the time we got into the park. The shuttle made the rounds of several hotels so it was after 8 before it even got to the park. The drop off for the early one was called Magic Kingdom, but was really an in-between place with monorails to Epcot or Magic Kingdom and a ferry to Magic Kingdom. The first time we went there everyone just went straight through and on to the monorails or ferries, but the second day they had a barricade and the people guarding it said they were only letting guests staying in Disney resorts or who had a breakfast booked through. They would actually let people going to Epcot through as well, but we had to tell them that is where we were going and ask to be let through so a lot of people needlessly waited. From Epcot there are busses to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom so it’s a roundabout way to get there by shuttle from out-of-park hotels. After all that we got to Hollywood Studios right about the time it opened. A lot of rides had 5 or 10 minute wait times then, but most got longer within a couple hours so it pays off to arrive early.

the kids found Chip & Dale at Disney’s Hollywood Studios

This park had a lot of characters randomly in outside areas where visitors could get photos without waiting in a line to see them in a building. That didn’t stop lines from building up outside, though they were much shorter than the lines at the official character spots. Hollywood Studios had some character spots as well which had lines considerably shorter than what we saw at Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. They also had some random outside shows like a cowboy with some ropes and some scheduled shows outside too.

Olaf had his very own character spot

The kids got to see Chip and Dale while wandering the park, Olaf in a building with no line, and Princess Sofia (from a Disney Junior show called Sofia the First) in an official spot on the outskirts of a building. They also met Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who had their own character spots.

squirrels like peanut butter sandwiches

We also saw a real live squirrel, which the kids enjoyed more than the chipmunk characters. One of them gave it a bit of peanut butter sandwich. It posed for awhile nibbling on its prize and then carried the sandwich up a tree and hung upside down eating it hovering just above where anyone could reach. The sandwich-eating squirrel drew quite a crowd, entertaining way more people than just our own grandkids.

Star Wars has quite a presence at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios

There was quite a bit of Star Wars themed stuff. We started the day on a great Star Wars simulator ride called Star Tours where C-3PO piloted the shuttle. It’s a motion ride with most of the action on a video screen, but there was an actual C3PO pilot in the simulated shuttle. We also saw youngsters participating in some sort of Jedi training, and we happened by both live action and movie Star Wars shows out on the grounds. On another day when we passed some construction near the highway and wondered what it was all about the uber driver said Disney was building Star Wars Land near their Hollywood park. I looked it up online and it is scheduled to open in 2019 as part of Hollywood Studios which may get renamed at that time. Once that opens it will probably get a lot more crowded there. Toy Story Land is also coming to Hollywood Studios.

Hannah is a fan of the Sofia the First cartoon show and enjoyed meeting her

Hollywood Studios didn’t leave out the younger set. Rides or shows there included muppets, Toy Story, Frozen, and Disney Junior.

Mickey as the sorcerer’s apprentice

Considering that the park is called Hollywood Studios, all the rides and attractions have something to do with movies, TV shows, or characters from movies or TV shows. Of course Mickey Mouse has a presence there since he has been part of Disney from the beginning and is still a major character. We went to a Frozen show where it snowed inside, and then the Disney Junior show snowed inside too, which was quite a thrill for Australian kids who rarely ever see snow.

street performer at Disney's Hollywood studios

the kids got to participate in a random street show with a cowboy

One thing that really surprised us all through Disney World was the amount of people pushing giant kids around in strollers. Not that they were the children of giants, just kids that seemed awfully big for strollers. My grandkids are 5 and 7 and we saw quite a few kids bigger than them riding through the parks in strollers. Those kids would get no exercise sitting either in strollers or on rides or at shows all day and then when they get back to their hotel at night they are probably bouncing off the walls. Meanwhile the parents must be exhausted from pushing double strollers full of big heavy kids around the park all day. Not that it’s any of my business, but it just seems like kids that big would be better off with some exercise. The stroller parking lots wouldn’t be so full either if people just used strollers for babies and toddlers.

More Blogs About Disney World

Magic Kingdom

Epcot

Animal Kingdom

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Posted in Port City Side Trips, Randoms, USA | Tagged Disney, Disney World, family fun, Hollywood Studios, Star Wars rides, travel, vacation | Leave a comment

Holland America Oosterdam

Posted on September 29, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Oosterdam in Juneau

Holland America’s Oosterdam is the second of 4 directionally named Vista class ships, representing East. Her sister ships are Westerdam, Noordam, and Zuiderdam for west, north, and south. Built by Fincantieri of Italy, Oosterdam was christened by Princess Margriet of the Netherlands in Rotterdam in July of 2003. Oosterdam is 950 feet long and 105.8 feet wide with 11 passenger decks and a passenger capacity of 1964. The ship has two separate engine rooms that operate independently of each other.

Mainstage Theater has nightly production shows or guest entertainers plus movies and other daytime entertainment

Holland America’s Vista class is nothing like Carnival’s Vista, but P&O’s Arcadia has the same hull design and many of the same features. All of Holland America’s ships have the suffix “dam,” which besides having the same meaning in Dutch as in English (a barrier against water), it was also early tradition for Dutch passenger ships to end with dam while cargo ships ended with diik or dyk. Holland America’s ships are often referred to as the dam ships even by Holland America themselves.

