I pose for the commercial photographer aboard
the Norwegian Dream, as I leave the
ship in
Oranjestad, Aruba. It must have been
windy there.
30 January 2000 -- The fight to get free
The "air add-on" bought by NCL on Delta airlines connected in Atlanta both ways and left at 8:45 AM Sunday morning. This was bother enough, since I don't usually book flights from Washington Dulles International until after 11:00 AM. Well, I had no choice. As I parked my truck and unloaded my carry-on and checked bags, I noted that the weather was threatening to mess up the air traffic system with snow. I was running a bit late and actually employed a porter to haul my luggage to the Delta counter at 8:15 AM. I must be getting old, despite my mother and grandmother calling me a mere "kid". It turns out it was all a waste, the hustle, since our flight was delayed 90 minutes until the flight crew could arrive from another plane that was delayed in its arrival at Washington National. I began contemplating the use of my trip cancellation insurance, bought for $89.00. We were running so late into Atlanta that I doubted I'd even make the ship in San Juan, since I presumed the connecting flight would be long gone. We arrived in Atlanta at 12:45 PM, and I saw that I could just barely make the second plane, since it, too, had been delayed. I commenced a fast-walking hustle, needing to ride from Concourse B to Concourse A on the underground train, then march all the way to gate A1 at the end. The time to San Juan was about 3-1/2 hours, making the overall trip similar in length to the one I'm used to when visiting Las Vegas. I did not think the Caribbean was so far away. I made my way to the San Juan baggage claim, where an NCL person was waiting to load me onto the shuttle bus, but did not see my larger checked bag on the carousel. I inquired with the Delta agent, who poked her head into the baggage room, uttering an imperative including "cuatro-seis-cuatro!", in the event that the baggage crew was slow in unloading some of the containers from DL 464. I waited about 45 minutes there, and after I was told there were no more bags, I filed my claim with the airline and took my carry-on to the shuttle bus. This will reinforce my effectiveness in knowing which things I need most and should be in the bag that will fit under the seat in front of me.
We drove across town in San Juan, where I gazed upon all the apartments and stores, with hotels out on the beachfront in the distance. The feeling was something like Phoenix, AZ, only with all the signs in Spanish. We reached the dock area at about 7:00 PM, after dark, and I could see 5 or 6 other ships at their moorings. I could recognize the Norwegian Dream at some distance, from the pictures in the brochure. I completed my registration forms inside the cruise terminal building, where I was issued my all-important boarding pass and sent through the door to the pier. I had expected to board the ship on Promenade Deck 7, since that was where the deck plans showed the "main entrance", but it seems the real gangways are on the lowest passenger deck, #4. Still sweating from wearing all my heavy clothes from the snowstorm I escaped, I found my way up one flight of stairs to the corridor leading to my "oceanview" stateroom, #5004. This did not have the "picture window" shown in the brochure, but the two portholes were all right, given how little I had spent for a room all my own. These portholes looked out through two long cylinders of steel plating that turned out to be a function of the geometry of the vessel; other portholes aft of mine on the port side were flush with the exterior. The room, though decidedly smaller than a hotel room was plenty big for one man, with sleeping space for 3 when the sitting area sofabed is in use. The bathroom had that compressed feeling one finds on an airplane or inside an RV. The fittings there, including a corner shower that reminded me of a German Duscholux, and the shape of all the door handles (not door knobs) were decidedly "European" in character. This extended to the schrank-style wall cabinet closets near the door.
After I was suitably settled into my room, I went aft to the 9th Deck, to find out about dinner. I was at the main (early) seating of the Terraces dining room, but it was "open seating" since we were still in port. The food was quite good, with the bread they brought out in baskets being my favorite. I then wandered about some of the rest of the ship, going up top to where the Superbowl was playing on an open-air projection screen, then outside to look at the harbor. I finally obtained a supply of my two favorite beverages, Diet Coke and O'Doul's, from one of the bars (sorry, no soda machines this trip), and attempted to put myself to sleep, since the departure was delayed (like everything else) from 10:00 PM to 12:00 midnight. The Dream did not finally end up leaving until 1:00 AM. Curiosity would not let me sleep, so I was out there on the bow section of 8th Deck, looking off into the darkness of San Juan harbor as we entered the green and red lights marking the channel to the open sea.