Oosterdam’s Spa Mineral Pool

This class of ship has the best thermal suite/spa pool I’ve seen. Their mineral pool is quite large and besides the rack where people can relax in the pool’s jets it has a well-jetted circular area. John said the circular part reminded him of sitting in a cannibal’s pot, but the temperature is warm, not boiling and there’s nobody waiting to eat anyone. The spa’s heated ceramic benches face floor to ceiling windows and the thermal suite also includes aroma therapy steam rooms, a sauna, and fancy showers. The thermal suite package costs extra, but on ships with a nice spa like this one it’s worth it. Though advance bookings are not available on the website, you can call to book in advance and save money over the onboard price.

stairway art on the Oosterdam

We took one of our very first cruises on the Oosterdam many years ago sailing from San Diego to the Mexican Rivera. The main thing I remember about the décor back then was cow print fabric in the disco. Currently the ship has neither disco nor cow print. The current décor appears as somewhat of a subdued opulence with lots of old-time style artwork. Paintings around the ship often feature old sailing ships. Some have previous renditions of Holland America’s current ships – that is an old style ship with the same name as ships in Holland America’s current fleet. Statues mainly look like those found in Europe in former centuries. The centerpiece in the atrium is a giant fancy globe.

centerpiece of the Oosterdam’s atrium

Oosterdam just finished the summer Alaska season cruising out of Seattle and will spend the winter cruising Mexico, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal before moving on to Europe in the spring. Ships out of Seattle always leave in a bunch and on this trip we saw the reason why. While sailing into the Straight of Juan de Fuca, which connects Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean, we had a seat near a window at the back of the dining room. As the Oosterdam neared Port Angeles it veered towards the shore. A pilot boat came to meet the ship and the pilot disembarked. As the Oosterdam moved away the pilot boat stayed in the area and when Norwegian Pearl reached the same spot the pilot boat retrieved their pilot. Emerald Princess was not far behind so they retrieved 3 pilots with just one boat.

fancy mosaic tile in one of the public hallways

Oosterdam had updates done recently during a 2016 drydock. Upgrades to the ship include USB ports in the cabins. Besides the 2 USB ports, our cabin also had 2 outlets, quite an improvement over the standard only one place to plug anything in found on many ships.

sunrise on the smoke free promenade deck

Smoking policies onboard are also updated with the interior of the ship and outside promenade deck now all non-smoking. It’s really nice to be able to go anywhere inside the ship and walk or jog around the promenade deck without running into any smoke. The ship’s smoking area is cleverly located outside in a sheltered area on the Lido deck on one side the stern where the ship sails forward out of the smoke. Nobody needs to walk through that area to get anywhere else so it’s easy to avoid.

America's Test Kitchen on Holland America

salmon demonstration at America’s Test Kitchen

Holland America has partnered with America’s Test Kitchen. They have daily cooking demonstrations with different types of food each day. On our cruise they started with salmon, ended with chocolate, and had a variety of other dishes in between.

pool under the sliding dome – which stayed shut in Alaska for an indoor pool

Other entertainment options include shows, movies, live music, computer classes, and BBC Earth natural history activities. They have children’s programs for kids from 3 to 17. There are 2 pools, each with hot tubs nearby. One of them has a sliding dome so it can be an indoor pool in cold climates or rainy weather and an outdoor pool when it’s warm and sunny.

Ocean Bar window seating

There’s lots of seating space near windows along the public hallways. Most of it is technically in bars, but they aren’t always open and people often use the areas to sit and read, play cards, or just enjoy the scenery.

main dining room on the Oosterdam

The ship has several dining options. Besides the main dining room and buffet there’s a poolside grill and two premium restaurants, the Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto.

Holland America Dining Room Dress Code

Most evenings smart casual attire is appropriate. Shorts, pool/beachwear, distressed jeans and men’s tank tops are not permitted in fine dining restaurants. Jeans without holes, tears or embroidery are welcome on casual evenings in all restaurants. Shorts are not permitted in the dining room at dinner.

Gala Nights evoke the grand traditions of cruising as guests dress to impress for special events on board, including our five-course gourmet dinner in the Dining Room. For gentlemen, collared shirts and slacks are required in all fine dining restaurants. Jacket and tie is the preferred attire in all fine dining restaurants on Gala Nights, though it is not required.

For ladies on gala night attire dressy attire is appropriate. Dresses, skirts, and slacks are all acceptable.

Jeans are not allowed in the dining room on gala nights, but guests not wishing to dress up can eat at the buffet.

Posted in Holland America, Oosterdam | Tagged cruise ship, Holland America, Holland America dining room dress code, Oosterdam | 2 Comments

Food on P&O Arcadia

Posted on September 22, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

P&O Arcadia leaving Valparaiso, Chile

Food is a big part of cruising for most passengers, and like most major cruise ships P&O Arcadia has food available in a variety of places around the ship – some at no additional cost and others for a fee.

About 400 of the Arcadia’s 850 crew are in food service. This includes everyone from chefs to dishwashers, all of whom are necessary to keep food flowing through the ship.

Free Food

Meridian Dining Room

The Arcadia has just one two-level dining room called the Meridian Restaurant. It serves breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner daily. Menus are posted outside the dining room ahead of time so passengers have the opportunity to decide if that is what they would like or if they would rather eat elsewhere before they go inside.

Breakfast Menu on P&O Arcadia

Breakfast in the dining room is pretty slow so best done on a day with lots of spare time. You can get out a bit quicker by requesting a table just for your own group and asking for speed service, but speedier service is relative to the normal amount of time so still not exactly fast. They have a standard daily menu plus an extra item for each day of the week. My favorite, Eggs Benedict, was their Monday daily and they don’t have them on the Lido so that was the only chance to get them on the Arcadia. At least they come with actual runny sauce without having to ask for the sauce on the side like on some other ships where you just get a bit of dried up sauce clinging to the egg if you don’t ask for it on the side.

berry dessert at dinner

Lunch in the dining room has starters and for the main course regular or light options as well as a couple dessert choices. It didn’t seem as slow as breakfast in the dining room, but considerably slower than the Lido buffet. Something to do if the menu looks good and you have time for a leisurely lunch.

table in the dining room set for afternoon tea

Each afternoon the dining room had afternoon tea with a variety of delightful goodies.

one night’s dinner menu in the dining room

Dinner menus often contained very British items that needed translation from our British tablemates as we aren’t accustomed to things like Bubble and Squeak or Syllabub. Some things we had heard of before in travels to Australia like Bangers & Mash and Pavlova. The dining room has good food with fixed time early or late seatings on deck 2 or Freedom Dining on deck 3. I did give up on ordering any vegetarian meals after the first few I tried though. On a lot of ships the vegetarian meals are what I order most, but good as they would sound on the Arcadia’s menu, the actual meals I got were pretty odd. Then one day several other people at our table ordered a particularly delicious sounding vegetarian meal. I did not order it having not had good luck with them previously. That day the vegetarian meals actually came to the table looking as good as the menu made them sound and they all enjoyed it.

Buffet – The Belvedere

Besides the main dining room the other major food venue is the Belevedere buffet on the Lido deck. The buffet serves breakfast (continential 6:30-7 full English 7:30-11:30, lunch noon-3, snacks and afternoon tea 3-5, dinner 6:30-9:30, and late night bites 10pm-6am. Dinner themes vary, often food of a particular country.

buffet station on the Lido

Breakfast seemed a bit lacking compared to American ships. Most of the stations serve the exact same thing – Full English Breakfast. Which probably works for them since the majority of passengers are English, but we’re used to more variety in the food choices. There are no English muffins or bagels. They do have an omelet station, but no pancakes or French toast, though they do have an odd fried bread thing. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. Anything is better than marmite though, which is the British version of vegemite -Australia’s worst spread. Marmite is even more awful since even the Australians don’t like it.

lobster dinner from formal night in the dining room

On the plus side they do have pineapple juice as an option as well as orange or apple in the juice machines. They also have the best sweet rolls of any ship we’ve sailed on and their breakfast options include a daily fruit smoothie. After about 2/3 of the cruise passed we noticed a waffle iron at one of the Lido breakfast stations and it turned out they will make waffles if you can find someone to make them. They pull out a bin of old cold waffles from under the counter that were made who knows when and try to get you to take one of those, but will make a fresh one if you insist.

At lunch the only cold drink available is water. They do have milk dispensers which are intended for tea or coffee, but if you want a glass of milk it works for that as well. Coffee and tea are available, with a selection of flavored teas. No ice though. Too bad because if there was you could brew your own ice tea. I suppose you could have the room steward fill your ice bucket and make ice tea in the cabin since there is a tea pot there.

dining room menu from black tie black & white night

Lunch has more variety than breakfast at the buffet and with the addition of the Neptune Grill which serves fish & chips and fajitas as well as burgers, finding something tasty is pretty easy. They have some good desserts too. Some days they have something special like a selection of fancy cakes or a variety of pies.

Afternoon snacks on the Lido include some of the things served at tea in the dining room as well as a selection of hot foods that usually include things like mini quiche and french fries. One day they had a chocolate buffet complete with chocolate fountain.

quite often the dessert menu included bakewell tarts

The Neptune Grill on the Lido outside by the pool area serves burgers including veggie burgers, fish and chips, and several items that change throughout the cruise including their desserts. The serve yourself bar near the grill has things like tacos or sandwiches (different food on different days). The grill is open from 11am-6:30pm, the serve yourself area at lunchtime only.

traditional English dinner with beef and Yorkshire pudding in the dining room

Some days they had extra stuff out on the Lido by the pool at lunchtime. Sometimes there’s a barbecue and on Sundays they have Sunday roast with a variety of meats and side dishes including English favorites like Yorkshire Pudding.

display from Sindhu restaurant

Premium Dining

Like all the major cruise lines, P&O has several restaurants where guests pay extra for premium food. Their selections include sea food at the Ocean Grill and Indian food at Sindhu. Recipes at both restaurants come from their Michelen star counterparts on land and food is cooked in the restaurant by chefs trained for that specific restaurant rather than in the main galley. Both are open for dinner only.

menu from Ocean Grill restaurant

Caffe Vivo – Coffee Shop

Their coffee shop, called Caffe Vivo gives a free sweet or pastry with the purchase of coffee or tea.

Aquarius Bar – one of the outside bars on Lido Deck

Bars

Like most cruise ships, the Arcadia has a variety of bars with locations throughout the ship both inside and in some outside areas of the Lido deck.