31 January 2000 -- Under way
Looking across the queen-sized bed to the "sitting area" in stateroom
#5004.
I woke at 7:30 AM, to see a brilliant sun upon the sea from my portholes, telling me we were headed in a southerly direction. I heard the Captain's briefing on the ship's PA shortly thereafter, indicating we had a course of 220, or towards the southwest. We had left the channel between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and there was no land in sight. After we had entered the open sea, I became aware of the motion it imparted to the ship, which was more than I had expected. It did not make me any worse off than swaying from side to side as I walked down the narrow corridors, though I saw others wearing those transdermal seasickness patches. I got breakfast at the dining hall in time to be ready for the mandatory life jackets drill at 10:00 AM. When the announcement came, I donned my heavy field coat, as per instructions, and took my jacket with me to Musterstation D1, forward port 7 Deck on the jogging track that ran all the way around the ship. My legs began to grow tired and my feet gave me an especially hard time as I had to stand at attention for 30 minutes, listening to the roll being called. I had chance to see our designated lifeboat, #4, an impressive vessel in its own right, with apparent means for propulsion and maneuvering. With 1750 passengers and 614 crew (2364 "souls", in the parlance of Titanic), one would expect something to that effect.
After I was finally dismissed from the exercise, I went to the 10th Deck casino to play some slots and blackjack. This was a rather intimate casino, compared to what I've seen in Las Vegas, and it was most unusual that it closed at night and when the ship was in port. I thought the whole idea of casinos was 24 x 7 operation. When I later arrived at the Terraces at 1:00 PM to see if I could eat lunch, I was informed that I had missed my main seating time of 12:00 noon. I began to learn that this trip would be a study in schedule discipline, since one could not do anything at any time. I went to one of the informal eating options, the pizzeria buffet up on 11th deck, at poolside. This was after I saw the size of the line waiting to eat at the Sports Bar on 12 Deck. The pizza, like the formal chow, was quite good. Up top, the hired Caribbean band was playing, with the steel drums being replaced by a versatile synthesizer arrangement.
At about 3:00 PM that afternoon, as I wondered what I was going to do on the 4 islands where we'd be calling, I booked a set of 5 tours from the shore excursion desk, thinking (rightly) that I'd kick myself if I landed on one of those islands and completely avoided it by staying on the ship. Since my luggage had been lost, and with it the "better" clothing I had brought along, I was unable to take part in the "Formal" dinner that night, though if it were fully known, I didn't care much for the idea of forced dress codes that could vary from casual to country/western to formal. It was at this point that I began to equate the constraints and rules of the cruise with the stringencies of being a hospital patient, though we must admit that both procedures are supposed to be good in the long term for the patient. In this case, I certainly have worthwhile memories of shipboard life.
1 February 2000 -- A day in Aruba
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This morning I woke frightfully early for some reason and decided to step out on deck and see what the ship was like at 4:30 in the morning. The crew was roping off areas and washing them down, part of the ongoing process of maintenance against the sea and its corrosiveness. Marine hardware struck me as particularly hardy against the weather and the salt, with lots of brass, heavy varnish and paint. Later, around 5:30 AM, I could see the lights of Aruba from my port-side window, prompting me to get a shower and go up to my place for watching on 8 Deck. I saw the crew apply moorings to the vast vessel, which took the form of 7 or 8 5-inch hemp ropes. I worked my way rapidly through a dining hall breakfast, then showed up at 8:30 AM for the first of my tours. I was concerned at first, since my sunscreen was in my lost luggage, that I would burn to a crisp at 13 degrees north latitude, so I asked the health clinic on 6 Deck what I should do. They said sunscreen was readily available in "the economy" of Aruba, which was indeed the case at the cruise terminal gift shop. I had myself duly slathered just in time to meet the tour bus. We headed down the shore to the west, past a number of beaches, resorts and time share properties with the ever-present divi-divi trees pointing away from the trade winds, until we reached the dock of a pontoon boat that took us to a semi-submersible offshore. This part of the tour had an uncanny resemblance to the now-defunct 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Walt Disney World, only the fish were live, as we drove about over a shipwreck dating to May 1940. It seems the German captain of the Antilla, making the mistake of trying to reach a Dutch port, was ordered to surrender, only he was not going to give the Allies his brand new ship. Thus, it sits scuttled in about 60 feet of water, covered with coral. |
The tour then went inland to cross to the north side of the island, over some rough, dry country that again reminded me of Arizona. Apparently, wandering domesticated animals such as goats (which I saw on more islands than just this one) necessitated the building of walls and the planting of effective shrub-rows, and the organpipe cactus was perfectly suited to the job. I had a strange feeling that this was an island like Rapa Nui (Easter Is.), as it was portrayed in the PBS Nova two-part program a few years back--a place of limited resources and open country. I even saw some frigate birds there, like the ones that cross the vast southeastern Pacific. Once we were out of the city and tourist districts, the roads turned to rough dirt, and I was amazed that our driver would take a perfectly good motorcoach over such terrain, more suited to mules and 4-wheelers. Our tourguide was very proud of her Aruban citizenship, and spoke in glorious terms of the day that dependency upon Dutch aid would end. Being an American, I can understand such a yearning for sovereignty.
By the time we reached the Natural Bridge on the north shore of the island, I needed to buy more film at the souvenir shop there, since I had packed my extra Kodak Royal Gold 400 in my lost bag. Out on the open rocky area of the Bridge, which the guide assured us would cause dangerous coral-injury if we fell on it, I was taken by the number of piles or cairns of rocks I saw everywhere. It seems there is a superstition, borrowed from Hawaii, that the person placing the last rock on a pile will come back. Well, I had to put one there, I suppose just to see. I rested up a bit on the ship after the tour got back at 12:30, then took a taxi to the nearby Seaport Casino, since my feet were so tired. After playing a few slots there, I went to the blackjack tables down the street at the Crystal Casino, which was my favorite of the on-shore casinos I saw on this trip. It was interesting playing with the local citizens, who spoke the Papiamento dialect. It sounded more like Spanish than anything else, perhaps a result of being so close to Venezuela. These were higher-rolling players than I saw among the casual players on the Dream.
The view from on high, north of Oranjestad. The Norwegian
Dream can be seen in the far distance
When I was back at the ship that night after dinner, I was glad to see that the proper persons had coordinated the forwarding of my lost suitcase to outside the door of #5004. It still amazed me that they could do something like that. It seems the airlines have reciprocal agreements. With the second bag on the floor of the sitting area (nowhere else was big enough to hold an open suitcase), it got rather crowded in there. Noel M., the cabin steward, later made room by pushing the larger bag under the bed. No space was wasted in that room. Departure from Aruba was at 1:00 AM, the only port of call where we didn't leave right before dinner time. Most times, the day was 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, just like a work day. I was dead asleep when we finally shoved off.
2 February 2000 -- Next stop: Curaçao
I woke in time on my own this morning, at 7:00 AM, so that I could be on 9 Deck in time for breakfast. Tour time today was 8:30 AM, immediately after docking. I witnessed our close-in maneuvers in the Willemstad harbor pretty much from my 2 recessed portholes. It was difficult to tell how we were approaching the cruise terminal from this vantage point--I saw us pass twice under what looked like the same high bridge span. We must have gone into the inner harbor, then turned around to assume a starboard-side docking.
I was glad that I had regained some of the use of my feet after how much they were hurting from all the walking the day before. I assumed, and was correct, that there was much walking on today's bus tour as well. The first stop was at the Curaçao Museum, which had a fair assortment of artifacts, mostly dating to the 19th century. They had in place a 40-bell carillon from the Netherlands that supposedly no one on the island can play to its full potential--a Dutch musician comes occasionally to do the honors. After our guide played a melody line from "When the Saints Go Marching In", she invited "anyone who can play the piano" to step up and have a try. This was unusual. I had heard the carillon on the waterfront of Oranjestad and assumed that only qualified personnel could touch such delicate things. I used both hands on the wooden handles, arranged like a keyboard, to do a blues scale improvisation (I, IIIb, IV, IV#, V, VIIb). The local population must be used to such eclectic offerings from the tourists that go by. Next, we drove to the other side of the island and paid a visit to the Hato Caves. This was reminiscent of the time we toured Luray Caverns when I was 7 years old, only the entrance was above ground level, atop a stairway. I needed to exercise caution, lest I bump my head on the rock ceiling, and also note the loose sand on some of the downhill floors. One chamber was particularly impressive in that it had a "skylight", open to the outside, at its ceiling. This brought to mind the pictures I've seen of the Pantheon in Rome. The guide said we could take photos in just the room immediately below, since this was "a commercial cave". I nearly snapped a forbidden one, it turns out, in the room immediately adjoining. It was too dark for existing light, anyway.