John and one of our tablemates on black tie, black & white night

P&O DINING ROOM DRESS CODES (From P&O’s Website)

Evening Casual

Stylish resort or leisurewear is ideal for Evening Casual nights, for example casual separates or dresses for ladies and open-neck polo shirts and casual long trousers (not shorts or 3/4 length trousers) for men. A jacket and smart trousers can be worn but are not compulsory. Smart dark denim is also fine, but not trainers, football shirts or tracksuits.

Black Tie

Black Tie nights foster a rather special atmosphere on-board and we know that our guests adore dressing up and it has long been a part of the P&O Cruises experience, adding a touch of glamour and a real sense of occasion to evenings at sea. Seeing an entire ship full of people transformed into their finery is quite something to behold. Ladies wear glamorous evening wear including cocktail dresses, ball gowns or even smart trouser suits. For men, dinner jackets or tuxedos are the norm, but a dark lounge or business suit and tie can be worn as an alternative. You can also wear formal national dress and military uniform.

That sounds pretty fancy for modern cruise ship formal nights, but a lot of people came in clothes that would be suitable for most churches rather than anything super fancy. They did have a black and white black tie night and most people did stick with black and white clothing that day. There was a time when formal nights on cruise ships meant tuxedos and ball gowns, but since airlines started charging for luggage and people began to pack lighter the dress codes relaxed a bit on most ships.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Posted in Arcadia, Cruise Food, P&O, Shipboard Life | Tagged Arcadia, Arcadia menus, cruise food, P&O, P&O Dining room dress code | Leave a comment

Italy – Messina and Taormina

Posted on September 15, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Vista in Messina, Italy

Carnival Vista stopped in Messina, Italy on a Sunday. From the ship Messina looks like a pretty big city with lots of interesting old architecture within walking distance. Being Sunday though they made announcements that not much of anything in Messina would be open, but in a neighboring city called Taormina most everything opens on Sundays.

one of many pizza places in Taormina

We had no plans other than to get off the ship and walk around, but decided with some friends to take the train to Taormina. Messina Centrale train station is a relatively short walk from the cruise ship port. Take a left and follow either the coastline or the tracks from the tramline to get to the train station. The cashier said there was just one train out shortly after 9am, but that several came back between 2pm and 3:30 so we went ahead and bought the tickets.

abandoned building across the street from the train station in Taormina

The train ride to Taormina went smoothly enough until we got off at the station by the sea. Taormina sits high on a nearby hill. There was an abandoned building across the street and a few other buildings within sight, but not much else there. Being Sunday the visitor’s information booth at the station was closed. Several taxis sat outside the train station and would bring people to town for 15 euros. Meanwhile a long line of people waited to board a bus parked next to the station for a round trip cost to town of 3 euros each. That bus filled, but said another would be along in 10 minutes. The 10 minutes came and went and no bus came by for another 15, but we did get on that one and make it up to town.

view from Taormina

The bus stopped in some sort of bus yard where we got off and asked about times for the return bus. They handed us a schedule, but not knowing the area or language it really wasn’t clear if we could get a bus straight back to the train station or if it would loop around other places first. All the busses that came by while we waited near the train station were heading in the direction of town regardless of where they were going and whether they stopped, which made it appear they were all on some sort of loop where none ever went the other way.We had several hours so we went off to explore the town. On the way up we walked past a skyride tram down to the beach and took a ride just because it was there.

Taormina cable car at the beach station

The skyride passed over a soccer field and went down to the bottom of the hill to a nice beach. Signs advertised diving and snorkeling. Little shops and restaurants lined the shoreline just above the white sand and blue water making up the beautiful beach. Waves crashed over rocks dotting the small cove and people swam in the water and played in the sand. After taking a look around we took the tram back up. Too bad we didn’t have more time, swimwear, and snorkel gear.

trouble at the arch in Taormina

A crowd in front of an arch watched some sort of commotion possibly caused by people fighting after a bit of a fender bender car accident or something. On the narrow winding roads it’s more of a surprise that any two cars can pass by each other without having an accident than it is that any would collide. The crowd broke up and we headed off down a stairway and found a place to stop for some genuine Italian pizza. It’s pretty easy to find a gelato shop in Italy so we stopped in one for dessert. The gelato met our friend Tracy’s genuine Italian gelato test by checking the color of the pistachio (not the bright green of artificial dye) and the texture test (not machine smooth.)

old church in Taormina

On the way back up we went through the arch and found the main part of the town. The arch opened into some sort of small square. People came in and out of an old church taking photos. Narrow roads felt almost like the bottom of canyons between the tall buildings lining each street full of shops. Unfortunately shops aren’t all these streets were full of. Europe is behind the times on anti-public smoking laws as they don’t seem to have any. People smoke everywhere and it hung heavily between those buildings so I was glad nobody wanted to stay there very long.

no fresh air between the tall buildings

We worked our way back to where we got off the bus and they said there wouldn’t be one for the next half hour. We still weren’t sure how long the bus would take to get back to the train station so we took a taxi in hopes of catching the first train back that was to come shortly after 2. Once we got to the train station there were no trains listed before 3:20 either on the readerboard by the track or in the ticket machine. Other people that came looking for the same train said the train website had listed a 2:20 train as well as the 3:20 on a Sunday schedule when they looked it up, but not all the other trains the cashier said would come when we bought the tickets.

beach at the bottom of the cable car

The bus schedule outside the station listed a bus to Messina as coming Mon-Sat, but a passing bus driver said it was coming that day as well. Of course it didn’t. We began to wonder if they make a game of misinforming tourists. Some people panicked and took the expensive taxi back to Messina instead of waiting for the train when the bus didn’t come.

we spent a long time waiting for the train at this station in Taormina

The 3:20 train did come. It was the last of the trains we thought would be available that would get us back before the ship left, and closer than we normally cut the time. There’s a bit of a walk back to the ship. This was the closest we’ve come to becoming pier runners – people who run down the dock trying make it to the ship before they pull in the gangway and it leaves. We managed to make it back without having to run. Everyone from the train got back to the ship in time, but without much if any to spare. It just goes to show our friend who had traveled around Europe for a couple months before boarding the ship wasn’t kidding when she said Italian trains and busses are subject to last minute cancellations, strikes, or other problems meaning you can never count on them.

lighthouse in Messina

Mount Etna is another popular destination from Messina, but not a good one for do-it-yourself excursions for cruise ship passengers. The time involved in getting there by train and bus and reliance on their unreliable schedules would make missing the ship fairly likely. Our ship had excursions to Mt. Etna for less than the price of taking a taxi there.

Messina from the ship

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Posted in Carnival, Europe, Port Cities, Ports of Call, Vista | Tagged cable car, cruise, Europe, Italy, Messina, photos, Sicily, skyride, Taormina, train, travel, vacation | Leave a comment

Naval Undersea Museum

Posted on September 8, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Naval Undersea Museum

The Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, WA on the Kitsap Peninsula has quite a lot to see. You can’t beat the admission price – it’s free! The hours are a bit short, open just 10am to 4pm daily May to September and closed on Tuesday the rest of the year. Large exhibits sit outside the building around the parking lot. Even the museum building itself has an exhibit attached – the end bell from Sealab, an underwater habitat used for research on saturation diving in the 1960’s.

submarine sail from the USS Sturgeon

Other outside exhibits include the sail of submarine USS Sturgeon and Mystic which was one of two rescue vessels for submarine crews. Mystic or her sister ship Avalon could be transported by plane, truck, or ship for a rescue anywhere in the world. A crew of 3 could rescue 24 submariners at a time. Though they were on duty for about 30 years, neither was ever needed to perform an actual rescue.

Trieste II bathyscaphe – mostly it’s a tank of lighter-than-water gas for buoyancy and ballast for sinking. The 2-man crew sits in the little ball hanging from the tank.

Triest II towers over Deep Quest on one side of the parking lot. Deep Quest launched in 1967 and remained in service until 1980. During that time it performed research for commercial activities as well as for the US Navy. It was equipped for and performed salvage operations as well as seafloor surveys and mapping, photography, and other deap sea research. Deep Quest holds the depth record for US built submersibles from a dive of 8,310 feet in 1968.

Deep Quest

The original Triest set a record as the first manned vessel to reach the deepest part of the ocean in a part of the Marianas Trench called Challenger Deep. Triest II which sits outside the museum was operated by the Navy from 1964 to 1980. Her contributions included salvage operations on the submarine Thresher, whose loss in 1964 caused the navy to initiate submarine safety and rescue programs.

missiles

Inside the museum there are different sections each with a different theme for their displays. From the lobby you can enter into different exhibits. A man working there suggested starting with undersea history, which depicts man’s initiative and inventions through the ages for better and better ways of getting under the sea, deeper, and for longer periods of time from early diving methods to early submarines.

That chamber led into the temporary gallery, which told all about the loss of the submarine Thresher at a time when there was no ability to rescue a submarine crew, and how that loss led to the development of submarine safety, rescue programs and equipment. One other sub was lost before refurbishment to the new standards, but no others have been lost since the new regulations went into effect.

submarine control room

One area has exhibits about the ocean itself and the things that live within it. Other areas have things like torpedoes or diving equipment from helmets to ROV’s. The submarine room even has the interior of a control room from a submarine.

Mystic deep see rescue vehicle

Keyport is about 11 miles from Bremerton, which is just a ferry ride away from Seattle.

Posted in Randoms, USA, Washington | Tagged dive, missiles, museum, navy, photos, submarines, things to do near Seattle, undersea | Leave a comment

Hits and Misses on Ruby Princess

Posted on September 4, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Ruby Princess in Skagway

What’s not to like about a cruise ship? On some ships not much, but there’s usually something. Of course the likes and dislikes of any particular ship vary from one person to another. I found a lot to like and not much to dislike on the Ruby Princess.

HITS

Food was definitely a hit on the Ruby Princess. We didn’t try any of their specialty restaurants, but we did enjoy the dining room and buffet. Cruising with my two gluten free sisters can make dining a challenge, but the dining room crew did a great job of serving them tasty and gluten free meals. They were quite happy to discover a different gluten free dessert each night at the late night buffet and ended up having a second dessert every night since finding those on the buffet was a rare treat for them. It was the first cruise for one sister, but the other has cruised a couple other lines and said Princess did the best job of catering to special diets of the three lines she’s cruised on. For passengers not on special diets they had chocolate journeys, with a different fancy chocolate dessert offered nightly in the dining room.