On our way back to the ship, we visited the distillery where the one and only Curaçao liqueur is made, using the rinds of the otherwise-useless bitter oranges that were the result of early attempts to grow citrus on the island. I took a tiny sip at the tasting station and was reminded of why I don't drink. I bought their "rubbing alcohol", a rather volatile-smelling astringent called "Alcolado Glacial". After the tour, I played European rules blackjack with more Papiamento-speakers at two of the small casinos near the dock, making sure I left by 4:00 PM to make the 5:00 PM departure deadline. I picked up more gaming pieces to add to my collection of "funny money". One of them was a 5-Netherland Antilles Florin chip, though a de facto currency of all of those islands tended to be US dollars.
The Dream, enclosed within the floating pontoon bridge at
Willemstad, Curaçao
When we started off, I was up at the very top, 13 Deck, which consists of basketball and shuffleboard courts surrounding the radomes and antennas used below in the bridge on 11 Deck. After we had cleared the swinging pontoon bridge that led to the main center of town, I walked casually down the outside stairways to dinner, my first one at Table #74, which I had picked from the few that were left on the maitre'd's list when I signed up. I shared with two couples from MN and a disarmingly adorable 3- or 4-year-old named D'Angelo, who came to join us on occasion in our empty 6th seat since his parents were sitting at the next table. After a couple hours at the reopened casino, in which I was content to break even, I felt sleep overtaking me. I walked to the shops up on 10 Deck to get myself a Norwegian Dream polo shirt. When I finally retired to the coziness of my cabin, I enjoyed again the gentle, rocking motion of the ship, which had passed around the eastern end of Curaçao and was under way at a new course of 036, according to the Captain's briefing the next day. I caught the end of "Wild, Wild West" on the free in-stateroom movie channel, a western spoof that didn't seem as funny in the preview at the theatre. I loved Will Smith complaining in the steam-powered tarantula, "I thought I heard someone promising me a whoopin'".
3 February 2000 -- Northbound at sea
| The schedule overnight and into this morning was more relaxed than
if I had to make a tour bus on time, though I had somehow pressed the alarm
button on my Braun travel clock and woke at 6:00 AM. I had more of
that readily-available chow at the Terraces, then went to the games room
and lounge on starboard 9 Deck, where I played a solitaire card of Yahtzee.
The ship had an ample supply of the more common board and card games in
a rack, along with some days-old newspapers. This, along with CNN
in the stateroom, was about all the news I could get. After some
time in the casino trying my luck at quarter slots when they opened, I
went up top to check out the barbecue buffet at poolside on 11 Deck.
This was because I was too late for early-seating lunch at 12:55 PM.
Like most of the buffets that were worth anything on this ship, there was
a very long line for service. When I got close enough to see it was
nothing but spareribs and chicken (where were the burgers and dogs?), I
opted out of any further wait and went for another trayful from the pizzeria.
I sat consuming this modest meal at a table like the ones at airport snack
bars, only with a view of the ocean passing by from 8 stories up.