There were both regular and gluten free versions of the Baked Alaska

While we didn’t actually use the self-serve guest laundry since we were just on a one-week cruise, I always count it as a plus when a ship has one, and have used them often on longer cruises. I even used one once on a 4-day cruise because we had just gotten off a longer cruise on a ship without one.

self-serve laundry on Ruby Princess

Although I’m allergic to tobacco smoke and would never set foot inside it, I thought the cigar lounge was a great idea and something every cruise ship should have. Sitting unobtrusively in one corner of the casino, this fully-enclosed lounge gave people a place where they could smoke comfortably without spreading smoke throughout any of the rest of the ship. The smoke odor was present when walking past it, but not the smoke itself. It’s win-win for everyone – a nice place for smokers to go and no smoke for anyone else to have to breathe or walk through.

puppies in the piazza

Entertainment was good and plentiful on the Ruby Princess. Besides shows, music, and movies, they also had different things going on in their central piazza area. Whether it was horse (or moose) racing done with wooden horses and dice, a country band made up of volunteer (sort of) passengers with jars and things, a champagne tower, or in Skagway real live husky puppies, there was often something interesting happening there.

bow of the Ruby Princess

The ship had a different outdoor promenade than I’ve seen before with the bow area up one level from the rest and covered over the top with an open viewing area around the edges. This area came in very handy on glacier cruising day. Though a fairly cold place to stand, we had an excellent view and no crowd.

color coded carpets make it easier to find your stateroom

carpets in hallways by passenger cabins had different colors for each side of the ship

Navigating around a ship can sometimes be difficult, especially for first time cruisers. The Ruby Princess went a step beyond having different artwork or carpets on the different staircases. It actually had different coloring in the carpet boarders on the port and starboard sides in the hallways through the cabin areas. For anyone who noticed (or was told about it) this made it obvious at a glance if you somehow ended up on the wrong side.

MISSES

That great upper level of the promenade at the bow was closed in the early mornings, which meant walking or jogging the full distance around the outside of the ship for morning exercise was a no-go. Whether because ship’s gyms don’t open all that early, or because the promenade deck is just nicer and far more scenic, there’s always quite a few people out there first thing in the morning on ships with a promenade deck circling completely around.

passengers have to pay extra to use the sanctuary area

Had we been cruising to a warmer place rather than Alaska where we weren’t spending much time sitting on an outside deck, we would have been a bit disappointed that the nicest lounging area (called the Sanctuary) cost extra. That extra cost meant we never would have used that area no matter how nice the weather or how comfortable the deck chairs. On this cruise even anybody who bought the full-cruise sanctuary package still had to pay a separate fee to sit out there on glacier cruising day.

This was my first cruise with Princess, but I really liked them so it won’t be my last.

Posted in Princess, Ruby Princess | Tagged bad things, cruise ship, good things, photos, Ruby Princess | 2 Comments

Weather or Not

Posted on September 1, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Ships at Galveston in better times – photo from Port of Galveston

Weather can make or break any cruise, but in extreme instances like hurricanes it can extend or cancel them. Ships cruise year round and people book during hurricane season on a regular basis. Most are unaffected since most of the time there is not a hurricane happening. But sometimes there is. Usually it just means a missed port, change of itinerary, or a stretch of rough sea. Occasionally though the results are far more drastic.

Hurrican Harvey – NASA photo

While prices for the exact same cruise vary depending on how long until sailing and how full the ship is regardless of time of year and itinerary, generally cruises in hurricane prone areas are cheaper during hurricane season, and cruises to anywhere cost more whenever kids are out of school. As anyone on or booked to go on a cruise out of Galveston this past week knows now, when you book during hurricane season there are risks that go along with that booking.

people working together to rescue others in the Houston flooding – internet photo

The ship’s captain and the cruiselines will do everything in their power to keep passengers on the ship – or those scheduled to board – safe. Usually it just means keeping the ship out of the path of the storm, but if that means extending the cruise until the ship can safely return to port, or canceling the cruise entirely for those not yet on board then that is what they will do.

stormy seas in Hurricane Harvey – internet photo

While the media reports these ships unable to return to port as people stranded on cruise ships, those passengers are receiving an extended cruise at no extra cost. Hurricane victims on land huddle in crowded shelters, but people on the ship have all the amenities a floating resort has to offer available to them. Nice meals, entertainment, their own cabin with real beds, and the cruise ship staff going out of their way to keep everyone happy. Something people on land passing the storm in makeshift shelters where the main concern is just to keep them alive and dry can only wish they had. Odds are most people evacuated from their homes would be more than happy to trade places with those “stranded” cruise ship passengers.

better here than there

Whether in the best of situations or the worst, a cruise is always what you make of it. Some will relax and enjoy the extra time on board while others fret and worry about jobs or places they were supposed to be, or if they are from a stricken area their home and family, friends, or pets there. Luckily in modern times communication is often instantaneous so likely they can find out whether or not they were spared from the worst of Harvey’s wrath. Knowing is better than wondering unless of course the news is very bad.

Galveston – I think (photo found on google search for Hurricane Harvey photos of Galveston)

Those who did not get on when the ship didn’t make it back to port are not going to be happy – but then again if they tried to board at a port where conditions are so bad it remains closed for days or set sail into a hurricane they wouldn’t be happy about that either. While cruise lines will refund a cancelled cruise and likely offer other compensation besides, airline tickets and hotel reservations may not be as easily reimbursed unless of course those flights were cancelled and hotels closed due to the storm as well. This is where trip insurance comes into play for those who purchased it. Besides taking care of any medical problems that may arise during your journey, trip insurance also covers money lost in vacations not taken if there is a valid reason for not going. When deciding not to buy insurance, that is a risk you are taking. For frequent travelers the amount spent on insurance for numerous trips could total more than a loss from one disaster so they may choose to skip the insurance and take the loss. More likely though people don’t want to spend the money for the insurance, then become very upset over any unreimbursed losses they incur.

people rescuing dogs from Hurricane Harvey’s floods – internet photo

Meanwhile of course people living in the path of the storm face losses far more devastating than anything relating to a vacation. Amongst all the bad news, it’s very heartwarming to see ordinary people out rescuing others that got stranded by rising floodwaters, especially when there are some people out rescuing dogs and other animals.

brown palm trees at Great Stirrup Cay just after Hurricane Sandy

So far I’ve been quite lucky in that while most of my cruises have been taken during hurricane season, none have actually come in the middle of one. We have had a bit of rough seas or bad weather tailing one, and seen devastated ports where one recently passed, but never got caught up in the midst of one. Once we were on a ship while one was out there, but passing far enough away not to need to alter course.

a highway in Texas – internet photo

My son who lives near Houston lucked out too. His house stayed dry throughout all Harvey’s flooding, though some of his neighbors weren’t so fortunate. Hurricanes have come more often and with more severity in recent years than in the past. There’s another one called Irma brewing out in the Atlantic Ocean already. This problem is not likely to go away any time soon. Severe weather of all kinds is a side effect of global warming. People can call it climate change, deny it altogether, or point to a severe snowstorm as proof global warming doesn’t exist all they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that the average temperature of the planet is on the rise. One constant we’ve heard frequently in many places where we’ve traveled around the world over the past few years is that the weather is not normal for that place at that time of year.

With hurricanes Jose and Katia on the tail of Irma while multiple wildfires burned across the western USA and places in Europe sweltered under intense heat, various media sources mentioned both hurricane and fire seasons having increased by 78 days since the 1970’s. Surprising more attention wasn’t brought to this over the decades as these crept up, or how much farther it will go before making headline news.

Posted in Randoms, Uncategorized, USA | Tagged bad weather on cruises, cruising in hurricane season, how weather affects cruises, hurricanes and cruise ships, travel insurance | Leave a comment

Disney World – Epcot

Posted on August 25, 2017 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Epcot’s big ball – inside is the Spaceship Earth ride (Disney photo)

Epcot was our favorite of the four Disney World Parks (which also include the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.) Sheri scored a great deal when she got our tickets, getting 4-day tickets with an extra 3 days free so we had 7 days total to go to the parks. Besides the fact that most of the runDisney races ended at Epcot, we just really enjoyed that park and returned there the most times.

visiting Epcot with the family

Magic Kingdom is of course the most famous, and the one people are most likely to think of when picturing Disney World in their minds. Magic Kingdom was also the most crowded of the four. Between height requirements for the kids and inability to get fast passes even several days in advance for the most popular rides we didn’t see a lot on the one day that we went there.

the Imagination Ride with Figment is inside this building (internet photo)

People who aren’t with small children can get through some lines faster by taking the single rider line option, which puts individual people into the leftover seats after loading up families from the regular line. If you are with anyone else in the single rider line you may not get on the ride at the same time and aren’t at all likely to sit together, but it can save time if people just want to meet up at the end. It’s not an option if you are with children too young to leave on their own before, after, or during the ride.

Norway in the World Showcase area has the Frozen Ever After ride and a place to meet Elsa and Anna

Epcot center has two main sections. Most of the rides are at Future World, which is divided into east and west sides to make things easier to find. The World Showcase area has representations of 11 different nations. Some mainly just have restaurants, but some have rides and other displays. You can get a map at the entrance, and the Disney app is a great help with features like directing you from where you are to where you want to go, and showing wait times for all the rides and other attractions. We often chose where to go next by whatever the app said had the shortest wait time. You can also use the app to reserve fast pass times for the rides you want to go on. There is a limit of 3 booked, but if anything is available after you use one you can book another.

the Spaceship Earth ride keeps people entertained making a cartoon future on the way back down

The big ball symbolic of Epcot sits at the entrance between Future World East and West. It houses Spaceship Earth, a slow and scenic ride which had a very long line the first day we went so we were glad of a fast pass there. My 5 and 7 year old grandkids loved that ride, especially the part at the end where you make your own future on your private computer screen and then see a little video of how your future turned out depending on your answers to their questions.

squirrels lived all over the area near Disney

Squirrel at Epcot

The kids were just as entertained by the squirrels we saw throughout the park as they were by anything else there. They like nature and they’re from Australia and hadn’t seen squirrels before.

at the beginning of the kid’s favorite Imagination Ride

The kids very favorite ride in all of Disney World, called Journey Into Imagination with Figment, was at Epcot. Our first day there was the only time we ever saw a line at that ride, and also the only time we had a fast pass for it. We rode it several more times on other days when there was no line. The kids really liked the ride with Figment – as in Figment of Imagination. The ride featured a little purple dragon and a lot of imagination.

Figment makes a big stink – and the ride did too

The kids particularly liked the bit where Figment put on a skunk suit and emitted quite a stink. Their mom missed our first day, staying back at the hotel suffering from food poisoning. The kids did not tell her about the stinky bit before her first time on the ride, gleefully smirking to themselves waiting for the giant stink to happen.

near the entrance to the Nemo ride

Our last fass pass the first day was on the Nemo ride. We found a few things with short wait times including meeting Elsa and Anna in the Norway area, a fiesta ride in the Mexico area, and the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival theater which had 3-D shows and seat effects to enhance the action on the screen.