After lunch, I spent some time on my bunk in the stateroom, taking a siesta, finding it good to be able to crash out whenever I wanted. This was a popular mid-day habit on Aruba and Curaçao, where the kids are let out early from school for the purpose. Seeing what the sun was like there, I knew why. I was not one for barbecueing myself on a deck chair up there on top. I learned my lesson about that when I went to the Gulf Coast of Florida in February 1997. When I got up from my nap, I spent awhile snapping photos on the upper decks, trying to capture the ship against the Caribbean. The water had a shade of blue I thought to resemble a sheet of lapis lazuli gemstone. |
 |
Later in the afternoon, I donned the "formal" clothing that finally caught up with me in Aruba, so that I might participate in the Formal dinner. I was disappointed, being a most picky eater, that none of the entrées looked worth ordering. At least they had a good assortment of "any time" items. I went back to the blackjack table after dinner, since I had been on something of a winning streak this trip (I refuse to admit that I have real skill yet in the game). A short time into my play, a casino manager informed me that my wearing of Patagonia Baggies shorts and a Universal Studios "Popeye" T-shirt did not conform to the Formal dress code that was in place that evening. Apparently, they meant all of the entertainment regions of the ship, not just dinner. I colored up my chips in a huff and went to stew in my stateroom. There, I realized that I would be out of a lot of fun if I didn't go back, so I put on Dockers trousers and my Norwegian Dream polo shirt, for a return to the game. Just as they teach in church, forgiveness is a wonderful thing.
As I settled in for the night at 10:00 PM, I was glad that I was well-practiced at the routine for meeting up with tourbuses, since that was my next assignment after the Dream made it back north to the latitude of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. I realized at this point that the whole extravaganza was in the process of winding down, and that I would most likely think back to it fondly when I returned to the land of snow (or whatever was there) in Northern Virginia. My ordinary life was beginning to seem like a very strange matter, given the isolation of the ship, but I reminded myself that there were many comfort-rituals I could resume when I got home. Realizing that "there's no place like home", I was somewhat worried about whether I would find things in order when I returned on Sunday night. With a charge of $7.00 a minute or thereabouts for using ship-to-shore telecommunications, I was unable to call my answering machine and see what was going on. I figure the people that run cruise ships have long ago determined that people need to be unplugged as much as possible from their everyday concerns.
4 February 2000 -- The contrasts of Tortola
After the alarm properly woke me at 6:00 AM this morning, I went to
the top decks after a rapid shower to take photos of Tortola and the ship
together as we made our way to the cruise dock. We "backed in" to
our mooring this time, with an exit again to starboard. I made it
a point to get a shipboard breakfast prior to the morning's tour, but I
rushed a little more than I had to. I had to hang around at the Reception
area of 7 Deck until it was time to go ashore. We ended up waiting
for some time under a tent, where I began to see the typical mode of tour
transportation in the Virgin Islands. Most of the vehicles were made
from Ford F-350 Super Duty chassis, fitted with several rows of open-air
bench seats. Shortly after we got under way, I could see why a robust
vehicle was needed, since the local roads were incredibly steep and winding,
though better paved than the ones in the backcountry of Aruba. I
had to accustom myself to the feeling of traffic on the left side of the
road, as well as the slightly-unsettling feeling of going around hairpin
turns at what had to be at least a 20% grade.
 |
After we visited a mountain-top tourist center called Skyworld, where the relentless winds made me cinch up the chin-strap on my boonie hat, we headed back down to sea level, to make our main stop at Cane Garden Bay. It was intended here that I swim or go snorkeling, but I had already decided against such activities on this trip. I walked past the beach house restaurant to the sand of the beach, wondering what I was going to do from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Then, I saw a hammock between two palm trees and had my answer. I carefully launched myself into its suspension, making sure to keep my camera from getting anywhere near the sand. I remember the time it was nearly ruined by sand on my 1996 trip to Southern California. It did not seem that I had gone fully to sleep; I remember listening to the gentle arrival of the surf for some time. Since it became 11:30 before I knew it, however, I probably did nod completely off, and a woman sitting nearby verified that I had sawed "a few cords of wood". Oh well. |
I returned to my stateroom after the tour, with the intention of getting still more sleep. Having been rested in the hammock, however, I decided that I would avail myself of the massage services offered at the spa on 12 Deck. I got a 50-minute "de-stress" treatment (feet, back of legs, back, shoulders, and face). The female practitioner was an apparent follower of some of those New Age concepts that my skeptical mind will not entertain; she played one of those recordings by a group named Enigma. This, of course, reminded me of the Nazi code machine of WWII. I was being pitched a good bit of hype from the camps of aromatherapy and acupuncture/qi-gong, but the overall effect was good enough to make me sign up for a foot massage, purportedly to involve the fringe technique of reflexology, the next day.