In the Norway area of the World Showcase we met Anna (and Elsa too)

On later visits to Epcot when we had more advance time to get them, we got fast passes for some of the more popular rides like Soarin and the Test Track, both favorites that we managed to get on again another day when we got there early enough to get on before they built up a line. Soarin was one of Disney World’s best. It’s mostly visual, but the seats do rise so your feet dangle in the air and it feels like you are flying over the scenery on the screen in a pretty good imitation of a hang glider.

Test Track ride

The test track is one of the most fun rides there. You design a car in a computer screen and then during the ride it gives comparisons as to how your design performed in relation to the other people in your car. The self-driven car goes through some indoor tests where it scores how your design would react to various things and then goes outside where it speeds down the track at about 70mph. At one point it even drives on the wall. It may close for a time if the weather is bad or if the ride had other problems. We were in line for it with the kids while waiting for Sheri and Aaron to reach Epcot on marathon day when the ride shut down for awhile. Having just enough time to get through, and not knowing how long it would stay closed we had to leave the line to make sure we didn’t miss them running by.

on Soarin your feet dangle over fast-moving scenery (internet photo)

A lot of the rides at Disney World are the slow and scenic sort, but they do have some faster rides. The wilder rides have minimum height limits so make sure the kids are tall enough before going on those. The ones with consistently long wait times during our visit were Soarin, Frozen Ever After, and the Test Track so those are the ones to either try and get fast passes for or get to first before the lines build up if you get to the park early. One stormy day we got there before the official opening time they were letting people in early. We got through Spaceship Earth before the park officially opened and got to Frozen Ever After and Soarin before they had any lines. We did more rides on that one day than on several other days combined because the wind, rain, and lightning that cancelled the half-marathon scheduled for that day also kept the crowds away.

meeting Joy and Sadness from Inside Out

The wait times posted at the rides and on the Disney App are very helpful in deciding where to go and which things to do. Most of the character meets (ie photo ops) have posted times, but Joy and Sadness from Inside Out did not. Lines at Disney are often deceptive because either you can’t see the whole thing or it just doesn’t move as expected. The one for Joy and Sadness looked relatively short, but took 42 minutes to get through, the only long line of our rainy day. At least it was an indoor line, which quite a lot of them are.

Mission Space Ride (internet photo)

Little Hanna loved the Mission Space ride – a simulator of a mission into space. It had easy and queasy options, though they called the queasy one intense. The ride simulated zero G among other things. It had motion sickness warnings, but it is hard to tell by those warnings since a lot of the rides have motion sickness warnings and most of them don’t actually need them. The difference on this one was the barf bags strategically placed at every station once you enter the actual ride. I wished we’d picked the easy option upon seeing those since I do sometimes have motion sickness issues. I managed not to get sick, but was extremely glad when it ended because the ride did leave me pretty nauseous. Luckily there’s a waiting area with a playground at the end where Daniel and Sheri went since he’s too small for the ride so I had somewhere to sit and recover. Another day John and Sheri went on Mission Space with Hannah while I happily volunteered to wait at the playground with Daniel. Hannah was disappointed with the easy option they’d chosen, but John and Sheri both said it was plenty intense for them – and they don’t have motion sickness issues. Hannah enjoyed Mission Space, but none of the rest of us would recommend it.

Epcot ball and monorail (internet photo)

If you’re thinking about planning a trip to Disney World, it’s a good idea to wait to go until after your smallest kid is at least 40 inches tall or the amount of rides you can go on is really limited. 44 inches gets you on most rides, and 48 was the biggest minimum height we saw anywhere at Disney World.

Posted in Port City Side Trips, Randoms, USA | Tagged Epcot, Epcot Center, Florida, how to bypass the line, imagination, photos, rides, Walt Disney World | 1 Comment

Cruise Stories

Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Paihai and Russell

Things to do in the Bay of Islands

Cruising to Bay of Islands – Things to Do On Your Own

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Disney – Hollywood Studios

More Blogs About Disney World

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Holland America Oosterdam

Holland America Dining Room Dress Code

Food on P&O Arcadia

Free Food

Meridian Dining Room

Buffet – The Belvedere

Premium Dining

Caffe Vivo – Coffee Shop

Bars

Black Tie

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Italy – Messina and Taormina

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Naval Undersea Museum

Hits and Misses on Ruby Princess

HITS

MISSES

Weather or Not

Disney World – Epcot

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Recent Posts

Categories

Google Translate

Archives

Blog Stats

You can Like My Cruise Stories on Facebook from right here!

Email Subscription

click tiny square logo for RSS subscription

Happy Cruising!

Paihai and Russell

Things to do in the Bay of Islands

Cruising to Bay of Islands – Things to Do On Your Own

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Lemon Cookies

Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Lemon Frosting

Ingredients

Directions

More Blogs About Disney World

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Holland America Dining Room Dress Code

Free Food

Meridian Dining Room

Buffet – The Belvedere

Premium Dining

Caffe Vivo – Coffee Shop

Bars

Black Tie

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

HITS

MISSES

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2017

Recent Posts

Categories

Google Translate

Archives

Blog Stats

Email Subscription