When we finally started back under way that evening, to make the short hop to St. Thomas, I got to the dining hall as soon as it opened, at 6:00 PM. Departing at this time often meant that we had the sunset in view outside the windows of the Terraces, and NCL made sure there were staff on hand to lower the shades until night had finally come. I figure the ship must have been barely moving that night, since it is such a short trip from the British Virgin Islands to the US Virgin Islands. I played some more blackjack after we were free of the B.V.I.'s jurisdiction and they could re-open, winning even more to place in the kitty. I might have been doing better than in Las Vegas because of how often my play was being broken up. I was always able to think out my plays according to "the book" of "correct" plays, at top capacity. But there's still no denying my luck. Nothing is that easy.
5 February 2000 -- Last full day--St. Thomas
After breakfast this morning, I had a substantial quantity of time to hang out on the pier in the shadow of the ship, taking photographs. Our St. Thomas tour was not to begin until 9:15 AM. I was able to find the tour director and cancel out of my 5th and final tour for that day, some manner of party cruise. I had learned that I could only enjoy one outing a day. Incredibly, they gave me a refund on my on-board account. As I rested my feet and looked about from the level of 4 Deck, noting the presence of the Dawn Princess to our stern, I saw a familiar ship's officer come along the edge of the pier, looking things over. Noting his insignia from when I had seen him on the bridge when we left Curaçao, I was correct in assuming he was the Captain. Since he had some sort of executive officer under him who was also called "Captain", I suppose the better word would be "Skipper". I shook his hand as he asked how I was enjoying the trip, then he went on towards the stern.
When we finally assembled and started out on the tour, I found the format to be largely that of the one on Tortola, right down to the F-350 bus conversion. They like to call such vehicles "taxi", implying that a person could hire one on an impromptu basis. This island was also incredibly steep in its roads, which surprisingly shared the left-side driving, though we were in a US Territory. One of our stops was at an overlook above Magen Bay, which hosted a substantial open-air souvenir market. We heard some sort of story about the Clintons staying at one of the beachfront villas down there. Apparently, Clinton is not so thoroughly reviled in the Virgin Islands as in the American Heartland. We then advanced to a high lookout called Mountaintop, where I chowed a couple of the local hot-dogs (no ill reaction to report, thank goodness), and bought a bagful of 50 mL bottles of St. Croix rum to hand out to select friends when I got back.
The next stop was the Estate St. Peter Greathouse, a botanical garden and tourist attraction. When I visited the souvenir shop there, I spotted a display of "Tropical Rainforest" houseplant seeds. I decided to try growing a potted Rainbow Shower (cassia grandis) to add to my collection of plants at the office. Keeping houseplants at home would be futile, since my cat Thomas would make short work of them. I asked if I would have problems at Agricultural Inspection with these seeds, to which I got the answer "no problem"; they had come from Oregon to begin with. On the way out of the gardens, I spotted something I had not seen for a long time: a US-format telephone. This was my chance, using calling card, to read off my answering machine. First I would see if it was there (a sign the house had not burned to the ground) and then I'd check messages. It turned out there were no messages, not even the kind where someone hangs up right away. I then tried to reach my parents' home in Michigan, but had to leave a message on their machine. All the time I did this, a speaker placed next to the phone was playing fairly loud steel drum music. I suppose it made the call sound like I was really there.
L-R at the pier in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas:
Norwegian Dream, Dawn Princess, Nordic Empress (Royal Caribbean)
After I returned to the ship and stowed my camera, I headed back out to the shopping area near the cruise terminal (what the folks had said is right; St. Thomas has abundant shopping). After looking around in a couple of the stores, I made my way towards a place I had spotted from the bus; an establishment called Soapy's Internet Station. This was too good to be true. I knew for sure that I was finally back to the US. I had to wait about 15 minutes to get on to one of the terminals, arranged around the outside of a 25-foot square roomful of users. There was little of concern on my e-mail or in the news available from Yahoo!, but I was still satisfied to know all was well. I got to toss a goodly quantity of SPAM from my e-mail account before it had a chance to be downloaded at home--I still believe in telnet and shell accounts for remote mail manipulation.
After yet another nap in my now-familiar stateroom quarters, I returned to the massage clinic to get my feet done. I had overslept by about 15 minutes, so I only got a "half session". I also decided to take them up on the various "bodycare" products recommended for my case, from the Elemis line. I don't know. I'm still skeptical. That evening, as we made course for San Juan and The End, I acted on the instructions that I pack both my bags and get them out in the corridor. This is something I like to do when I'm at a land-based resort, anyway, the night before what is typically an early morning flight. Before long, both bags were gone, again the work of the many staff that seemed to be on top of so many jobs. I am glad that I made sure to reserve the essential items for the next morning, which I would hand carry.
6 February 2000 -- All day, getting home
I was glad to have all of my packing done when I woke this morning, with the only annoyance being that I had to carry all the items I needed to have with me for taking a shower, etc. With the way I usually got seated during breakfast, it was easy enough to have a load like that. I would invariably get a table for 2 during open seating and have a spare seat for storage while I ate. I then settled my account with the on-board credit office, adding to the money I had to bring home from playing blackjack, and turned in my bundle of gratuity envelopes for the crew that had personally worked for me. Since my later-day departure from San Juan at 5:40 PM meant I was last to be called for leaving the ship, I had a fair piece of time to snooze as I had in the Cane Garden Bay hammock, only in a lounge sofa up on 10 Deck.
When they finally got to my color of luggage tag, the purple ones, I had to spend awhile in the terminal building, looking through a sea of suitcases for my two. With everything right along with me, I needed to file my "Welcome to the United States" customs declaration in order to leave for the ground transportation area. This seemed odd, in that I had actually entered the US in St. Thomas the day before. After some confusion, I finally found the luggage truck and Delta ticket agents, stationed under a tent. After I had checked my heavy bag, I took my carry-on with me, while wearing my heavy field jacket in the 80-degree weather, to inquire about taking a taxi to one of the hotel casinos in town. I needed to find something to do all day and preferred an air conditioned environment.
I ended up at the Wyndham El San Juan, where they would not let me use the bell service to store my bag and coat, since I was not a guest. I spent several hours there playing slots and blackjack, only to walk out having broken even at 4:15 PM, whereupon another taxi picked me up to ride to the airport. I then saw the picket line out by the entrance--it seems the regular staff at the El San Juan was on strike. I was being dealt hands by their managers. I got to the airport concourse in time to obtain a couple of those wonderful airport-grade franks (this kind of food, along with Chinese restaurant chow, was conspicuously absent from the Dream). I was most grateful that this flight left on time, though it was packed to capacity and I needed to live with my carry-on bag under the seat in front of me. I was in a seat along the right-side aisle of another B-767, and I was intimately aware of each time someone or thing needed to move past my row.
I did not have the same hike between gates in Atlanta this evening as I did the week before. Since there were no delays, I had time to write my five daily paragraphs of gratitude in my journal as I sat by the gate at 9:15 PM, waiting for that last flight. I did not make it to Dulles International until about midnight, and was not home until 1:30 AM. Needless to say, I was not going to be working the next day. This was my biggest complaint with NCL; that set of flights coming back so late. What, praytell, did they expect me to do all day long in San Juan? If I ever try this again (which seems more likely now than when I was actually on the cruise), I will buy just the cruise fare and find the plane tickets where I have a say as to the schedule. When I got to my house, everything was in its usual state of order, except a variety of precipitation had left an ice-covered snow crust over my still-unshoveled walk.
Though the schedule was rough, I must admit that it wasn't an entirely bad arrangement to have people telling me where to be and what to do for 8 days and 7 nights. If anything, it reminded me of being a kid, where I could blame misfortune upon the perceived shortsightedness of my superiors. I know they had my best interests in mind, and I have to agree with the cruise promoters that it was a very good travel value. Maybe I'll be doing Alaska some year, or a tour of the Windward Islands, an area of further diversity that was always to our east.